Management, organizations and contemporary social theory: An index of possibilities

Organization theory can now be described as a disciplinary field with a venerable history: with robust theories, paradigms, even heroes and myths in the sense of unfounded stories whose constant repetition ‘proves’ their supposed truth. People raised in social democratic societies may aspire to work in more transparent organizations, more open to scrutiny and more open to their members’ agency, wondering why, in many cases, despite the growth of new organizational forms, they must still leave the individual liberty to have contrary opinions and give voice outside the workplace. Current developments in the emergence of digital technologies constitute an important field for social theorists. The current debate is almost dualistic, with some analysts extolling the utopian features of a digital world, where intelligent machines do the boring bits of work, smart tools communicate with equally smart object-peers, humans see their competencies augmented and so on.