Images of Organization -- The Executive Edition

by Morgan, Gareth

• ISBN13: 9781576750384
• ISBN10: 1576750388
• Edition: Abridged
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-06-06
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Summary

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.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

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