Images of Organization (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Effective managers and professionals in all walks of life have to become skilled in the art of "reading" the situations they are attempting to organize..." (more)
Key Phrases: Third World, United States, Great Britain (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This volume updates what has become a true classic in management literature. Sprinkled with contemporary examples, it incorporates the most recent themes in cognitive approaches, chaos theory, self-organizing systems, and metaphor analysis. Retaining its provocative framework, it is essential reading for any scholar or practitioner who must act or seek to understand the paradoxes and shifting visions of organizational life." (Linda L. Putnam )

"A fine, well-thumbed friend returns reborn and refreshed. No one who cares about organizations should miss this living classic." (Curt Lindberg, President )

"The new edition of Images of Organization leads the reader smoothly into the most recent debate among organizational scholars while preserving the elegance of the first edition. The reader is freed from compulsory and totalizing accounts of organizational life." (Antonio Strati,Professor )

"Images of Organization is MUST READING for practitioners in the overlapping fields of organizational design, management, learning, and change. . . . In Images, metaphor becomes an extraordinarily accessible and pragmatic tool. Gareth Morgan challenges us to flex our innate capacity to imagine and create-to image and evolve. . . . He is one of the most thorough researchers and imaginative theorists in the domain of organization. This piece of work is rich with examples and down-to-earth frames. ENJOY!" (Bill Veltrop )

"Gareth Morgan's new edition of Images of Organization is a classic work that will stir the imagination of readers for years to come. I recommend this superb contribution with unreserved enthusiasm." (Danny Miller,Professor of Business Administration )

"Gareth Morgan has improved importantly on the new edition of Images of Organization. It contains many new ideas such as 'design principles' for creating learning in organizations. There are also fascinating suggestions for practitioners, challenging their assumptions and replacing them with ones that are more likely to lead to effective performance." (Chris Argyris, James Bryant Conant )

"There aren't enough superlatives to describe Images of Organization. I have used Gareth Morgan's first edition as the main text in my seminar on organizational studies for the creative insights it provides into the functioning of organizations. What was already a masterpiece is strengthened in its new edition. . . . Original, insightful, creative, meaningful, relevant, practical, scholarly, research-based. These descriptors only begin to describe this brilliant and challenging work." (Eugene W. Ratsoy,Professor of Educational Administration )

"Images of Organization provides powerful tools for understanding and analyzing organizations. The book forces us to extend our existing frames of reference. . . . The revisions to the first edition have been substantial." (Pratima Bansal,Assistant Professor )

"Images of Organization is an exciting book, demonstrating both the diverse perspectives and the limitations on our understanding of organizations. It is invaluable for teaching the future leaders of organizations." (Brian Nichol,Visiting Associate Professor )

"In Images of Organization, Gareth Morgan demonstrates an uncanny ability to visualize organizational processes. The metaphorical images he creates provide a deep understanding of what organizations are and, more important, what they can become. Each of his organizational metaphors is a richly woven blend of classic organizational theory and new, often radically different, ideas from many diverse arenas. Further, he goes beyond simply creating explanatory metaphors. He makes it clear that metaphorical thinking is at the heart of effectively managing organizations during times of turbulence and change. This book is a must read for all serious students of organization, theory, behavior, and change. Gareth Morgan ranks alongside James Thompson and others as the elite scholars in the field." (W. Edward Stead,Professor of Management )

"I have used Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization for many years. Morgan's approach to organizations is thought provoking. Students find the use of metaphors intriguing and insightful. Through the use of metaphors, Morgan provides students with a variety of lenses to view the world differently. He provides an interesting method for exploring organizations that standard course textbooks do not offer. Images works well as a course text or as a supplementary text." (Susan C. Aldridge, Director, Western Region )

"Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization and its companion, Creative Organization Theory, have changed the way I teach my course on organizations. My students really enjoy learning about organizations by discussing and debating the decision cases in Creative Organization Theory. The way Morgan uses images and metaphors stimulates students to 'reframe' and think about organizations in different ways. I have even found Morgan's images useful in helping me think about not just organizations but many other aspects of our social worlds." (David Hachen, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies )

Product Description

Images of Organization is unique in its aim to open dialogue and extend horizons; there are no right or wrong theories in management. This book explores and develops the art of reading and understanding organizational life. It is based on a very simple premise: that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that lead us to see, understand, and manage organizations in disctinctive yet partial ways. Each chapter invites you to engage in a mode of thinking that generates important insights while having major limitations.

Images of Organization has already established itself as a classic that has influenced management thinking throughout the world. This New Edition takes Gareth Morgan's achievement one step further, providing a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations. In this monumental work, leading-edge theory is translated into leading-edge practice. The New Edition carefully preserves the qualities and strengths of the original, while delivering new insights on today's managerial challenges. Morgan shows managers how to view their organizations by using his renowned creative images and metaphors.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc; 2nd edition (December 10, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761906347
• ISBN-13: 978-0761906346
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #633,209 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book can profoundly change your thinking about orgs, February 13, 2003

By	kybernetes "kybernetes" (Centreville, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This is not a "three steps to understanding organizations" type book. The people posting negative reviews for this were looking for something simple and digestable - this book is not that. However, if you take the time, you will find it profoundly alters your thinking about understanding organizations.

This book provides solid theoretical models for understanding what is occuring in organizations. I read this book over 10 years ago and STILL find it the second best and most enlightening thing I have ever read on organizations. This has dramatically aided me in being a very successful business consultant.

The foundation of this book is the notion that you cannot understand complex organizations in any meaningful way through a single perspective. People in the organizations operate on many different perspectives. Each view of the world creates its own understanding of the organizational problems, solutions and daily pattern of interaction. This book provides you the tools for understanding organizations through a number of key perspectives or metaphors, and gives you indications on how to perform a multi-perspective systems analysis.

If you spend the time with this book, you will find yourself able to understand your surroundings FAR better than your peers.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strengths and limitations of metaphors., November 8, 2000

By	Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Images of Organization: The Executive Edition (Paperback)

"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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Started out good, but got hard to follow., June 9, 2000

By	Christopher Ware (Fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is quite accessible to the reader. It's not dry like most textbooks, but talks about organizations in a straightforward manner. Morgan presents various ways of looking at organizations through the use of metaphors.

This is what made the book so good. Each chapter examines a different metaphor applied to organization. Metaphors such as "...as machines", and "...as brains" shed light on different aspects of organizations. What makes the book even better is that, in the summary of each chapter, Morgan also looks at the weaknesses of each metaphor, thus giving the reader a very thorough examination of the concept.

The reason I didn't give this book 4 stars was the fact that, later in the book, it got kind of hard to follow. By the time he got to "Organizations as Psychic Prisons", I was way out of my league. The chapters got convoluted and hard to understand. The chapter summaries ended up being half as long as the chapter itself. I just kind of gave up on some of them...they weren't helping me at all.

All in all, if you want to learn about how organizations work, this is a very good book, but be wary of the last third or so.