ORGANIZATION AS ORGANISMS

Organization as Organisms



Gareth Morgan's Organizations as Organisms

Introduction: Organizations as “Organisms”

Organizations, in the modern era, are taken as living systems, existing in an environment they depend on to meet their varied needs. Bureaucratic organizations tend to work more effectively in environments that are protected or stable, while others are more comfortable in turbulent or competitive regions such as highly technical environments.

In this process, organization theory becomes a kind of biology in which the relationships and differences between molecules, cells, organisms, species and ecology are parallel to those of individuals, groups, organizations, people and their social ecology. Many theorists saw that interpersonal relationships and work to create conditions could rethink personal development and simultaneously help the organization achieve its aspirations and objectives. This paper will explain Morgan's approach towards treating organizations as organisms, justifies its background behind treating the organizations as live organisms with characteristic traits and gives a detailed overview about why we can say that the U.S. economy adepts to the organisms and how does it forms an organism.

Mechanization Takes Command

Machines influence every aspect of our existence in a virtual manner. Besides our skills, they also replace our efforts and capacity, multiplying the production by thousands to substitute for all of the human efforts in the modern times. This is most evident in modern organizations, taken for example, in mechanical precision, with which we expect many institutions to act. Organized life (in an organization) becomes as systematic as the required accuracy of a clock. 

People are expected to arrive to work at a specific time to meet a predetermined set of functions, resting at the times indicated and then summarize the tasks performed. In many organizations, one third of workers to replace others in a methodical activity as work continue uninterrupted 24 hours every day of the year. The term of complexity is not repeated here by chance- metaphors can imagine that organizational influence on its environment imposes constraints of evolution and adaptation. Therefore, the "Manager" will be interested in interpreting a situation, to take the most appropriate decisions, by representing its organization in the light of various metaphors, each highlighting what others are likely to leave in the shade (Morgan, 1999).

Explanation of Gareth Morgan's Approach for Organizations as “Organisms”

Morgan's approach is an example of postmodern discourse as deconstruct images, signs and symbols through which the world around us is constructed and interpreted. The focus of attention and effectiveness of a production manager is, in this case, the relationship with the operational environment, and thus directed more on the product than on the organizational structure through which the product is produced (Morgan, 1999).

Thus Morgan introduced the concept of "metaphor" in organizational analysis in a completely different, non-traditional meaning. Prior to his metaphors were thought of mainly as the necessary elements of poetry and rhetoric, and were considered less suitable for thought and expression (Holland, 1995). The concept of "metaphor" is used in various senses. In a broader sense, it is proved that all knowledge is metaphorical, and empirical "reality", or ...