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Images of Organization
- Gareth Morgan - York University, Canada
May 2006 | 520 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
"What a "kick" I get out of teaching from Images of Organizations. What a head-snapping view of organizations it offers to my MBA students, as well as to the odd client/executive who is disposed to creep out of the practicality of business-as-usual and take in a vibrant thrilling view of organizations."
— Ariane David, Ph.D., Senior Advisor/President, The Veritas Group
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.
This new Updated Edition preserves Morgan's renowned creative images and metaphors while refreshing the references and tables. The addition of a preface situates this classic theory in today's business environment while the instructor's resources (now available on CD) aid classroom teaching. Please contact SAGE customer service to order your copy.
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.
Listen to an interview with author, Gareth Morgan on The Invisible Hand podcast.
Go to http://www.theinvisiblehandpodcast.com/The_Invisible_Hand_Episode_38.mp3
— Ariane David, Ph.D., Senior Advisor/President, The Veritas Group
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.
This new Updated Edition preserves Morgan's renowned creative images and metaphors while refreshing the references and tables. The addition of a preface situates this classic theory in today's business environment while the instructor's resources (now available on CD) aid classroom teaching. Please contact SAGE customer service to order your copy.
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.
Listen to an interview with author, Gareth Morgan on The Invisible Hand podcast.
Go to http://www.theinvisiblehandpodcast.com/The_Invisible_Hand_Episode_38.mp3
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
An excellent book; this book delivers its content in an easy and very accessible manner, students really engaged with this book and the feedback was positive all round. This book is a must read for anyone looking at the workings of an organization.
Business School, Dublin City University (DCU)
September 3, 2014
It is more appropriate for the doc level class, where we do use it.
Leadership Studies, University Of San Diego
August 25, 2014
Morgan does an elegant job of framing organization theory in vivid language and a series of accessible conceptual frameworks - this is a terrific text for a management class
Grad School Of Public Affairs, Univ Of Colorado-Denver
August 25, 2014
An excellent book very helpful for undergraduate and postgraduate students interested organisational dynamics and change
Strategy & Marketing, University of Huddersfield
February 3, 2014
Th ebook is useful in supplementing knowledge to students who are taking organizational analysis under the HRM selection of courses.
School of Administrative & Financial Services, Saudi Electronic University
March 26, 2013
comprehensive; multiple perspectives
Counseling, Leadership, Adult Education and School Psychology, Texas State University - San Marcos
October 25, 2012
Well structured and interesting. Would though like and appreciate teaching instructions for the book. Some are awailable on internet but would be easier for us training students have more input on each case (metaphor) and how to match these to real life situations.
Entrepreneurship, Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics
May 7, 2012
Perfect - me the learning outcomes of the course.
College Of Business, Dallas Baptist University
February 14, 2012
A really good book - but discovered it would be too sophisticated for my students at CSU.
Business Economics Dept, Charleston Southern University
December 8, 2011
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