Metaphors of organizations
There are many different theories of organizations. However, all of these theories “are based on implicit images or metaphors that lead us to see, understand, and manage organizations in distinctive yet partial ways.”[1]. The abundant metaphors in the literature are definite evidence.
For instance, organizations such as coalitions of individuals contracting with each other[2]; verbal systems[3]; psychic prisons, political systems, and instruments of domination[4], to name but a few,
The notion of “organization” can be distinguished from the notion of “institution” understood as rules of structuration of interaction processes created by people, whereas “organization” is a social group aimed at achieving goals in an organized way[5].
Moreover, a social organization is considered to be a relatively permanent system of diverse and coordinated activities of people, using a set of human, capital, ideological, and natural resources, interacting with other systems of human activity and resources of the environment[6]. A social system understood as an organization can be described as:
· Morphology, i.e. the internal structure of these social constructs,
· A structure co-created by its constituents linked with different relationships,
· A unique system of positions and functions performed by its elements,
· A hierarchy characteristic of the given system,
· A value system,
· An ability to make active and passive adaptations, related to social practice[7].
In the light of management science, organizations can be perceived as isolated from the environment, internally ordered and correlated sets of elements. The way they are ordered and correlated determines the organizational structure, thanks to which a given set of elements can function as a coherent whole, or a system[8].
According to A. Komiski, “Organizations are created and developed by people. They do it to ensure that the goals, tasks, and functions assumed are performed. People not only create organizations, they are their material. Correlated units and groups pursuing certain goals and performing tasks together form the social subsystem of an organization.
Participants occupying different positions within the formal structure usually use different technical devices and techniques of acting. The formal structure, machines, devices, and acting techniques form the technical subsystem of an organization. Almost all modern organizations (involved in production, teaching, providing medical treatment, and dealing with defense or administration) are thus complex social and technical systems”[9].
Ch. Bernard defines this phenomenon as a system of consciously coordinated activities by two or more people[10]. H. A. Simon believes that coordination of the course of activities, establishing precise boundaries of power, and the sphere of activity and power of each organization member create a formal organization and constitute abstraction and more or less permanent relationships having the dominant influence on the behavior of every employee[11].
G. Hofstede describes an organization as a social system by nature different from the state, if only in the fact that its members were not raised in it. Being a member of a given organization is, to a greater or lesser extent, a matter of choice [12].
Organizational metaphors serve as something more than pure theoretical constructs. Metaphors allow us to link our experiences in different areas, which helps us understand various concepts in different ways. Morgan[13] wrote that metaphors “generate an image for studying a subject”. They are principally a way of conceiving one thing in terms of another[14].
A metaphorical analysis is now common in the discourse of management science, and it is extensively used both as a tool for the creation of organizational theories and culture, and for their analysis, diagnosis, and management[15].
In his book, G. Morgan presented the possibilities of using metaphors in research into the problems of organizations and management.
The following metaphors have been described based on several sources: Morgan G., Images of Organization, Sage, 1986/1997; Boyd S., Metaphors Matter: Talking About How We Talk About Organizations, <research.gigaom.com>; Cichocki P., Irwin C., Organization Design: A Guide to Building Effective Organizations, Kogan Page Limited, 2011.
Organization as a machine
The default modern notion of business is derived from the industrial model of centralized control and subdivided work and the roles of all-knowing bureaucratic management, which spell out the work that the laborers perform. Reduces the organization to a form of engineering, with management as the engineers and the dehumanization of the workers as cogs to construct the “one best way” to function.
Associated concepts
Efficiency, waste, maintenance, order, clockwork, cogs in a wheel, programs, inputs and outputs, standardization, production, measurement and control, design
Organization as an organism
The naturalistic view is that an organization is similar to a living thing that seeks to adapt and survive in a changing environment. Useful when management is confronted with circumstances that they believe require organizational change. And the greater metaphor of competition for scarce resources against other organisms in a Darwinian struggle fits other cultural norms and justifies certain attitudes, like openly aggressive behavioral norms.
Associated concepts
Living systems, environmental conditions, adaptation, life cycles, recycling, needs, homeostasis, evolution, survival of the fittest, health, illness
Organization as a brain
emphasizes learning over other activities, lines up with the perspective that places information processing at the center of organizational action, and accords with practices like Total Quality Management and Kaizen.
Associated concepts
Learning, parallel information processing, distributed control, mindsets, intelligence, feedback, requisite variety, knowledge, networks
Organization as a culture
Organizations possess their values, rituals, ideologies, and beliefs. They can be collections of semi-independent and contending subcultures, or uniform and homogeneous. Organizational cultures can also be seen as contiguous with ethnic, national, or regional cultures, inheriting some values and beliefs. A great deal of the application of this metaphor in the business setting can be seen as an attempt to impose a specific and clearly-articulated set of norms that are intended to proscribe and define the culture and to indoctrinate employees as a means to direct their behavior. This discussion will be expounded upon below, as it is particularly relevant to various recent discussions.
Associated concepts
Society, values, beliefs, laws, ideology, rituals, diversity, traditions, history, service, shared vision, and mission, understanding, qualities, and families
Organization as a political system
In this perspective, the interplay of various factions is viewed as a political contest for power and dominance. In this model, effective managers are skilled politicians who balance competing interests and apply their power for the benefit of their constituencies and political factions. Organizations can be identified as autocracies, bureaucracies, technocracies, or democracies. This view boils down all striving tobeg self- and group-interest-oriented and justifies conflict and factionalism as inevitable and maybe even advantageous.
Interests and rights, power, hidden agendas and backroom deals, authority, alliances, party line, censorship, gatekeepers, leaders, conflict management
Organization as a psychic prison
This metaphor plays up the perspective that the natural impulses of humans as social animals are never far below the surface, like sexual attraction, anxieties, fear, obsessions, and dependencies. As a result, the psychic makeup of the powerful can come to dominate the organization’s dynamics and competencies.
Conscious and unconscious processes, repression and regression, ego, denial, projection, coping and defense mechanisms, pain and pleasure principle, dysfunction, and workaholism
Organization as flux and transformation
This understanding is derived from the growing understanding of complexity and chaos and casts the organization as a nexus for these phenomena. This approach considers the feedback loops within a system as opposed to characterizing linear relationships and causal chains. While this can be an attractive set of ideas for theorists, it doesn’t provide a foundation for management to push from.
Associated concepts
Constant change, dynamic equilibrium, flow, self-organization, systemic wisdom, attractors, chaos, complexity, the butterfly effect, emergent properties, dialectics, and paradox
Organization as instruments of domination
Here, organizations are portrayed as actors that exploit people, the natural environment, and the global economy for the benefit of the organization. This is the canonical evil corporation of film and literature, exploiting seemingly rational and even legal processes to control the world, or as much of it as it can wrest away from others.
Associated concepts
Alienation, repression, imposing values, compliance, charisma, maintenance of power, force, exploitation, divide and rule, discrimination, corporate interest
Metaphors and analogies are used constantly to help us make sense of organizations
Both metaphors and analogies are used constantly to help us make sense of organizations and businesses. They shape our understanding of organizations and mental models of organizational reality. By using metaphors, managers both explain and try to understand certain phenomena based on their precedented experience of different phenomena, or,,in Morgan’s words, “to understand one element of experience in terms of another”[16]. Metaphors can assist managers with making more effective decisions and choices in their daily work and also help inspire and motivate employees.
They influence employees’ beliefs, values, and attitudes by providing unconscious emotional associations with words or phrases that they equate with being good or bad (Charteris-Black). Charteris-Black defined this as “a linguistic representation that results from the shift in the use of a word or phrase from the context or domain in which it is expected to occur to another context or domain where it is not expected to occur, thereby causing semantic tension”[17].
According to Morgan[18], the power of metaphors lies in their ability to frame complex concepts. They can be applied to diagnose and treat numerous organizational problems (Grant & Oswick). When applied to existing or new phenomena, they can uncover complex behavioral patterns[19]. Metaphor helps managers by giving clarity to complex organizational issues[20].
Morgan[21] believes that effective managers can then become more skilled at understanding the situations in the organizations they manage. Metaphors facilitate communication. If managers understand the power of metaphors and use them as foundations in the process of studying organizations, their understanding of them will automatically increase[22].
It is, however, argued that organizational theory is dominated by perspectives that view organizations as machines or organizms[23]. Just like all metaphors, every one of these is “the tip of a submerged model”[24] which carries with it (metaphorically) a weight of symbolism and associations, which can be problematic within the wider pursuit of organizational growth.
M. Wheatley[25] explains that organizations should be understood less as machines and more as organic and living entities. She believes that the right metaphors should be drawn from quantum mechanics rather than classical Newtonian physics. One of the central contrasts ,in this case ,is the emphasis on global and not fragmentary understanding. Paradigms are understood as a whole, and weight is attached to relationships within systems.
As Wheatley notes, “When we look at operational paradigms from this perspective, we enter a field of completely new organizational science, the science of miracles,,, thacannot be reduced to a simple juxtaposition of circumstances and outcomes or examining individual elements of the system separately. We move to the area where stable principles of procedures and the process of determining them as a set of cultural practices and forms are of significance.”
In the modern understanding of organizations within different systems, there are relative foundations for many types of results; however, specific circumstances are dynamic and changeable. Indicator-based management and cause-and-effect logic might seem trustworthy on diagrams and graphs, but in the reality of fluctuating human relationships, they can turn out to be quite dangerous.
Organizations perceive themselves as networks of connections, quickly adapting to risks and opportunities. The role of leaders is to create administrative structures that enhance and streamline the operations of organizations without corporate mediators. Project teams take quick decisions based on new data. The system is the means and not the end, while the management only focuses on facilitating the process and not on achieving the goals set.
Metaphors of organization criticism
In-depth criticism is more and more frequent, focusing on the typical model of an organization and basing it on the metaphor of a machine, within which workers function as small cogs in the great machine of power. Maintaining structures and paradigms of work in stable systems is a difficult and costly task in a highly changeable world. Talented individuals are discouraged from unconventional actions, which means ignoring the whole knowledge accumulated in their heads.
The machine metaphor draws upon 19th-century understandings of classical mechanics as well as Taylor’s formulation of scientific management[26]. According to the machine metaphor, organizations more often than not act according to rational economic principles and also have a hierarchy in their organizational structure.
Besides that, the substantive goal is to increase wealth and the productivity of employees considered mechanical parts within the organization. Another attribute is that the failure of a function is considered the failure or malfunctioning of a part. In this setup, the pursuit of efficiency is supreme. Normally, the external environment is ignored as the organization is essentially closed[27].
If it becomes accepted that metaphors eventually do influence perception and action[28] then our thinking concerning organizations through the use of the machine metaphor is infused with a particular mode. This mode perpetuates ‘othering’ and dehumanization. First and foremost, the metaphor requires us to consider and act as if humans within the organization are only functional components, whose utility is only extended in so far as they enable the continued operation of the organization. If the components are defective, those parts must be replaced.
On top of that, the machine metaphor’s implications of hierarchy create a type of separation between the users of the metaphor and those to whom it is being applied, usually referred to as the functional components. Accordingly, the metaphor not only separates but also fails to consider the whole human person beyond their function. The truth is that the human is a cog in the machine and a resource that has capabilities that need to be exploited for the good of the particular organization.
This theory thus fails to enable sustainable development and the entire narrative of humans and humanity that is implicit in the concept. Secondly, the metaphor debatably perpetuates a synecdoche whereby the organization becomes the focus of concern while making the user create a focus on the abstract, the organization. In effect, rather than a particular set of individuals who are applying a metaphor, with their concerns being paramount, through their application of the metaphor,,the synecdoche instead moves the organization “to being the subject and thus dehumanizes both the users of the metaphor and also reinforces the dehumanization of those operating within the organization.” In this view, the metaphor perpetuates individuals taking an egocentric view of the world, in which the concern is the continued operation of the organization.
Given this argument, the narrative perpetuated is organizational and not human. By using the metaphor, one can find themselves trapped in defining everything relative to the organization as the subject rather than the humans as the subject, a result that is tot compatible with the Sustainable Development concept.
In summary, a metaphor that perpetuates a mode where the organization is the locus of concern and the human members of an organization are mechanical parts facilitates a form of slipperiness that dehumanizes both ourselves (we are now parts) and our social constructions (organizations). It separates us from our organizations and thus detracts from our ordinary definitions of organizations that strengthen the central role of humans.
Consequently, this slipperiness perpetuates the epistemology that an organization is a separate subject, and as such, the epistemology that an organization and its environment are separate categories[29]. Therefore, the machine metaphor either wittingly or unwittingly perpetuates an epistemology that separates, de-emphasizes, and dehumanizes us while simultaneously emphasizing organizations, a result that is not conducive to organizational growth and development.
A note of optimism here is that the metaphor is simple to convey and enables a focus on efficiency, which is potentially useful[30]. Nevertheless, this metaphor was developed in the 19th century, with all the social class, conflict, and consciousness of those days.
Moving on, the twentieth century was the era of the development of production technology, which had a considerable influence on society and defined the logic of business and various types of organizations. Similarly, there is a dominance of information technology in the twenty-first century. This modern development of information technology affects our methods of communication.
One can see a change in the conditions of organizations and business as far as the production of goods and services are concerned. This development has led to an increase in the interconnectivity and transparency between various sections of society – there is an improvement in the speed of transactions coupled with a reduction in the cost of information. This results in the empowerment of individuals.
Organizations have to use a combination of efficiency, flexibility, and innovation[31]. There is a demand for flexibility among organizations, resulting in the assembly of various forms at short notice. These organizations have a limited purpose and life[32]. Production of services and products in new configurations can be seen, and people should have the ability to use both external and internal resources to solve tasks. This has become very common now. Organizations and businesses are becoming more involved in value networks and business ecosystems. But they have limited control over these networks[33]. When we use the word ‘organization’ in this post, it includes a whole range of institutions and business entities, from traditional companies to temporary networks of actors.
Handing over control to people outside an organization is a challenge. The new organizational form has a different way of looking at things. It challenges the role of management and the value of experts. It also feels the need to have control over the customer experience and stresses the importance of quality assurance[34]. Hence,, the machine metaphor is not fully applicable in 21st-century managemnt,, characterized by co-participation, amorphous, and project-based organizational structures.
Morgan[35] is of the view that the use of metaphors is necessary to think about and understand the world. Organizational forms such as value networks, mass collaborations, multi-unit enterprises, and user contribution systems exhibit a lack of metaphors. It is a challenge for the management of contemporary organizations to manage complexity rather than reduce it.
Similarly to the machine metaphor, the organism metaphor as applied to organizational understanding faces plentiful difficulties. It is often not specified, for example, whether the organism is a person or a single-cell amoeba[36], either of which implies different actions and considerations. The major downside of the organism metaphor is that it implies that the organization is a form of life separate from its human constituents and hence needs to be considered alongside other forms of life in terms of survival, growth, decay, death, population ecology thinking, and Darwinian understanding[37].
Organism metaphors don’t need to be discussed explicitly. Consider the similarity between an organization and an organism: an organism has the goal of surviving despite all odds. Similarly, you can infer that the organization is a form of life, with the goal of the organization being to survive[38]. This implies that the organization is a separate entity from its human constituents. The human constituents are merely facilitators or detractors of the continued survival of the organization[39]. In stark similarity with the machine metaphor, the organism metaphor causes an engagement in slipperiness, dehumanizing our social constructions and ourselves and raising the organization as the focus of concern. The organization takes primacy over the humans, and thus the metaphor does not enable the pursuit of sustainable development.
In cases where metaphors help constitute reality, they exhibit a unique power in guiding action. Hence, their application is likely to result in actions fitting the metaphor to make the 16 experiences coherent[40]. Hence, organizations function as machines and organisms. The metaphors imply that we dehumanize the individuals in the organizations and treat them as functional components. This makes us detach from the organization and makes the organization a subject and focus of concern, and it is the metaphors that ask us to do this.
Thus, when we apply the metaphor of machines and organisms to organizational phenomena, we encourage the dehumanization of some members of the organization and view them as components rather than fellow humans. We view them as machine parts whose function is to serve the organization’s needs instead of as human beings whose value is greater than their utility. When we use these metaphors, we promote organizations as the locus of concern and treat them as separate subjects. This is known as ‘egocentrism’. We define issues about the organization and its continued operation[41]. These two outcomes have a strong impact, and the use of these metaphors makes us move away from the aspect of humanistic management.
One of the many metaphors used involved comparing an organization to culture, which, according to the author, was one of the most appropriate and creative references.
In semantic terms, the organization as a culture emphasizes the element of creating a social reality within itself and its operations. According to the Morganian understanding, culture was a metaphor for the organization itself.
As cultural phenomena, the nature of which involves the cultural context of an environment, organizations create a culture and include subcultures expressing their complexity.
Despite the evolution of various organizational forms, there has been little change in the existing principles of management[42].
Modern management principles rest on the foundations of Fayol, Taylor, and Weber, as follows.
· Their main aim is stability.
· Analyses can be made by reducing things to smaller parts.
The cause-and-effect mechanism between individual parts can be studied.
In the past, managers have used easy language to solve simple, static problems while facing challenges about the complex, dynamic realities of the current business environment. Senge[43] described this about twenty years ago.
Employees can use metaphors to describe the image they have of their organization. They give meaning to their organization[44] and can practically express their feelings, not always necessarily positive, in an illustrative and imaginary way. For instance, organizations dominated by a high level of internal competition become ‘battlefields’, or those where a specific climate of distrust and suspicion dominates become spy rings’ or ‘secret police forces’[45].
Working through metaphor can be extremely advantageous, as it has a symbolic and not a direct nature. Metaphor has the power to show the same situation from many angles and points, some very close and some quite distant. It can also provide a complete dictionary of words and phrases with which to describe a situation without using terms that would automatically provoke anger or anxiety[46]. In this case, it alleviates all the difficulty that exists in the direct expression of sensitive issues and, in many cases, brings out meanings, understandings, and analyses from deep in the unconscious[47].
Successful managers can read the organization from numerous angles[48]. If they are open and ready to learn, they can delay immediate judgment until they have a comprehensive view of the situation to create a whole new agenda of possibilities. Less efficient managers usually interpret their environment from a constant perspective. Thus, they are less effective as they encounter obstacles. Rigid managers are often trapped in their image of themselves and of the organization[49].
Metaphors are particularly useful for bringing clarity to situations dominated by ambiguity and vagueness. “The more ambiguous a situation is, the more important metaphors become for ordering the situation and making sense of our organizational experience”[50].
In these cases, metaphors help managers understand how certain unconscious factors influence individual and group decision-making processes. For example, managers can gain insight into time management concepts if they understand why people spend or do not spend time on certain activities[51]. Morgan noted that some activities at work can be highly valued because they are designed to leave a legacy. Individuals who need to leave a legacy can then be focused more on these activities. This helps leaders communicate effectively with subordinates.
Organizational metaphors influence researchers in the formulation of their theories. They also influence practitioners in shaping structures and processes. They work because of paradigmatic assumptions about the organizational reality[52], bringing them together in a self-contained and consistent analogy. Gareth Morgan[53] brought to light a range of eight metaphors of organization.
He used the same framework that is used for ordering in organizational science. He viewed organizations as machines and organisms, as well as brains and cultures, political systems, and psychic prisons, and viewed flux and transformation as instruments of domination. Other literary figures have repeatedly extended this set of organizational metaphors. We can take the example of the theater metaphor of Mangham and Overrington[54], or the jazz metaphor of Weick[55]. There have been subsequent debates around metaphors in organizational research, which have tended to concentrate on two main issues. The first is the fundamental question of the scientific status of the metaphor approach and its uses in organizational science[56]. The second issue does not have much dispute and focuses on the use of metaphors in the process of organizational change and transformation[57].
Metaphors have great use in the communication of broad, abstract concepts. These concepts include organizational mission and strategy. They are also useful in situations requiring innovative concepts and approaches[58]. Using metaphors in management increases the understanding of complicated and intangible concepts in alignment with simpler and tangible concepts.
An image can help in studying something, and metaphors help with this. These images can provide the basis for detailed scientific research. Research determines the extent to which you find the features of the metaphor in the subject of inquiry[59]. This enhances and amplifies the view of the organization, allowing members to become more enlightened about the impediments faced by the organization. They understand how the organization can become unburdened and more effective. Metaphors are complex by nature and can have multiple interpretations and implications. They require careful examination to understand the message they convey[60]. However, we should not forget the actual purpose of organizational metaphors.
They simplify the explanation of the workings of the enterprise. In doing so, they increase understanding by delimiting the mind. Thus, they encourage practitioners to think outside the box. One metaphor is enough to understand certain aspects of an organization. But it can be an imperfect understanding[61]. We included multiple images instead of allowing the dominance of a single perspective when reading organizations. Most organizations indeed require more than one metaphor to bring out the reality.
Even though the Morganian theory based on metaphors rejects classic principles of formal logic, according to which a given object cannot be itself and its opposite at the same time, the metaphorical approach agrees with the multidimensionality of organizations, which can be “a bit of everything”, e.g., a culture, an organism, and a brain. However, one should realize that metaphors cannot and should not be used completely freely.
Metaphorical thinking puts us on certain tracks, indicating hidden characteristics of the object studied while at the same time concealing certain aspects of the phenomenon.
Metaphors of organizations literature and bibliography
[1] Morgan G., Images of Organization, updated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco 2006, p. 4.
[2] Shafritz J.M., Ott J.S., Classics of Organization Theory, Brooks/Cole Publishing (3rd Edition), California 1992, citation: Cyert R.M., March J.G., A Behavioural Theory of Organisational Objectives in Modern Organisational Theory, Wiley, New York 1959, pp. 76-90; Polanyi K., The Great Transformation, House of Beacon Press (2nd edition, 1st edition 1957, book written in 1944), Boston 2001.
[3] Kornberger M., Clegg S.R., Carter C., Rethinking the polyphonic organization: Managing as a discursive practice, „Scandinavian Journal of Management”, No. 22, 2006, pp. 3-30, citation: Hazen M., Towards polyphonic organization, „Journal of Organizational Change Management”, 6 No. 5, 1993, pp. 15–26.
[4] Morgan G., Images of Organization, updated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco 2006.
[5] Marshall G. (ed.), Sownik socjologii i nauk spoecznych, PWN, Warszawa 2004, pp. 246, 379. In the light of anthropology, Hofstede agrees with this view, saying: Organization is a social system by nature different from the state, if only in the fact that its members were not raised in it. Being a member of a given organization is to a greater or lesser extent a matter of choice (…) one can resign from this membership”; Hofstede G., Hofstede G.J., Cultures, and Organizations Software of the Mind, Geert Hofstede BV, 2005, pp. 47–48.
[6] Dyoniziak R. i in., Społeczeństwo w procesie zmian. Zarys socjologii ogólnej, ZCO, Zielona Góra 1999, p. 91.
[7] Dyoniziak R. i in., Społeczeństwo w procesie zmian. Zarys socjologii ogólnej, ZCO, Zielona Góra 1999, p. 93.
[8] Koźmiński A.K., Piotrowski W. (ed.), Zarządzanie. Teoria i praktyka, PWN, Warszawa 2006, p. 52.
[9] Koźmiński A.K., Piotrowski W. (ed.), Zarządzanie. Teoria i praktyka, PWN, Warszawa 2006, p. 53.
[10] Bernard Ch., Funkcje kierownicze, Czytelnik, Kraków 1997, p. 96.
[11] Simon H.A., Działanie administracji. Podejmowanie decyzji w organizacjach administracyjnych, PWN, Warszawa 1976, p. 72.
[12] Simon H.A., Działanie administracji. Podejmowanie decyzji w organizacjach administracyjnych, PWN, Warszawa 1976, p. 48.
[13] Morgan G., Paradigms, metaphors and puzzle solving in organizational theory, „Administrative Science Quarterly”, No. 25, 1980, pp. 611.
[14] Lakoff G., Johnson M., Metaphors we live by, Chicago University Press, Chicago 1980; Lakoff G., Turner M., More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, „Chicago University Press”, Chicago 1989.
[15] Sułkowski Ł., Metafory, archetypy i paradoksy organizacji, „Organizacja i kierowanie”, No. 2, 2011.
[16] Morgan M., Models, [In] The Handbook of Economic Methodology, Davis J.B., Hands D.W., Mäki U. (eds.), Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 1998, s. 316–321.
[17] Charteris-Black J., The Persuasive Power of Metaphor, Palgrave MacMillan, Houndsmills, 2005, p. 14.
[18] Morgan G., Images of Organization, updated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2006.
[19] Grant D., Oswick (Eds.), Metaphor and Organizations, Sage, London 1996, pp. 213-226.
[20] Grant D., Oswick (Eds.), Metaphor and Organizations, Sage, London 1996, pp. 213-226.
[21] Morgan G., Images of Organization, updated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2006.
[22] Grant D., Oswick (Eds.), Metaphor and Organizations, Sage, London 1996, pp. 213-226.
[23] For example see: Cummings S., Thanem T., Essai: The Ghost in the Organism, „Organization Studies”, No. 23, 2002, pp. 817-839.; McAuley J., Duberle J., Johnson P., Organization Theory: Challenges and Perspectives, FT Prentice Hall, London 2007; Audebrand L. K., Sustainability in Strategic Management Education: The Quest for New Root Metaphors, „Academy of Management Learning & Education”, No. 9(3), 2010, pp. 413–428; Hatch M.J., Organizations: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press: Oxford Hawken 2011; Egri C.P., Pinfield L.T., Organizations, and the Biosphere: Ecologies and Environments, 1999, pp. 209-233; Shafritz J.M., Ott J.S., Classics of Organization Theory, Brooks/Cole Publishing (3rd Edition), California 1992; Spence C., Thomson I., Resonance tropes in corporate philanthropy discourse, „Business Ethics: A European Review”, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2009, pp. 372-388.; Kendall J.E., Kendall K.E., Metaphors & Methodologies: Living beyond the system’s machine, „MIS Quarterly”, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1993, pp. 149-171; Morgan G., Images of Organization, updated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco 2006.
[24] Cornelissen J.P., On the organizational identity metaphor, „British Journal of Management”, No. 13, 2002.
[25] Wheatley M.J., Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, Berret-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco 2006.
[26] Hatch M.J., Organizations: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press: Oxford Hawken 2011; Cornelissen J.P., Kafouros M., Metaphors and Theory Building in Organization Theory: What Determines the Impact of a Metaphor on Theory?, „British Journal of Management”, No. 19(4), 2008, pp. 365-379.
[27] Morgan G., Images of Organization, updated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco 2006; Cornelissen J.P., Kafouros M., Metaphors and Theory Building in Organization Theory: What Determines the Impact of a Metaphor on Theory?, „British Journal of Management”, No. 19(4), 2008, pp. 365-379; McAuley J., Duberle J., Johnson P., Organization Theory: Challenges and Perspectives, FT Prentice Hall, London 2007; Tinker T., Metaphor and reification: Are radical humanists really libertarian anarchists?, „Journal of Management Studies”, No. 25, 1986, pp. 363-384; Shafritz J.M., Ott J.S., Classics of Organization Theory, Brooks/Cole Publishing (3rd Edition), California 1992.
[28] For example, see Ford J., Ford L., The role of conversations in producing intentional change in organizations, „Academy of Management Review”, No. 20(3), 1995, 541–570; Tsoukas H., The Missing Link: A Transformational View of Metaphors in Organizational Science, „The Academy of Management Review”, No. 16(3), 1991; Tsoukas H., Analogical Reasoning and Knowledge Generation in Organization, „Theory Organization Studies”, No. 14(3), 1993; Burr V., Social constructionism, Routledge, London 2003.
[29] Gladwin T.N., Kennelly J.J., Krause T.S., Shifting Paradigms for Sustainable Development: Implications for Management Theory and Research, „Academy of Management Review”, Vol. 20, No.4, 1995, pp. 874-907.
[30] For example, Weizsacker E.V., Lovins A.B., Lovins L.H., Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use, Earthscan, London 1998; Hawken P., Lovins A., Hunter-Lovins L., Natural Capitalism, Little Brown and Company, New York 1999; Barter N., Bebbington J., Factor 4/10/20/130: A Briefing Note, „Social and Environmental Accounting Journal”, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2009, pp. 23-26.
[31] Sandberg J., Targama A., Managing Understanding in Organizations, Sage Publications, London 2007; Hamel G., The Future of Management, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston 2007; Cohen M., Commentary on the Organizational Science Special Issue on Complexity, „Organizational Science”, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999, pp. 373–376,
[32] Cohen M., Commentary on the organizational science special issue on complexity, „Organizational Science”, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999, pp. 373-376.
[33] Hamel G., The Future of Management, Harvard Business Press”, Boston, 2007.
[34] Tapscott D., Williams A., Wikinomics; How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Penguin Group, New York 2006; Cook S., The contribution revolution: letting volunteers build your business, „Harvard Business Review”, Vol. 86, No. 10, 2008, pp. 60-69.
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