Super Flat: Hierarchy, Culture and Dimensions of Organizing

Abstract

This article considers a series of ways in which hierarchy is ontologically and politically opposed to flatness, particularly in the work of the artist Takashi Murakami and the cultural critic Dick Hebdige. It explores the attractions and problems of flatness as an alternative to hierarchy, but concludes that both are equally two-dimensional representations of organizing. Instead, alternative organizers with a commitment to anti-hierarchical practices would be better learning from the three-dimensional practical examples of anarchism, feminism, socialism and environmentalism.

Citation

Parker, M. (2012), "Super Flat: Hierarchy, Culture and Dimensions of Organizing", Diefenbach, T. and Todnem By, R. (Ed.) Reinventing Hierarchy and Bureaucracy – from the Bureau to Network Organizations (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 35), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 229-247. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2012)0000035011