Images of Organization -- The Executive

Morgan shows managers how to break free of management fads by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of management metaphors and applying them to organizational life.

Gareth Morgan is the author of seven books, including Imaginization, and has worked throughout Europe and North America with such companies as Continental AG, GE, Hewlett-Packard, Northern Telecom, Royal Bank of Canada, Shell, and Volkswagen. He is Distinguished Research Professor at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto.

List of Exhibits

ix

(2)

Preface to the Executive Edition

xi

(2)

Acknowledgments

xiii

Part I: An Overview

3

(14)

1. The Promise of Images of Organization

3

(14)

The Power of Metaphor in Organization and Management

4

(13)

Part II: Some Images of Organization

17

(282)

2. Mechanization Takes Command: Organizations As Machines

17

(18)

Machines, Mechanical Thinking, and the Rise of Bureaucratic Organization

19

(12)

Strengths and Limitations of the Machine Metaphor

31

(4)

3. Nature Intervenes: Organizations As Organisms

35

(34)

Discovering Organizational Needs

37

(3)

Recognizing the Importance of Environment: Organizations As Open Systems

40

(4)

Contingency Theory: Adapting Organization to Environment

44

(6)

The Variety of the Species

50

(2)

Contingency Theory: Promoting Organizational Health and Development

52

(5)

Natural Selection: The Population Ecology View of Organizations

57

(4)

Organizational Ecology: The Creation of Shared Futures

61

(2)

Strengths and Limitations of the Organismic Metaphor

63

(6)

4. Learning and Self-Organization: Organizations As Brains

69

(42)

Images of the Brain

70

(3)

Organizations As Information Processing Brains

73

(3)

Creating Learning Organizations

76

(16)

Organizations As Holographic Brains: Self-Organization and Regeneration

92

(15)

Strengths and Limitations of the Brain Metaphor

107

(4)

5. Creating Social Reality: Organizations As Cultures

111

(36)

Culture and Organization

112

(20)

Creating Organizational Reality

132

(8)

Strengths and Limitations of the Culture Metaphor

140

(7)

6. Interests, Conflict, and Power: Organizations As Political Systems

147

(34)

Organizations As Systems of Government

149

(3)

Organizations As Systems of Political Activity

152

(22)

Strengths and Limitations of the Political Metaphor

174

(7)

7. Exploring Plato's Cave: Organizations As Psychic Prisons

181

(32)

The Trap of Favored Ways of Thinking

183

(3)

Organization and the Unconscious

186

(20)

Strengths and Limitations of the Psychic Prison Metaphor

206

(7)

8. Unfolding Logics of Change: Organization As Flux and Transformation

213

(46)

Four "Logics of Change"

214

(1)

Autopoiesis: The Logic of Self-Reference

215

(7)

Shifting "Attractors": The Logic of Chaos and Complexity

222

(12)

Loops Not Lines: The Logic of Mutual Causality

234

(8)

Contradiction and Crisis: The Logic of Dialectical Change

242

(12)

Strengths and Limitations of the Flux and Transformation Metaphor

254

(5)

9. The Ugly Face: Organizations As Instruments of Domination

259

(40)

Organization As Domination

261

(3)

Radical Organizational Theory: How Organizations Use and Exploit Their Employees

264

(18)

Radical Organizational Theory: Multinationals and the World Economy

282

(9)

Strengths and Limitations of the Domination Metaphor

291

(8)

Part III: Implications for Practice

299

(24)

10. Reading and Shaping Organizational Life

299

(20)

The Multicom Case

300

(16)

"Reading" and Emergent Intelligence

316

(3)

11. Using Metaphor to Manage in a Turbulent World

319

(4)

Appendix: Excerpt from Imaginization: New Mindsets for Seeing, Organizing and Managing

323

(6)

Bibliography

329

(5)

Index

334

(16)

About the Author

350

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Images of Organization -- The Executive Edition

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials