Gareth Morgan in Images of Organizations (1998) argues that theories of organization and management are based on implicit metaphors which play a paradoxical role: they are essential in helping our understanding of certain aspects of the organization while they hinder comprehension by occluding or disguising other aspects in the organization. Morgan exemplifies his views by exploring eight archetypical metaphors of organizations: machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, flux and transformation and instruments of domination.
As part of this assignment you will introduce the analysis and application of Morgan’s metaphors to 2 different human service organizations of your choice. These may be organizations you work for or case studies of your own research. As with the previous assignments, this is not meant to be an auto biographical account of your views of a given organization, but an academic analysis of theory applied to real-life cases. As part of your analysis, you will:
a) briefly describe the organization, its mission and purpose and a short history;
b) using the conceptual model presented in Morgan (2006) you will describe how the metaphor(s) apply to the organization’s overall functioning and assist you in diagnosing problems:
c) describe which other aspects are hindered in the organization by applying operating under the metaphor; d) explore alternative metaphors that could create new ways of thinking about the organization, and e) support or illustrate your points by using references extracted from the research literature.
Sample Solution
