J 1 Introduction Despite having a peak valuation of US$970 million, the doomed Zilingo was a tech start-up in ecommerce fashion business-to-business solution designed to digitize the fashion supply chain. I will explore power and control through a contemporary lens in this essay and critically evaluate its practices and behaviors. Zilingo was founded in 2015 by B2B ecommerce veterans Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor, with a mission to digitize the $1 trillion fashion industry. The company started off as an online marketplace for fashion boutiques in Southeast Asia and quickly expanded into other areas such as payments, logistics, and data analytics. In 2019, Zilingo raised $226 million in a Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital, valuating the company at $970 million. However, Zilingo is now in the midst of a leadership crisis, with several top executives leaving the company in recent months. ("How a celebrity CEO's rule of fear helped bring down hot Singapore start-up Zilingo", 2022). Zilingo provides a case study of how power and control can go wrong in an organisation. By critically evaluating the practices and behaviours of Zilingo, we can learn about the dangers of unchecked power and control and how they can lead to the downfall of even the most successful organisations. Zilingo's downfall can be attributed to a number of factors, including the company's aggressive growth strategy, its reliance on a small group of insiders, and its culture of fear and intimidation. Zilingo's aggressive growth strategy led to the company expanding into new areas such as payments and logistics without fully understanding the complexities of these businesses. (Hatch, 2018)Power and control are dened as how the owners and managers who invested in a business dominate its workforce, who unquestioningly accepted the owners' and managers' perspectives and so ignored the plight of individuals working in awful conditions. This led to problems and inefciencies in the company's operations. The company also relied heavily on a small group of insiders, who had complete control over the company's operations. This led to a culture of fear and intimidation, where employees were afraid to speak up or challenge the status quo. The combination of these factors led to Zilingo's downfall. The company's aggressive growth strategy, reliance on a small group of insiders, and culture of fear and intimidation created a perfect storm that ultimately led to the company's demise. 2 Justification of the chosen perspective and how this impacts my writing approach Postmodernists believe in reflexive epistemology, which holds that we can only know through self-reference; that there are no objects, only objectications; and that we only know as the subject position in conversation. Every knowledge claim is a power play; reality is a masquerade, and there is nothing behind the mask.(Hatch, 2018). In addition, Postmodernism places emphasis on a subjective understanding of evidence and the capacity of human consciousness to continually move beyond the bounds of social convention.(Bowden, 2019) A contemporary lens will allow for a contemporary assessment of power and control inside Zilingo. In addition, the contemporary lens will facilitate a critical evaluation of Zilingo's practices and behaviors in regard to its power and control. A crucial characteristic of a modern lens is that it enables a focus on the present. This is essential for studying power and control within the contemporary organization Zilingo. In addition, the contemporary lens will aid in the evaluation of the practices and behaviors of the Zilingo. This is due to the fact that the contemporary lens considers the current 7 V J L environment and zeitgeist. We can only comprehend the practices and behaviors of Zilingo if we have a thorough grasp of the existing environment. Postmodernists think that exposing suppressed or concealed components of speech modies existing discursive practices. Employing more persons of 99qu and more women has altered a variety of organizations and cultures. Those whose power has been endangered have, unsurprisingly, reacted politically.(Hatch, 2018) The contemporary perspective is equally essential because it considers the global situation. Given that Zilingo is a global organization, it is crucial to comprehend the global framework in which it operates. The modern lens will facilitate this comprehension. In conclusion, the contemporary lens is significant because it enables a focus on the present, considers the current situation, and also considers the global context. 3 Critical literature review on Power and Control In the past few years, people have paid more attention to studying organizational leadership and authority. Many things led to this change, but the most important ones were the increasing complexity of organizations, the spread of globalization, and the growth of the internet. It is important to see power as a social relationship, not as something that certain people or groups own. It also stresses how important it is to look into both informal and formal power structures. Modern ideas about power and control in the workplace have changed the way we think about and study organizations in a number of ways. (Haveman & Wetts, 2019) One important thing is that it shows how important it is to see power as a social connection. This means that we need to learn more about how organizations give and use power. As a second point, this point of view stresses how important it is to look into both "formal" and "informal" types of authority. Formal forms of power, like those given by a formal organizational structure, are usually easier to spot and understand. In addition to formal structures of power, though, personal relationships and other forms of informal power are also very important in society. (Hatch, 2018) Lastly, the approach stresses how important it is to look into how power shows up in different ways. The right and wrong ways to use power must be looked into. Given how people think about power and control in organizations today, this line of inquiry can go in a number of different directions. The first is that it emphasizes how important it is to study things from different fields. Power has many different sides, so to really understand it, you need to look at it from different angles. Second, because of the point of view, qualitative research methods are emphasized. Because social connections are so complicated, qualitative methods like interviews and participant observation work well when studying power. Third, this point of view emphasizes how important comparative studies are. Comparative analysis is needed to study how power works in different kinds of organizations. Modern ideas about power and control in the workplace have a big impact on how we think about organizations. It shows how important it is to look into both formal and informal forms of power and how important it is to understand power as a social link. This point of view gives a good framework for understanding the subtleties of power in institutional settings, and it also has a number of implications for future studies.T J 3.1 Disciplinary Power Modern jails, according to Foucault, are analogous to the open executions and oppressive practices that prevailed in cultures ruled by sovereign power (gag, monarchy). His comparison emphasized the distinction between overt oppression and the covert and covert forms of power that contemporary societies rely on to maintain social order. According to Foucault, discipline is at the core of contemporary authority.(Hatch, 2018). Michel Foucault, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim are three notable thinkers who have investigated the nature of disciplinary authority in organizations. All of these authors stress how crucial it is to maintain order in the workplace, and many of them even indicate that this approach is more effective than more overt authoritarianism. This is a critical factor that needs to be taken into account when thinking about solutions to issues with authority and control in organizations. Research has demonstrated that disciplinary power is more effective than more overt forms of oppression in producing the intended results, which is why the great majority of organizations rely on it to control the behavior of their members. 4. Critical evaluation of the practiceslbehaviours of Zilingo in relation to Power and control through critical application of the reviewed theories