Metaphors of Organization: Exploring different perspectives

The Eight Metaphors of Organization

Discuss about the Organizational Behavior and Design.

According to Örtenblad, Putnam & Trehan (2016), Gareth Morgan has drawn ‘Images of Organization’ as consisting of eight different metaphors like the organization as machine, as organism, as brain, as political system, as culture, as psychic prison, as instrument of domination and as system of change & flux. Hence, according to Gareth Morgan, the eight different metaphors serves the different purpose and are, therefore, appears important from the organizational perspective. At some point in time, ‘system of change & flux’ appears as much relevant to organizations. It is because the change process is integral to organizational practices. On the other side, the political system appears as integral to organizations. It is, therefore, very difficult and challenging as well to state that political system alone will do the entire thing and also that leaders are just needed to be politically effective to become the effective leaders. The study tries to investigate whether being politically effective is only the thing that leaders should be well versed with or else. The study progresses by making some argument against the essay topic.

As argued by Stowell (2014), the working of organizations has been clarified utilizing the worldview that an organization works as a machine. If someone does not agree with the fact then it is advisable to read the facts and those facts will come as the surprises. It is because the individual would have utilized some of its terminologies at the place the individual work. As per this metaphor, when things are going great, the 'machine' is 'very much oiled', 'running predictably'. However, when troubles arise, the needs to fix the issue are felt. These behaviors just indicate the dependency on machines for data. Organizations are desperate with the data and that they intend to attain through every possible means like the inception of a new technology. 

The organization as Machines works as long as 'inputs' and 'outputs' and individuals are attached to a wheel. In this metaphor, hierarchical advancement is tied in with 'maximizing production' and 'efficiency’ as the main drive. It can be said that the spotlight was never again on finding the 'right man' for the job, however on preparing each man for any job. In the past, man has been first; however, machines in the future (Kemp, 2016).

In fact, this mechanical state of mind is so profoundly ingrained by the way organizations are conceptualized that it's hard to sort out things in an unexpected way. In any case, these regular thoughts regarding organizations and management are based on conventional ideas of management and organizations. Those ideas can be traced to the beginning of the last century. This approach may work in specific circumstances; however, it has turned out to be less effective when complex change and transformation process is dealt with. There are different complexities of organizational learning and adaptation which are not considered useful in the 'machine' metaphor (McCabe, 2016). However, it is also evident that only political metaphor is not just associated with organizations.

In the opinion of Leybourne, Lynn & Thanning Vendelø (2014), systems evolve naturally in unpredictable ways because of an extensive variety of stimuli and through various interactions. From this point of view, organizational development and building limit is less resembling machine building and more much the same as shaping and affecting the procedures. Such procedures are driven by contextual factors including legislative issues, social status, values and practices. The organizational context in which individuals work is portrayed by various features, for example, the leadership style, the structure, the prizes, communication subsumed under the general ideas of organizational climate and culture. It is an ideal opportunity to investigate new metaphors; alternative pictures that will help make better approaches to thinking about organizations. Organizations as a whole are not just the system of politics or are run by competing influences. These appear as if keeping a high amount of metaphors which are not just confined to one of few of metaphors. There are more others as well.

The jump from "world" to "organization" warrants a couple of remarks, as clearly they are not one and the same. However, one can think about the organization as a microcosm of the social world where diverse gatherings of individuals from various styles of life interact with each other to get the things done. Progressively, the limits amongst world and organizations are obscuring. Hence, this highlights the importance of socially diverse groups existing in organizations (Haslam, Cornelissen & Werner, 2017). It means that the different groups representing the diverse cultures are also important. This can also be understood from Morgan’s ‘Images of Organization’ where Morgan finds the culture as one of the metaphors of organizations. The statement of this essay that political metaphor is only important and that leaders need to be well versed with politically influenced skills does not hold true as culture is also important. Cultural values are increasingly becoming associated with organizations. In fact, modern-day organizations are concerned with diverse cultures and are in regular hunts for strategies to mitigate the conflicts of culture. Efforts are given to minimize the cultural differences to the possible degrees to attain uniformity in the work (Jackson, 2016).

This can be said that culture is also important and that organizations are in regular practice to minimize the cultural differences. They are promoting the diverse culture not due to their eagerness for it but to attract the talented and skilled professionals. Notably, skilled professionals do not just belong to one community but rather they are expanded to wider communities. Hence, organizations exist within the workforce which is culturally diverse. Such a diverse workforce needs the leaders who are well versed with skills to sort out the cultural differences. Leaders must be well equipped with characteristics and qualities which could help in uniting the diverse workforce. To become a competitive organization, it is very important to encourage innovation and creativity (Young & Lecy, 2014). Innovation and creativity require employees having the diverse skills. The required diverse skills may or may not belong to one community. As opined by K. Smollan (2014), with the expanding recognition of the symbolic aspects of organizational settings, those keen on studying organizations have utilized the idea of culture to understand the existence of organizational presence and life. It is nothing unexpected that the idea of culture, which attempts to clarify the examples and precision of our life experiences, has also invaded the organizational world.

The Limitation of the 'Machine' Metaphor

Then again, the orientation of "culture as metaphor" centers around the symbolic meanings related with the cultural structures. For example, customs, physical conditions, and various leveled structures, to name of few. Culture is a focal point through which analysts see the organization. It advances a perspective of organizations as a specific type of human expression (George, Whitehouse & Whitehouse, 2016). For example, globalization has encouraged the association of diverse cultures serving the different needs. Today, trades are done freely across the borders to receive and provide the diverse resources like physical, human and financial. Employees can be moved to other companies as a result of strategic alliances. This clearly indicates a probability of working of different cultures together. These are just a few examples of cultural diversity which have become accustomed to modern organizations. An independent business is possible but at a very shorter level. Business operating in the number of regions bound to have the cultural diversity as one of their essential organizational parts (Coulson et al., 2015). This is, therefore, may be unjustified to say that the political system is only important to organizations. Management is constrained to empowering or forming values, beliefs, language and norms. This is most successfully achieved through a reliable arrangement of the organization's activities with the leadership's actions. In short, leadership ought to exhibit that culture regularly has a political measurement as a development of reality that includes a hidden motivation and an inclination to a political flavor. In the event that there is hidden motivation they can be confusing and hindering to the balance of the organization (Avison et al., 2014).

It is important for leaders to identify that what cultural metaphors are suitable for the concern organizational setting. It is indeed very critical to identify the suitable cultural metaphor and make decisions. For example, the cultural metaphor will be differently required for two separate firms such as the sports team and a musical group. Sports teams are needed to balance their skills with the demands of the audience. It is, therefore, important for leaders such as the coach to identify the diverse skills and utilize all those to perfection. This is needed to perform and live up to the expectations of supporters and the audience. On the other hand, a musical group is not just required to use their diverse skills. They rather need to be creative to find out the innovative aspects of diverse skills and fulfill the changing demands of the target audience. Hence, just being a musician will probably not work. The musician will probably need to add varieties to its skills, so that, the audience is able to see the differences. The musical group thus follow a flexible cultural metaphor. Nevertheless, organizations that are creative do all follow a flexible cultural metaphor as to serve the increasingly growing demands of customers. Business such as SAP and Microsoft do follow the same cultural metaphor as that followed by a musical group (Case & Gaggiotti, 2016). These all just indicates that leaders are not just required to be well equipped with political metaphors but also with the cultural metaphors.  

The Importance of Cultural Metaphors in Managing Diverse Employees

Organisations as living organisms are another metaphor that influences the organizational practices. The management and the leaders need to have the requisite set of skills to adapt to the environment where the business operates into. The importance of acquaintance with the living organisms has increased in contemporary times. People are increasingly growing with their awareness on environmental aspects. This is why they expect organizations fulfilling their needs of the environment. For example, the greenhouse gas emission is a serious environmental issue. Organizations across the globe have struggled so far to mitigate the threats. They lack the solid counter of environment pollution. It, therefore, appears as if leaders must also have a counter to environmental threats in the form of suitable strategies and technologies. It also put forward a fact that leaders cannot just survive with their knowledge of political systems. They should rather have a multi-faceted knowledge which also covers the knowledge of living organisms (Cheng & Ho, 2017).

Organization as a brain is focussed on storing, processing and sharing of information and knowledge. Information is generated in the form of data and is attained from different resources. Leaders have a role to play here as they can promote a culture of knowledge management within the organization. However, they should also know about the information which is important from the organizational perspective. This is why it is imperative that leaders are also equipped and well versed with the organization as a brain (Hilligoss, 2014).

Organization as a psychic prison is a set of skills that leaders have and they use it to manage the competing tensions and powers. There are instances when leaders implement a strategy and seem like getting supports from every single employee. However, once it progresses they seem to land into a number of troubles due to the competing tensions among the workforce. This is where leaders are tested for their skills to sort out the competing tensions and utilize the resources appropriately (Greve, 2015).

Organization as a system of change and flux is a set of occasions where change is required. Changes can be both smaller and bigger; however, it is up to the leaders to be able to identify the needs for the change. Leaders will again be required to be well versed with the skills to sense the needs for change. Therefore, organizations as a system of change and flux are also a part of organizational practices (Kopnina, 2016).

Cultural Differences as an Organizational Part

Conclusion

In summary, this can be said that the political system is essential to organizations and that leaders need to be well versed with skills to deal with the political challenges. However, organizations do not just mean the system of politics but are rather expanded to other metaphors as well. It is also very difficult to find a dominating metaphor of organization. It rather can be said that leaders need to have the diverse skills to deal with the different metaphors of organizations.  

References

Avison, D. E., Gaur, A., Malaurent, J., Mousavi, R., & Shaik, Z. (2014). Reflections on writing with others: The use of metaphors to describe and develop writing relationships. In CONF-IRM (p. 25).

Case, P., & Gaggiotti, H. (2016). Italo Calvino and the organizational imagination: Reading social organization through urban metaphors. Culture and Organization, 22(2), 178-198.

Cheng, W., & Ho, J. (2017). A corpus study of bank financial analyst reports: Semantic fields and metaphors. International journal of business communication, 54(3), 258-282.

Coulson, A. B., Adams, C. A., Nugent, M. N., & Haynes, K. (2015). Exploring metaphors of capitals and the framing of multiple capitals: Challenges and opportunities for< IR>. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 6(3), 290-314.

George, D. R., Whitehouse, E. R., & Whitehouse, P. J. (2016). Asking more of our metaphors: narrative strategies to end the “war on Alzheimer's” and humanize cognitive aging. The American Journal of Bioethics, 16(10), 22-24.

Greve, L. (2015). Knowledge Sharing is Knowledge Creation: An Intervention Study of Metaphors for Knowledge. Journal of Organizational Knowledge Communication, 2(1), 66-80.

Haslam, S. A., Cornelissen, J. P., & Werner, M. D. (2017). Metatheories and metaphors of organizational identity: integrating social constructionist, social identity, and social actor perspectives within a social interactionist model. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(3), 318-336.

Hilligoss, B. (2014). Selling patients and other metaphors: A discourse analysis of the interpretive frames that shape emergency department admission handoffs. Social Science & Medicine, 102, 119-128.

Jackson, S. (2016). Understanding IS/IT implementation through metaphors: A multi-metaphor stakeholder analysis in an educational setting. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 1039-1051.

Smollan, R. (2014). The emotional dimensions of metaphors of change. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 29(7), 794-807.

Kemp, L. J. (2016). ‘Trapped’by metaphors for organizations: Thinking and seeing women’s equality and inequality. human relations, 69(4), 975-1000.

Kopnina, H. (2016). Metaphors of nature and development: reflection on critical course of sustainable business. Environmental Education Research, 22(4), 571-589.

Leybourne, S., Lynn, G., & Thanning Vendelø, M. (2014). Forms, metaphors, and themes: an introduction to the special issue on organizational improvisation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 23(4), 353-358.

McCabe, D. (2016). ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’: Organizations as Wonderland–a metaphorical alternative to the rational model. human relations, 69(4), 945-973.

Örtenblad, A., Putnam, L. L., & Trehan, K. (2016). Beyond Morgan’s eight metaphors: Adding to and developing organization theory. Human Relations, 69(4), 875-889.

Stowell, F. (2014). Organisational power and the metaphor commodity. International Journal of Systems and Society (IJSS), 1(1), 12-20.

Young, D. R., & Lecy, J. D. (2014). Defining the universe of social enterprise: Competing metaphors. Voluntas: international journal of voluntary and nonprofit organizations, 25(5), 1307-1332.