Is This the End of Organisational History? Post-humanism and the Evolution of Organisational Structures

Abstract

One of the main challenges for organisational theory today is to critically reflect on the future of humanity that is operating within new social models (e.g. open, temporary, virtual, nomadic and liquid) and moreover is shared with non-human agents (e.g. expert systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms and artificial intelligence). The paper attempts to raise the question whether human activity is still central to organisational activities and what the consequences of giving a stakeholder position to artificial systems are. Algorithmically driven systems, automated negotiation procedures, artificial business intelligence and organisational APIs call for serious consideration of how emerging philosophical trends and theories, such as Speculative Realism, Object-Oriented Ontology and Post-Humanism, could influence modern organisational design.