Images of Organization

by Morgan, Gareth

• ISBN13: 9781412939799
• ISBN10: 1412939798
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-09
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

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