Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 23 Issue 2

generally disorganised and sceptical character. Free and unrestricted flow of funds, people, technologies and products has an anti hierarchical and disorganising effect on the geographical, political and economic frameworks of modernity. Boundaries are permeated while social and geographic polarity is actually intensified (Luke, 1995). Consumerism also bears a democratic and fragmentary effect, which cancels rigid class distinctions, and replaces them with individual and communal lifestyles. This results in a radical cultural change, dissolving the cultural hierarchies of modernism, blurring the distinction between high and popular culture along with the intermixture of styles. Omnivorous consumption (Peterson, 1992) emerges, with a willingness to cross and mix established cultural boundaries. The expression of personal value systems and tastes is encouraged, while equal respect for various groups and values becomes a primary ethical demand, focusing on their cultural representation (Dunn, 1998). The new aesthetisation of everyday life unsettled entrenched value systems and allowed new and popular cultural layers to define fashion, culture and style (Featherstone, 2007). The postmodernist undermining of scientific objectivity as the mark of knowledge was also associated with a positive appraisal of popular and traditional cultures, otherness and a plurality of lifestyles which were excluded by the universalist pretensions of modernism. Those who deny a postmodern break with the past in second modernity tend to attribute its distinctively anti hierarchical drive to the overall individualisation of the principal social institutions (Beck, 2014). Uncertainty about the validity of the fixed structures of first modernity destabilises them. The traditional reliance on well defined and stable institutions as vital for the reproduction of the social order is thereby overturned. Instead, they are increasingly viewed as a matter of individual choice or identity (Bauman, 2001). In second modernity, an unstable identity is thus created by the institutions that formerly assisted in the creation of stable individuals – state, class, nuclear family, ethnic group. Individualised, people are no longer collectively regulated – they do not consume the same products, do not watch the same shows at the same time, do not eat or work at regular hours. These become a matter of personal decision, and in particular, individuals take control of their flexible career and course of life (Lash & Urry, 1994). Ambivalence, contradiction and internalisation of uncertainty are therefore integral to individualisation. Oncestrong and stable cultural and personal ties, which could be considered a form of community, are no longer given and unchallenged, they are reconstructed on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects. Faced with multiple choices, people become reflexive and constantly form and modify networks and alliances (Beck, 2014). Networking thus becomes a prominent method for forming social relationships in an individualised society. Consequently, networks are a crucial form of organisation in second modernity, and some even define it as a network society (Castells, 2010). Yet networks tend to unravel fixed organisational structures because they allow for flexible organising. Internally, many organisations become networks of semi autonomous teams and projects. Externally, they combine into networks of collaborating organisations. This has contributed significantly to the downsizing, outsourcing, specialising and global spreading of corporate operations. In this manner, networks helped to undo the large and hierarchical corporations of Fordist production, and facilitated the acquisition of new organisational sizes, markets and modes of governance and control (van Dijk, 2006). Whereas the structure of relations in first modernity was hierarchal, the temporary nature of project- based work requires networked relationships rather than vertical hierarchies. Networked and flexible organisations combine workers, capital, and knowledge in specific projects that form, dissolve, and reform under a different configuration. Organisation by means of networks is therefore a major component of the project society (Castells, 2010). In fact, many define projects as the core activities around which networks are formed and maintained. Belonging to a network allows professionals to join projects and maintain their careers, while taking part in projectsis in turn the major means of becoming networked (van Dijk, 2006). Thus, the shift away from mass production, culture and consumption to multiple, temporary projects leads to a new order of networked, boundless organisations based on a culture of cooperative individualism (Clarke & Clegg, 2000). The replacement of bureaucratic hierarchical organisations with flat, flexible and collaborative frameworks is also a primary focus of the new managerial discourse and practices since the 1980’s. Based on Weber’s classical analysis, bureaucracy has traditionally been considered as the prototypical form of modern organisation. Bureaucracy epitomises an ethical order that encapsulates the principal values of modernity – rationality, efficiency, impartiality – and thus purges the function of office from personal arbitrariness. Nevertheless, the new theories and practices of management all highlighted the weaknesses of bureaucracy in both the business and public spheres, and supported the advance of a post bureaucratic form of organisation, ‘characterized by teamwork, task-groups, outsourcing, offshoring, role- flexibility, dispensing with command and obedience relations and hierarchies wherever possible © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue II Version I 81 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 C Epochal Change and Second Modernity as a Sociocultural Manifestation of Managerialism