Abstract

Modern organizational relations are based on power. The organizational process is grounded on domination and control, and the outcome is the oppression of employees. We argue that both postmodernism and critical theory agree on the point that, at late capitalism, modern organizations are gradually becoming a tool of social oppression. However, both theories differ significantly in their epistemological and ontological perceptions on organization, society, and culture. We intend to reveal the concepts on which critical theory is formulated to identify the sources of the organizational power play, disclose patterns of irrationalities, and locate the discrete flow and role of power. Critical theory also reveals the formulate relation of power and capital with organizational employees, defines organizational oppression in terms of power relation, and guides human emancipation from modern organizational suppression. On the other hand, while postmodernism criticizes modernism, its implied purpose is completely different from critical theory. It negates modernism to retrieve and import a new culture for late capitalism. It attempts to create a new society of late modernism that will be consistent with present organizational relations. However, to overcome this power relation – which is based on control, domination, and oppression in modern organization – and to reform the socio-cultural aspect of late capitalism, we need to take an overview of this relation through dialectic conflicts.