Images of Organization

Since its first publication over twenty years ago, Images of Organization has become a classic in the canon of management literature. The book is based on a very simple premise-that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that stretch our imagination in a way that can create powerful insights, but at the risk of distortion. Gareth Morgan provides a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally, translating leading-edge theory into leading-edge practice.

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

xv

PART I: AN OVERVIEW

Introduction

3

(8)

PART II: SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION

Mechanization Takes Command: Organizations as Machines

11

(22)

Machines, Mechanical Thinking, and the Rise of Bureaucratic Organization

13

(13)

The Origins of Mechanistic Organization

15

(3)

Classical Management Theory: Designing Bureaucratic Organizations

18

(4)

Scientific Management

22

(4)

Strengths and Limitations of the Machine Metaphor

26

(7)

Nature Intervenes: Organizations as Organisms

33

(38)

Discovering Organizational Needs

34

(4)

Recognizing the Importance of Environment: Organizations as Open Systems

38

(4)

Contingency Theory: Adapting Organization to Environment

42

(7)

The Variety of the Species

49

(5)

Contingency Theory: Promoting Organizational Health and Development

54

(5)

Natural Selection: The Population-Ecology View of Organizations

59

(3)

Organizational Ecology: The Creation of Shared Futures

62

(2)

Strengths and Limitations of the Organismic Metaphor

64

(7)

Learning and Self-Organization: Organizations as Brains

71

(44)

Images of the Brain

72

(4)

Organizations as Information Processing Brains

76

(5)

Creating Learning Organizations

81

(16)

Cybernetics, Learning, and Learning to Learn

81

(3)

Can Organizations Learn to Learn?

84

(3)

Guidelines for ``Learning Organizations''

87

(10)

Organizations as Holographic Brains

97

(15)

Principles of Holographic Design

99

(13)

Strengths and Limitations of the Brain Metaphor

112

(3)

Creating Social Realty: Organizations as Cultures

115

(34)

Culture and Organization

116

(18)

Organization as a Cultural Phenomenon

116

(2)

Organization and Cultural Context

118

(7)

Corporate Cultures and Subcultures

125

(9)

Creating Organizational Reality

134

(3)

Culture: Rule Following or Enactment?

134

(3)

Organization: The Enactment of a Shared Reality

137

(3)

Strengths and Limitations of the Culture Metaphor

140

(9)

Interests, Conflict, and Power: Organizations as Political Systems

149

(58)

Organizations as Systems of Government

151

(5)

Organizations as Systems of Political Activity

156

(38)

Analyzing Interests

157

(6)

Understanding Conflict

163

(3)

Exploring Power

166

(28)

Managing Pluralist Organizations

194

(8)

Strengths and Limitations of the Political Metaphor

202

(5)

Exploring Plato's Cave: Organizations as Psychic Prisons

207

(34)

The Trap of Favored Ways of Thinking

208

(4)

Organization and the Unconscious

212

(23)

Organization and Repressed Sexuality

212

(6)

Organization and the Patriarchal Family

218

(1)

Organization, Death, and Immortality

219

(2)

Organization and Anxiety

221

(6)

Organization, Dolls, and Teddy Bears

227

(3)

Organization, Shadow, and Archetype

230

(4)

The Unconscious: A Creative and Destructive Force

234

(1)

Strengths and Limitations of the Psychic Prison Metaphor

235

(6)

Unfolding Logics of Change: Organization as Flux and Transformation

241

(50)

Autopoiesis: Rethinking Relations With the Environment

243

(8)

Enactment as a Form of Narcissism: Organizations Interact With Projections of Themselves

246

(2)

Identity and Closure: Egocentrism Versus Systemic Wisdom

248

(3)

Shifting ``Attractors'': The Logic of Chaos and Complexity

251

(12)

Managing in the Midst of Complexity

255

(8)

Loops, Not Lines: The Logic of Mutual Causality

263

(10)

Contradiction and Crisis: The Logic of Dialectical Change

273

(14)

Dialectical Analysis: How Opposing Forces Drive Change

275

(5)

The Dialectics of Management

280

(7)

Strengths and Limitations of the Flux and Transformation Metaphor

287

(4)

The Ugly Face: Organizations as Instruments of Domination

291

(46)

Organization as Domination

293

(4)

How Organizations Use and Exploit Their Employees

297

(18)

Organization, Class, and Control

298

(6)

Work Hazards, Occupational Disease, and Industrial Accidents

304

(6)

Workaholism and Social and Mental Stress

310

(3)

Organizational Politics and the Radicalized Organization

313

(2)

Multinationals and the World Economy

315

(14)

The Multinationals as World Powers

318

(3)

Multinationals: A Record of Exploitation?

321

(8)

Strengths and Limitations of the Domination Metaphor

329

(8)

PART III: IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

The Challenge of Metaphor

337

(8)

Metaphors Create Ways of Seeing and Shaping Organizational Life

338

(3)

Seeing, Thinking, and Acting in New Ways

341

(4)

Reading and Shaping Organizational Life

345

(18)

The Multicom Case

346

(3)

Interpreting Multicom

349

(12)

Developing a Detailed Reading and ``Storyline''

351

(7)

Multicom From Another View

358

(3)

``Reading'' and Emergent Intelligence

361

(2)

Postscript

363

(4)

Bibliographic Notes

367

(56)

Introduction

367

(2)

The Machine Metaphor

369

(5)

The Organismic Metaphor

374

(5)

The Brain Metaphor

379

(7)

The Culture Metaphor

386

(4)

The Political Metaphor

390

(5)

The Psychic Prison Metaphor

395

(6)

The Flux and Transformation Metaphor

401

(9)

The Domination Metaphor

410

(7)

The Challenge of Metaphor

417

(1)

Reading and Shaping Organizational Life

418

(3)

Postscript

421

(2)

Bibliography

423

(52)

Index

475

(28)

About the Author

503

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Images of Organization

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials