Anthropological Aspects of postmodern Organization

Abstract

Author of the article analyses anthropological and sociological aspects of organizations, adapted to contemporaneous individual, which should end the tradition of modern, bureaucratic or mechanistic organizations as conceived by 20th century management theoretics. Key factors of success in modern organizations were planning, hierarchy, centralized control and standardization, while in new, postmodern organizations these factors are speed, integration, inventiveness and flexibility. Design of postmodern organizations is presented on three cases. The first case shows Japanese companies, which changed linear work into more flexible form using systems kanban and nenko and management rotation. The second case is Wikipedia, a very stable and simultaneously very flexible on-line encyclopedia, which can be edited and revised by every user. The third case is Al Kaida, a terrorist organization with clearly defined goal and successfully based on flexible and undefined structure