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Images of Organization
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Images of Organization



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


 
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

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

Comprehensive, well written and accessible for students.

Ms Helen Hingley-Jones
Social Work (Archway), Middlesex University
June 22, 2015

A very insightful book on how to "read" organizations

Dr Dong Wook Huh
Department of Management, Frostburg State University
April 29, 2015

a very astute book that brings organisation and organising into clear focus.

Dr Abdoulie Sallah
Business School, College Road
September 5, 2014

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