Critical Theorist, Postmodernist and Social Constructionist Paradigms in Organizational Analysis: A Paradigmatic Review of Organizational Learning Literature Mine Karatas ¸-Özkan 1 and William D. Murphy 2 1 Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, School of Management, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK, and 2 57 Whitby Crescent, Woodthorpe, Nottingham N65 4NA, UK Corresponding author email: m.karatas-ozkan@soton.ac.uk In an effort to clarify alternative approaches to organizational analysis, this paper is concerned to stimulate the debate on how an inquiry into organizational phenomena, in general, and organizational learning, in particular, can be accomplished. Encourag- ing attention to different aspects of various paradigmatic approaches, the paper focuses on critical theory, postmodernism and social constructionism and how these paradigms have contributed and can contribute to the research in the subject domain of organi- zational learning.To this end, a paradigmatic review of the literature on organizational learning is offered in this paper. Organizational learning, as the study of learning processes of, and within, organizations, has attracted significant attention in academe since the early 1980s. There is a plethora of studies on organizational learning, which offer rich material for a paradigmatic review.This study highlights the need for further development of the field from alternative paradigmatic perspectives, with a view to generating more insights into the multifaceted, complex and changing nature of learn- ing in contemporary organizations. Introduction Since Burrell and Morgan (1979) wrote Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis and pro- vided the four-paradigm grid, increasing attention has been devoted to understanding the emerging approaches to organizational analysis. Deetz (1996) suggests that their influence relates to the research- ers’ desire to locate themselves within a particular paradigm and thus legitimize their approach. In Deetz’s (1996, p. 191) words, ‘it gave each of us a kind of asylum . . . we happily accepted the new- found capacity to present ourselves to mainstream critics as doing fundamentally different, but legiti- mate, kinds of research and began to work on con- cepts and evaluation criteria within our now produced as different and unitary communities’. Researchers are increasingly expected to demon- strate a reflexive understanding of the particular posi- tions they adopt in undertaking research (Johnson and Duberley 2000) on management and organiza- tions. This expectation is manifest in our interest in understanding different approaches to organizational analysis. This consideration has been highlighted by scholars (e.g. Deetz 1996, 2000; Gioia and Pitre 1990; Lewis and Grimes 1999, Poole and Van de Ven 1989, Weick 1999) who covered different issues surrounding the debate in such journals as Academy International Journal of Management Reviews,Vol. 12, 453–465 (2010) DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2009.00273.x © 2009 The Authors International Journal of Management Reviews © 2009 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA