Images of Organization

Abstract

This piece of study aims to talk about Gareth Morgan's 'Images of Organization'. The purpose of this study is to discuss that the metaphors of organizations as described by Gareth Morgan highlight organizations as an instrument of domination and as a psychic prison, are of much interest to the academic study of organizational behavior, however, these concepts contribute a little in our understanding of the contemporary organizations. The first publication of this book came over twenty years ago, and has become a classic since then in the cannon of management literature. The primary premise of the book is a simple one, and it asserted that the theories of management and organization are based on metaphors or the implicit images that contribute in our imagination in a powerful creative way, but has the risk of distortion at the same time. Thus, Gareth Morgan has explored the complexity of modern international organizations.

Introduction

Most of the people emphasize that we normally construct our own images about the organizations. Morgan, on the other hand, asserted that human beings have this ability of getting trapped in their own creation's web. Moreover, people's conscious and unconscious ideas hold the organizations, and most of the people find it difficult to conceptualize numerous other ways in which the organizations might perform things. Thus, they become their own ideas' prisoners, and this is one of those concepts on which Morgan's metaphors are based. However, the basic thesis of this management book is based on the concept that all the theories of management and organization are based on metaphors, and that these metaphors play a critical role as they are vital in developing the understating of certain major aspects of the organizations. Moreover, these metaphors also sometimes restrict people in understanding the deep background and ignoring numerous things related to it.

Discussion

Morgan has distinguished eight major metaphors for organizations. These metaphors are organism, machine, brain, political systems, culture, flux and transformation, psychic prison, and instrument of domination. Each of these eight metaphors highlights some major aspects of the life of organizations. Moreover, these metaphors can be grouped into three main groups that are the organism group, the machine group, and the mind group (Morgan, 2006, pp. 504).

The main focus of the organism group is on the dynamic relationship that organizations have with the environment, and the flux and transformation metaphor, and the organism metaphor come in this group. The machine group ...