Images of Organization

Gareth Morgan - York University, Canada

Other Titles in:
Leadership | Organization Studies (General)

June 2006 | 520 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

In the twenty years since its first publication, 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 lead us to see, understand, and manage organizations in distinctive yet partial ways. Gareth Morgan provides a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally: he translates leading-edge theory into leading-edge practice.

New to the Updated Edition: the author has revised all references and updated tables; his new preface situates this classic theory in today's business environment; and instructor's resources to aid classroom teaching are now available on CD-ROM.

Images of Organization challenges and reshapes how we think about organization and management in the most fundamental way. The new Updated Edition makes this monumental work available to a new generation of students and business leaders worldwide.

Preface

Part I. An Overview

Introduction

Part II. Some Images of Organization

2. Mechanization Takes Command: Organizations as Machines

Machines, Mechanical Thinking, and the Rise of Bureaucratic Organization

The Origins of Mechanistic Organization

Classical Management Theory: Designing bureaucratic organizations

Scientific Management

Strengths and Limitations of the Machine Metaphor

3. Nature Intervenes: Organizations as Organisms

Discovering Organizational Needs

Recognizing the Importance of Environment: Organizations as Open Systems

Contingency Theory: Adapting Organization to Environment

The Variety of the Species

Contingency Theory: Promoting Organizational Health and Development

Natural Selection: The Population-Ecology View of Organizations

Organizational Ecology: The Creation of Shared Futures

Strengths and Limitations of the Organismic Metaphor

4. Learning and Self-Organization: Organizations as Brains

Images of the Brain

Organizations as Information Processing Brains

Creating Learning Organizations

Cybernetics, Learning, and Learning to Learn

Can Organizations Learn to Learn?

Guidelines for "Learning Organizations"

Organizations as Holographic Brains

Principles of Holographic Design

Strengths and Limitations of the Brain Metaphors

5. Creating Social Realty: Organizations as Cultures

Culture and Organization

Organization as a Cultural Phenomenon

Organization and Cultural Context

Corporate Cultures and Subcultures

Creating Organizational Reality

Culture: Rule Following or Enactment?

Organization: The enactment of a Shared Reality

Strengths and Limitations of the Cultural Metaphor

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

Organizations as Systems of Government

Organizations as Systems of Political Activity

Analyzing Interests

Understanding Conflict

Exploring Power

Managing Pluralist Organizations

Strengths and Limitations of the Political Metaphor

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

The Trap of Favored Ways of Thinking

Organization and the Unconscious

Organization and Repressed Sexuality

Organization and the Patriarchal Family

Organization, Death, and Immortality

Organization and Anxiety

Organization, Dolls, and Teddy Bears

Organization, Shadow, and Archetype

The Unconscious: A Creative and Destructive Force

Strengths and Limitations of the Psychic Prison Metaphor

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

Autopoiesis: Rethinking Relations With the Environment

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

Identity and Closure: Egocentrism Versus Systemic Wisdom

Shifting "Attractors": The Logic of Chaos and Complexity

Managing in the Midst of Complexity

Loops, Not Lines: The Logic of Mutual Causality

Contradiction and Crisis: The Logic of Dialectical Change

Dialectical Analysis: How Opposing Forces Drive Change

The Dialectics of Management

Strengths and Limitations of the Flux and Transformation Metaphor

9. The Ugly Face: Organizations as Instruments of Domination

Organization as Domination

How Organizations Use and Exploit Their Employees

Organization, Class, and Control

Work Hazards, Occupational Disease, and Industrial Accidents

Workaholism and Social and Mental Stress

Organizational Politics and the Radicalized Organization

Multinationals and the World Economy

The Multinationals as World Powers

Multinationals: A Record of Exploitation?

Strengths and Limitations of the Domination Metaphor

Part III. Implications For Practice

10. The Challenge of Metaphor

Metaphors Create Ways of Seeing and Shaping Organizational Life

Seeing, Thinking, and Acting in New Ways

11. Reading and Shaping Organizational Life

The Multicom Case

Interpreting Multicom

Developing and Detailed Reading and "Storyline"

Multicom From Another View

"Reading" and Emergent Intelligence

12. Postscript

Bibliographic Notes

Introduction

The Machine Metaphor

The Organismic Metaphor

The Brain Metaphor

The Culture Metaphor

The Political Metaphor

The Psychic Prison Metaphor

The Flux and Transformation Metaphor

The Domination Metaphor

The Challenge of Metaphor

Reading and Shaping Organizational Life

Postscript

Bibliography

Professor Morgan,

I only recently received a copy of Images of Organization (updated edition) as a desk copy to review for the I/O Psych class that I teach. I just started reading your book I am absolutely blown away by it. I cannot believe that I had missed this marvelous work. My ignorance knows few, if any, limits!

You pull together such a span of ideas and integrate them beautifully with your own angle, stimulating one's thinking. This is the kind of mind opening perspective to which I like to expose my classes. Thank you for condensing it so powerfully. By the way, the bibliographic notes are as exciting a read as is the rest of the book. I look forward to devouring the rest of the book.

James Michael Burke, Ph.D.
Virginia Commonwealth University
L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs
Center for Public Policy

Letter from James Michael Burke, Ph.D.

Virginia Commonwealth University, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Center for Public Policy

"This is the new updated edition of a classic published over 20 years ago. The book is based on the simple premise that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images of metaphors that stretch our imagination in a way that can create powerful insights, but at the risk of distortion. The author provides a rich and comprhensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally, translating theory into practice."

APADE

Indiana University

“A universe of thanks to you for spearheading the metaphoric, creative thinking about organizations. Your method has essentially electrified my teaching.”

--Mohammad A. Auwal, CSU, Los Angeles

Mohammad A. Auwal

CSU, Los Angeles

"Let me say that I've loved teaching this course for over 10 years now, in part, because your book (and now the excellent CD) are so well thought out. You deserve a bow. Bravo."

Jim Bonilla

Hamline University Graduate School of Management

"This book is based on the simple premise that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images of metaphors that stretch our imagination in a way that can create powerful insights, but at the risk of distortion. The author provides a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally, translating theory into practice."

Abstract of Public Administration Development and Environment

A good book which adds complexity to the subject whilst keeping the simplicity required to allow students to grasp the fundamentals.

Mr Christopher McKechnie

Scotton Hall, HM Forces

March 10, 2016

Report this review

This is an essential text which allows students to understand organisational culture using metaphor

Mrs Mary Clark

Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of Plymouth

January 3, 2016

Report this review

Comprehensive, well written and accessible for students.