Images of Organization

Images of Organization by Morgan, Gareth. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780761906346.

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 internationally. 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. 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 internationally. 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 distinctive yet partial ways. Each chapter invites you to engage in a mode of thinking that generates important insights while having major limitations. *Now includes teaching notes accompany Images of Organization as well as Morgan′s Creative Organization Theory and Imaginization "Gareth Morgan, a respected academic, author, and business consultant, develops the theme that all theories are partial, illuminating one aspect of organization while leaving the others in shadow. Moreover, managers are not passive, objective observers of events; instead, they perceive situations through the lens of existing viewpoints, and their fragmentary interpretations then prompt actions. To alleviate this unavoidable self-construction of reality, Morgan urges alertness to the dilemma and awareness of alternative images (or metaphors). The metaphors are described in considerable detail in chapters on organization as machine, organism, brain, culture, political system, psychic prison, flux and transformation, and instrument of domination. In the process of explaining these metaphors, the author also provides a quite useful and comprehensive review of the literature on organizations. This book represents the key fact of organization theory over the past two decades: No theoretical perspective dominates the literature, so viewpoints must compete for attention in a marketplace of conceptual approaches. Though aimed at practitioners, students and teachers of organizational behavior will benefit from Morgan′s insightful, well-written book on the troublesome, too-often unrecognized, issue of seeing what we believe. Graduate level collections and above." --CHOICE "Images of Organization . . . is very important to health care, where the field is changing so quickly that one of the critical ingredients for organizational success is creativity. I have enjoyed reading (and rereading) both Imaginization and the new edition of Images of Organization." --Eric Williams,Assistant Professor, University of Missouri, Columbia "Images of Organization is an excellent resource to assist managers and other professionals in responding to rapidly changing work situations. This tool provides flexible, integrative processes to analyze our organizations in order to take those crucial next steps into the future." --Joanne McNicol,Training and Development Manager