Customer Reviews

Images of Organization: The Executive Edition

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"While managing and organizing are challenging in the best times, the difficulties are compounding in today's environment of rapid change. If you want to be the type of leader or professional who helps your organization adapt to the multiple demands of an increasingly turbulent world, you need to become aware of the images and assumptions that are shaping your current thinking and develop the capacity to use new ones. You need to develop competencies that allow you to see, understand, and shape situations in new ways. That is the focus of Images of Organization.It is not a 'quick fix' book. It is not a book that offers a simple recipe for tackling organizational problems...The basic thesis underlying the book is a very simple one: that all organization and management theory and practice is based on images, or metaphors, that lead us to understand situations in powerful yet partial ways. When we realize this, we learn to recognize that our favored ways of managing and organizing often lead us to miss out on other ways of managing and organizing. In addition, we recognize that since every metaphor has limitations as well as strengths, we must always be aware of the inherent blind spots that inevitably undermine our effectiveness" (pp.3-4).

In this context, Garet Morgan divides his book into three parts.

I- In this part, he focuses on the nature of metaphor and its role in understanding organization and management. Here, he argues that using multiple metaphors to understand organization and management gives us a capacity to tap different dimentions of a situation, showing how different qualities of organization can co-exist, supporting, reinforcing, or contradicting one another:

* In approaching the same situation in different ways, metaphors extend insight and suggest actions that may not have been possible before.

* The insights generated by different metaphors are not just theoretical. They are incredibly practical.

* Metaphors lead to new metaphors, creating a mosaic of competing and complementary insights.

II- In this part, he demonstrates how metaphor can be used to develop theories of organization and management. In this sense, he shows strengths and limitations of the following metaphors:machine metaphor, organismic metaphor, brain metaphor, culture metaphor, political metaphor, psychic prison metaphor, flux and transformation metaphor, and dominant metaphor.

III- In this part, by using theoretical ideas/metaphors, he presents a practical case study that illustrates how we can use the metaphors presented in this book as practical frameworks for reading and shaping organizations.

Finally, he argues that Images of Organization is very different from most management books. It has a clear point of view: that metaphor is central to the way we read, understand, and shape organizational life. But at no point will you find that view being brought down to advocacy of a single perspective. There are no right or wrong theories in management in an absolute sense, for every theory illuminates and hides.

Highly recommended.

What makes this book special is the approach. Morgan considers organizations using different metaphors such as organisations as brains. Each metaphors expands the reader's insight and understanding, and leads to ways of surviving organizational life. This book is a must read text for those studying management or organizational behaviour. All the chapters contain quality references to other work and are backed up by extensive research.

This book allows the reader to formulate his/her own opinion on each type of organization structure. Morgan brings in depth insights into the various forms of organizations through discussions of theories and examples. The book is concise and easy to understand, at the same it challenges readers by asking them to thoroughly exame each concept included in the book. Absolutely fantastic - a great leisure time book for the intelligent.

This is a much wellcomed edition of the popular 1st edition. There are many ways to learn/teach organizational theory. If you are a manager or are on your way to become a better and a more effective one, you must be apt to interpret whatever surrounds you in your organization. There are many possible perspectives or lenses from which you may view or analyze what is going on in your organization. Applying more than one multiplies your effectiveness as many times fold. Your organizational life will not be the same after reading this book. And this is just the begining. The same author's Imagin.i.zation expands even more your effectiveness. Other books like Bolman&Deal's Reframing organizations (second edition) serve to give you more lenses through which you may see and analyze your reality that surrounds you everyday. Harmon and Mayer's book on Organizational Theory for Public Administration gives you six more lenses if you are interested in public administration, although Morgan's and Bolman&Deal's also apply as well. My students at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru'MBA program are witness of their more than 20 times as much effectiveness they have adquired in their working lives through exposure to these and other perspectives or lenses. For ways to teach with these frames to practicing managers or other questions, you may contact me at: jlcossio@ec-red.com

The book covers, in depth, every topic needed to understand the complex nature of organisations and how they work.

Each chapter is very well constructed and makes for easy reading, and the finding of information is made easy too.

Excellent comparisons between different theorists and well referenced.

Well worth a copy if studying for any Business discipline.

I bought this book for my Public Administration Grad class. Great book, a bit heavy at times, but all around a good purchase

The book is not an entry level textbook and does not waste any time getting to the points. It challenges you to think differently about the forces that influence today's organizations and managers. Using metaphors to explain concepts and practices it is easy to understand the material and apply it to any organization, manager, or employee. I did not give the book five stars because it was published in 1998 and so much has changed due to the internet.

This is a business book for an English major! No really, if you like to think metaphorically, you will enjoy this book because it gives several models for understanding organizations. The organization as an organism, as a brain, as a physic prison, etc....

At the end of each chapter, the author summarizes and then states the limitations and advantages of each metaphor. The final chapters are devoted to applying these approaches to real examples. As far as business books go, I found this one very interesting and more holistic than most. Maybe that's because I was an English major.

I found this book to be insightful and very useful in administrative organization analysis. It was a useful tool in developing a change management program for a public organization.

I received my book the day after I ordered it and it was in excellent condition. I will order from the store again.