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Organisational Theory

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Organisational Theory
“Power, conflict and resistance key determinants of organisational life.” -Modern, symbolic-interpretive, post-modern and critical theory perspectives have different ways of understanding power, control and resistance in organisations. Choose two of the four theoretical perspectives and discuss how each perspective's understanding of power, control and resistance in organisations contributes to different ideas about the nature of organisations.

Introduction:

The purpose of this essay is to analysis the two theoretical perspectives of Modern and Post-modern which have different ways of understanding power, control and resistance in organisations. We shall go through by the philosophical choices of ontology and epistemology, then examine the assumptions underlying of these two perspectives, and to compare from different perspectives and of distinctive contributions to the power, conflict and resistance which are key determinants of organisational life. Ranson et al. (1980), stated that “Organizational structure... describes both the prescribed frameworks and realized configurations of interaction, and the degrees to which they are mutually constituted and constituting.

Modernism:

As to Hatch and Cunliffe (2006), Modernist focus on Objectivism which is belief in objective, external reality that independently exist from our knowledge on ontology philosophical saying. Martin Parker (2008) stated that on epistemology way, Modernism elevates the 'faith in reason to a level at which it becomes equated with progress.” Clegg and Kornberger (2003) explained that Modernism does go through adherence to the canons of positivism – which discovering the Truth by using reliable measurement and valid concepts to examine knowledge against an objective world.

Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) that Modernist organisation theorists believe that complete knowledge means understanding how and why organizations function the way they do and how their functioning is influenced by

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