Images of Organization: An Essay Review
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009961 |
| Published date | 01 February 1989 |
| Date | 01 February 1989 |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Images of Organization:
An Essay Review
Morgan
Gareth,
Images
of
Organization,
Sage
Publications,
Beverly
Hills,
1986,
421
pp., $45.95
(paperback).
Essay
Review
67
Gareth Morgan's
Images
of
Organization
compels attention and invites reflection.
Morgan himself describes the work as a treatise on metaphorical thinking which
contributes to the theory and practice of organisational analysis (p. 16). Hence
it stands directly in the tradition of writers such as Pepper[l] and
Kuhn[2],
whose
works have
included a study of the impact of root metaphors and cognitive paradigms
on our understanding of the world.
Metaphor, Morgan claims, is basic to our ways of thinking, and
Images
of
Organization
is a work about metaphor set within a metaphor, that of "reading
organisation". Morgan contends that all our theories of organisation are
metaphorical, and he argues that an awareness of metaphor and its uses can assist
the administrator to develop the art of reading and understanding organisations.
Since organisations are increasingly characterised by complexity, ambiguity and
paradox, Morgan suggests that metaphor is an especially appropriate tool for
assisting us to appreciate, interpret and understand that complexity, ambiguity
and paradox.
The task which the author thus sets himself is ambitious, the scope of the work
wide-ranging. Morgan not only attempts to demonstrate how many of our
conventional
ideas
about organisation
and
management
build
upon taken-for-granted
images, he also endeavours to show,
by
exploring a number of alternative images,
how
metaphor can generate new ways of
thinking
about organisation. In addition,
the author attempts to demonstate the use of metaphor as a practical tool for
diagnosing organisational problems.
The greater part of the work is given over to an elucidation of eight metaphors
for organisation, those of
the
machine, organism, brain, culture, political system,
psychic
prison,
flux and transformation, and instrument of domination.
A
discussion
of Morgan's treatment of
two
of the more familiar metaphors and
two
of the more
novel metaphors may serve to indicate his general approach.
The nature metaphor, that of the organism, has been one of the more active
and enduring metaphors for organisation. In his examination of this metaphor,
Morgan draws out those concepts and ideas which arise directly from the organism
analogy such as needs, survival, equilibrium, adaptation, health, ecology and, in
the process, provides an overview of the various branches of systems theory.
Surprisingly, although Talcott Parsons
is
mentioned
in
the extensive and scholarly
bibliographical
notes,
he is omitted from the main discussion, as is
Philip
Selznick.
Yet with their emphasis on self-adapting and self-equilibrating systems, perhaps
no theorists have brought out so well the "organic" aspect of systems theory.
In his discussion of
needs,
Morgan treats briefly a motivation theorist, Maslow,
before turning to an account of open systems theory, contingency theory and
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