The Merit and Mischief of Metaphor: A Reply to Gioia, Schultz and Corley
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00244 |
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| Author | J. P. Cornelissen |
In their rejoinder to my article, Gioia, Schultz
and Corley (2002) have ascribed a number of
assertions and a particular paradigmatic position
(i.e. ‘functionalist/realist’) to the method of meta-
phor that I have proposed and that I have illus-
trated through an explication and evaluation of
the organizational identity metaphor (Cornelissen,
2002). This strategy, in content and style, may have
served them to draw out their own (interpretivist)
paradigmatic presuppositions and vested interests
regarding the organizational identity metaphor,
yet it gravely misrepresents the arguments that I
have put forward and that, I believe, need a more
sustained consideration than that. Therefore, I
will briefly respond to their chief accusations, and
in the process reiterate the merit of the method of
metaphor use that I have proposed.
First of all, Gioia, Schultz and Corley (2002)
claim that the way in which I have described the
use of metaphor (and arrived at my assessment of
the organizational identity metaphor) clearly fits
with a ‘realist’ paradigm. Yet, in my article I have
gone to great lengths to emphasize that rather
than regressing to the earlier debates on the use
and workings of metaphor (divided into the ‘con-
structivist’ and ‘realist’ camps), and choosing a
side for that matter, the method of metaphor use
cuts across these paradigms. As such, the method
is useful for researchers working within both
the ‘constructivist’ and ‘realist’ paradigms (and
thus also, ironically, for Gioia, Schultz and Corley
themselves) as it provides a tool in their
theorizing for ‘spelling out’ the implications that a
metaphor brings with it and the conjectures that
it subsequently implies about the (‘constructed’
or ‘real’) phenomenon under study. It is thus
recognized here that all fields of study within the
social sciences tend to begin their theoretical
development using natural languages as theory
building, is for a large part a ‘discursive enter-
prise’ (Scott Poole and Van de Ven, 1989, p. 564),
yet such initial discursive exposition should be
followed by a process in which named concepts
(in this case metaphors) are further explicated
to enable empirical research and to evaluate
whether they sufficiently capture and/or explain
the dynamics of organizational life. As Popper
(1968) reminds us, conceptual leaps of the
imagination whereby a researcher considers
analogies, metaphors and models as a way of
capturing and explaining (a ‘constructed’ or ‘real’)
organizational world need to be explicated and
reworked into conjectures that can be examined
and/or tested.
The contribution of the method of metaphor
that I have proposed is that it exactly caters for
this apparent need in our theorizing and research,
and is as such eagerly awaited (see Weick, 1989).
British Journal of Management, Vol. 13, 277–279 (2002)
© 2002 British Academy of Management
The Merit and Mischief
of Metaphor: A Reply to
Gioia, Schultz and Corley
J. P. Cornelissen
Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48,
1012 CX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gioia, Schultz and Corley have vigorously, yet falsely, attacked the method of metaphor
use that I outlined on paradigmatic, ideological and political grounds. Responding to
their chief accusations, this reply to their article reiterates the merit of the suggested
method for using metaphors and reflects upon its application to the ‘organizational
identity’ metaphor.
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