Power in organizations: A contingent,relational view

The concept of power is central to social inquiry, yet it is highly varied and enigmatic. There is a wide-ranging and competing variety of subjectivist, objectivist, and relational conceptions of power. The first part of the paper examines this problem in an exegetical but critical manner. The aim is to develop a critical conception of this social phenomenon. The second part of the paper seeks to probe the nature of three types of systems approach in terms of their underwriting assumptions about power in society. The intent is twofold: to uncover the ideologically suppressed truths about the noxious forms of power and to develop a penetrative understanding of how the mystified “truths” in ideological conceptions of power contain hidden meanings that have the critical potential for educative enlightenment, empowerment, and emancipation for systems theory and practice.