Images of Organization -- The Executive Edition / Edition 1

by Gareth Morgan

Overview

This pioneering work is based on a simple premise with profound implications: All organization and management theories are based on images, or metaphors, with paradoxical effects: they can create profound insights but also great distortions. With this seminal work, Gareth Morgan shows how managers can broaden and deepen their understanding of organization and organizational problems, and use powerful new metaphors to shape new ways of working.
The first book to offer a concrete method for integrating the strengths and overcoming the weaknesses of competing management perspectives, Images of Organization has established itself as a classic and has influenced management thinking throughout the world. This new edition retains all the vitality of the original and has been updated to integrate significant research of the last decade. It has also been abridged and revised to increase its accessibility and usefulness for today’s managers. This essential volume provides the kind of organizational "radar" system managers need to negotiate the demands of the 21st century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781576750384
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	06/06/1998
Edition description:	ABR
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Gareth Morgan is the author of seven books, including Imaginization, and has worked throughout Europe and North America with such companies as Continental AG, GE, Hewlett-Packard, Northern Telecom, Royal Bank of Canada, Shell, and Volkswagen. He is Distinguished Research Professor at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto.

Table of Contents

List of Exhibits
Preface to the Executive Edition

Part I: An Overview
1. The Promise of Images of Organization

Part II: Some Images of Organization
2. Mechanization Takes Command: Organizations as Machines
3. Nature Intervenes: Organizations as Organisms
4: Learning and Self-Organization: Organizations as Brains
5. Creating Social Reality: Organizations as Cultures
6. Interests, Conflict and Power: Organizations as Political Systems
7. Exploring Plato's Cave: Organizations as Psychic Metaphor
8. Unfolding Logic's of Change: Organizations as Flux and Change
9. The Ugly Face: Organizations as Instruments of Domination

Part III: Implications of Practice
10. Reading and Shaping Organization
11. Using Metaphor to Manage in a Turbulent World
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"A fine, well-thumbed friend returns reborn and refreshed. No one who cares about organizations should miss this living classic."
—Curt Lindberg, President, VHA of New Jersey

"We are moving from the world of traditional organizing forms into a new and uncharted world. If I were to choose one guidebook for exploring both worlds, I'd choose Images of Organization. It will help practitioners and leaders multiply their abilities to see, understand, and redesign organizations to fit today's extraordinary challenges."
—Bill Veltrop, Founder, International Center for Organizational Design

"An intellectual tour de force . . . a major contribution to the literature."
—Journal of Occupational Psychology

From the Publisher

Shows how managers can broaden and deepen their understanding of organization and organizational problems and use powerful new metaphors to shape new ways of working. Reveals that all organization and management theories are based on images, or metaphors, that can create profound insights as well as great distortions, and demonstrates how to integrate the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of competing management perspectives. This edition incorporates research of the past decade, and is abridged to increase its accessibility to today's managers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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