Outcomes Based Education (OBE) is viewed as a drastic break from current educational practices and a means of providing educational success for all students. OBE is also advocated as a practice that lead to educational inequity. This paper reexamines OBE from a multiparadigm perspective of organizations and educational administration. OBE is based on objectives tied to learner outcomes, core and extended curriculum, mastery learning, accountability via information management systems, and criterion-referenced assessments. The multiparadigm approach is comprised of the structural-functional, interpretivist, critical, and poststructural theories. The examination reveals that although facets of outcome based practice are empowering to students and teachers, much of the system continues to be lodged in a framework that aims toward structure and control. A conclusion is that an uneasy partnership can exist between critical and poststructural theory, in which critical theory provides the emancipatory direction and poststructuralism offers the tools to avoid creating a new power elite. (22 references) (LMI)