Abstract
In this article, we review the metaphors presented by Morgan in Images of Organization and highlight how they simultaneously act as “relatively static reflections” (i.e., they provide a history of organization theory) and “relatively dynamic projections” (i.e., stimulating the formulation of further organizational images). We also discuss the potential for new organizational metaphors and consider two specific metaphors (i.e., the “global brain” and “organization as media”). We also challenge the established punctuated metaphorical process (i.e., a transfer from a metaphorical source domain to an organizational target domain), propose a dynamic perspective of interchange (i.e., source domain to target domain to source domain and so on), and develop the notion of multidirectionality (i.e., two-way projections between target and source domains).
Introduction
In his best-selling book, Images of Organization, Gareth Morgan (1986) set out what has subsequently become known as “the eight metaphors” (Morgan, 2011), namely, organizations as machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, systems of change and flux, and instruments of domination. In subsequent work, he has also considered organizations and organizing by reference to spider plants, termites, and blobs out of water (Morgan, 1993). His body of work on organizational metaphors (see, for example, Morgan, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1993, 1996, 2011) has had a significant impact on management thinking and the study of organizations (Grant & Oswick, 1996; Oswick, Keenoy, & Grant, 2002). It has informed and inspired literally thousands of academics, managers, and students over the past three decades. 1 Moreover, it has also stimulated the production of a vast array of metaphorical images, including thinking of organizations and organizing as analogous to, for example, theaters (Mangham & Overington, 1987), jazz improvisation (Zack, 2000), conversations (Broekstra, 1998), personalities (Oswick, Lowe, & Jones, 1996), identities (Cornelissen, 2002), polyphonies (Hazen, 1993), human entities (Kumra, 1996), military battlegrounds (Dunford & Palmer, 1996), and soap bubbles (Tsoukas, 1993).
Rather than offering a broad discussion of the role and status of metaphorical thinking in organizational analysis, this contribution focuses on Gareth Morgan’s perspective on metaphor and considers which particular metaphors have had significant purchase, which have endured, and whether any new and significant metaphors are emerging within the field. Given that we have known Professor Morgan for more than 20 years, and having written extensively on metaphor ourselves (see, for example, Grant & Oswick, 1996; Oswick & Jones, 2006; Oswick et al., 2002), the interaction presented here unfolded as an emergent conversation rather than as a structured interview.
The “Eight Metaphors” and Beyond
Following an initial discussion of parameters and definitional issues, our conversation offered some reflections on established organizational metaphors before going on to consider new ones. More specifically, we reviewed the status of the eight metaphors contained in Images of Organization and then we briefly explored the emergence of two new contemporary metaphors.
Foundational Images or Illustrative Starting Points?
Okay. Did you want to talk about . . . we could talk about metaphors themselves. I’d be really interested in having a little chat about them. You previously mentioned the phrase, “the eight metaphors.” 2 We ought to talk about how the metaphors have changed, whether the original metaphors still have purchase. So do you still think they’re relevant?
Oh, absolutely. They’re relevant historically, right? If you want to understand organization and where it’s come from and how organization theory has developed, then obviously the eight metaphors are actually relevant to that. In many respects Images of Organization is an analysis of the history of organization through metaphor, right? And that’s where I always start. But, the point is now that metaphors have different significance, it’s going back to the idea we have previously talked about in terms of context and the importance of metaphor in a context, so building upon what you’ve just said, it’s clear that organizations are shifting from hierarchical structures to flat networks. Basically, new metaphors are needed for understanding this. Sure you can get some degree of understanding networks through the images of the brain or of culture or of the organism, but, obviously new metaphors are forcing themselves into our attention. So that metaphor [i.e., the “flat network”] in particular is one that’s obviously very relevant.
Do you see them as new root metaphors, or metaphors that may emanate out of the original eight?
Well, that becomes a little bit of a game really of whether you want to make the eight work, which you can to a huge degree. But, it would be stupid for me to defend just eight metaphors when the whole purpose of images of organization is to say . . . to talk about the way of thinking and how, if you accept that the way of thinking is metaphorical, then why would you limit yourself, okay, and so I’ve always said that they’re illustrative. So it becomes clear that we’ve got to add to them and different people are doing that and legitimately.
Big Data and Big Brother
Any examples [of metaphors that have been added to] that really work for you? That appeal to you personally?
Yeah, well obviously the idea of the global brain, which is a variation, if you want, on the brain metaphor, but it’s not really, it goes way beyond it, but clearly the Internet as a simple example of that and then there is “big data.” Big data in this world, that’s hugely important. Think about the Foucauldian metaphor, the panopticon and the whole idea of discipline and self-discipline, punishment, surveillance. Link that now to big data, look at what all the big tech companies are doing . . .
Yes, but it seems to me that it’s one of those metaphors that has been a bit of a slow burn metaphor, to use a metaphor to talk about metaphors, that when I talked to managers and students, 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago about the idea of surveillance and disciplinary power, a lot of them just couldn’t get that idea at all. I think it’s one of those metaphors that’s come of age with the increase in the actual prevalence of surveillance in society [e.g., the proliferation of video cameras in public spaces] and greater awareness of the power of institutions.
Exactly.
Well I think it’s freed up, it’s left it shackles behind, if you like, of . . . it was mixed up in discussions about Neo-Marxism and control in the workplace, which is a different thing. It’s that ideological bent that’s got left behind, so that when you’re talking about surveillance now, you’re talking about surveillance in so-called free world . . . we’re supposedly never . . . have never been as free as we are in many ways, but are actually constrained.
Yes, I agree with that. But, it’s interesting because there are two elements to this. It seems to me, it’s external surveillance, which we can all see, but in the Foucauldian model as well, it’s how this becomes self-surveillance and so the way in which we are looking . . .
Self-discipline, yeah . . .
. . . self-disciplining, right, which is incredibly powerful in terms of the way things are working out and also I think we have to recognize how big data and how the big companies like Google and the like, and the collection of data, are basically another form of surveillance in the sense that they’re understanding . . .
How people behave.
. . . how they behave, what their interests are, what they do, what they buy, etc. etc. etc. And, what they’re actually doing in many respects is not feeding back the differences, what you don’t think or what you don’t like, they’re feeding back stuff that reinforces your point of view. So if you want to take this on it becomes . . . we’re in a self-affirming bubble, where the external reality that we’re encountering all the time is reinforcing whatever patterns that we’ve got. So there are very, very interesting implications of this, so clearly this becomes a major line of development.
Yeah. I also think, and you may not agree with me here, but the power of some of the metaphors is when they’re juxtaposed. I don’t mean blended or multiple lenses, but they are just held in tension. So the kind of, the machine metaphor and the organism metaphor are best understood in relation to each other and when we start to talk about the panopticon, I wonder about the kind of emergence of social movements and the whole idea of activism as a response to some of the disciplinary power issues and the panopticon. So in other words, just as you have a play between the organic metaphor and the mechanistic one, that you have this sort of . . . these things almost grow in relation to each other as ways of thinking, so I wonder whether the kind of . . .
Symbiotic, almost? To use a metaphor, but yes.
Symbiotic, yes. Possibly, because I do think . . . I kind of introduced it there but, I don’t know how you think or what you think the kind of . . . the social networks, activism, mobilization, all these kinds of . . . they seem to be very pertinent ways of thinking about a new form of organizational metaphor.
Yes, linking into the concept of self-organization, right, of emergent organization and complex adaptive systems thinking has got a lot to contribute to this, but here you get into, where’s the driving metaphor? Where’s the root metaphor in it all? I think that’s hugely important to understand those social movements and what the driving metaphors behind them are. It’s utterly fascinating. So clearly new metaphors are being developed and rightly so.
Images of Media-ization?
There’s one other metaphor I’ve got to put on the table, because you asked me what metaphors that I think are important and I said, the global brain . . . and we discussed the panopticon. The other one is this notion of organization as media.
Oh, yes.
Which is one that I’ve floated around, because I’ve been very . . . not very involved, I’ve been flirting, I guess, with Marshall McLuhan 3 for the best part of 20, 30 years. I don’t know if you can do much more than flirt with the ideas because the whole notion is that there’s . . . it’s much more of a source of provocation and all the rest of it. Anyway, it fits very well with my type of thinking and the whole idea that we have a society that historically has been built up on the concept of literacy and so the written word and taking the bureaucracy as the embodiment of the written approach to organizing through the rules, etc. etc. and all of the conventional science and perspective based thinking and the linearity that comes with that. The whole idea of fixed objective reality, all connected with this world of literacy and the digital revolution and the shift in to electronic-mediated, multi-sensory modes of understanding to a degree that we’ve never experienced before, has got to be a force, not in a technologically determined way, but has to be a force that demands a completely new mode of thinking in how we understand the world that’s going on around us and McLuhan came up with the notion of the global village as a very, very early metaphorical understanding of what’s going on, but there are many, many more ways of thinking about this and of capturing this movement which is as important as the trend to media-ization, and so if you start to see this as part of the ground which is in motion here, all those metaphors that are going to be needed to capture this, it’s just phenomenal.
Yeah, and I can see that, and I think it’s always interesting to then sort of look at the second order metaphors. So, for example, the “organization as family” metaphor encourages us to look at second order comparisons such as paternalism, the maternal figure, family feuds, and family values. Following through on that organization as media take, companies used to talk about mission statements, the written. Now it’s about brands and a brand isn’t an . . .
It’s an image. . . .
. . . it’s an image, and do you know what, brands are consumed as much by employees as they are by external agents these days. So it kind of plays to the idea that if there’s media metaphors taking . . . really taking hold, then we find some of these artifacts that are around that move away from mission statements to, what’s our brand? And our brand is something you can’t easily capture in just a written form, and a mission statement is exactly that. It’s a statement that’s written and it’s that literacy thing and the media thing really does play into things like, as I say, brand.
I think the thing that you’re capturing there is that we’re moving towards a much more sensory approach to understanding, which is interesting in itself, because it may be almost a full circle, going back to what we were talking about earlier. So without the literal [written word approach], we’re much more reliant on our five senses. . . . And that either . . . I’m not quite sure, but it either creates the potential for new metaphors or it takes us back to some of the original real basic metaphors that we’re founded on and reinterpreting those, coming up with different metonymical outcomes, if you like.
No, it’s fascinating, because it will potentially revolutionize the whole of science and the whole scientific thinking and the notion of research and . . .
Have you heard of these things called “emojis”?
Emojis?
Right. Emojis are symbols that you use in text messages. Teenagers use them on their mobile phones—smiley face, sad face, heart, etc. There are hundreds of them on phones. You can represent happiness, sadness, love, anger . . .
Nothing written.
No, and as I understand it kids are sending complete text messages, which have no words and consist only of a string of images.
I love that. You see it’s just a little illustration of how this is all unfolding in a way that we can’t possibly appreciate. So it’s clear that Images of Organization is not about the eight metaphors, but it’s about that type of thinking that can help us get into this . . . deal with this world a bit faster than we might otherwise would, particularly as academics.
Concluding Thoughts
There are several main inferences that can be derived from the interaction presented in this article. The first concerns Gareth Morgan’s reflections regarding the production and consumption of the eight metaphors contained in Images of Organization. It is clear that his metaphors continue to be popular and relevant (e.g. Human Relations have a special issue planned that is devoted to Morgan’s eight metaphors). For Morgan, the continued allure of his metaphors is their historical relevance as a collection of insights that help to make sense of how organization theory has developed. He states in our discussion that “. . . in many respects Images of Organization is an analysis of the history of organization through metaphor.” Although the eight metaphors have an enduring historical significance, it is also apparent that Morgan wants them to be seen as illustrative rather than exhaustive images and, as such, that they are deployed going forward as a basis for generating further insights and ways of thinking. In this regard, his metaphors simultaneously work as “relatively static reflections” (i.e., they capture the essence of the history of organization theory) and “relatively dynamic projections” (i.e., offering a reference point and/or trigger for further metaphorical entailments and developments).
A further interesting aspect of our conversation was that it highlighted two new organizational metaphors that resonate with contemporary organization life, namely, “the global brain” and “organization as media.” The “global brain” metaphor draws attention to the neural-like interconnectedness of a digital world combined with the increasing significance of “big data.” This metaphor also reveals the dark side of “big data,” in the Foucauldian sense of disciplinary power and surveillance, as ever more intrusive phenomena for individuals as employees, consumers, and citizens. The “organization as media” metaphor draws from Marshall McLuhan’s work—especially the idea that “the medium is the message” (McLuhan, 1964)—to provoke a consideration of the demise of the written word as a cornerstone of organizing (e.g., job descriptions, rules, mission statements, etc.) and a shift toward what Morgan describes as “electronic-mediated, multi-sensory modes of understanding.”
If we reflect upon the characteristics of the “global brain” and “media” metaphors, it appears that they are very different to Morgan’s “eight metaphors.” The earlier metaphors seem to be far more bounded insofar as it is possible to conceive of an individual organization as a discrete metaphorical entity (e.g., as a machine, organism, culture, or brain). By contrast, it is hard to envisage a single organization as a “global brain” or “media.” Instead, they are more easily depicted as synonymous with organizations at an aggregated level. Moreover, these new metaphors can be appropriately positioned as “images of society and social life” as much as “images of organization and organizational life.” Somewhat ironically, this perhaps, at least to a certain extent, is in itself a reflection of living within a digitally connected world with increasingly blurred boundaries between organizations (and between business and society more generally). Hence, we posit that new organizational metaphors are not organization-specific and that they are largely driven by wider social and technological changes rather than organization-centric imperatives.
When we reviewed the transcript of our meeting, we noticed that the discourse concerning established metaphors (i.e., the machine and the organism) and the new metaphors did not entirely adhere to the conventional wisdom on metaphor-use where the process is presented as involving the projection of a relatively concrete “source domain” (i.e., a specific metaphor) onto a relatively abstract “target domain” (i.e., an organization) to generate insights or new ways thinking (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Morgan, 1980, 1986). More specifically, it appeared that the process of elaborating upon, and projecting a metaphor typically required the concurrent articulation of an inverse or opposite metaphorical image. So, for example, the discussion of machine metaphor incorporated the concomitant use of the organism metaphor. Equally, the discussion of “big data” (i.e., “the global brain”—control and surveillance) was accompanied by a discussion of “big brother” (i.e., “social movements”—autonomy and resistance). And, the discussion of “organization as media” based on “electronic-mediated, multi-sensory modes of understanding” (e.g., images, sounds, feelings) was juxtaposed with “the literal” (i.e., the written). This might suggest that rather than seeing the metaphorical process as a two-part projection (i.e., from “source domain” to “target domain”), we might further explore the metaphorical process as a form of tripartite correspondence (an interplay between a “source domain,” a “shadow source domain,” and a “target domain”).
Finally, this last point leads us to a final closing provocation: If, as Morgan has indicated, the metaphors produced in Images of Organization should be utilized to generate further ways of thinking, we could further rethink the established metaphorical process (i.e., a transfer from a metaphorical source domain to an organizational target domain) in terms of the extent to which it can be thought of as being fixed and relatively discrete. By adopting a dynamic perspective of movement from one metaphor to another (i.e., source domain to target domain to source domain and so on) and embracing the notion of multi-directionality 4 (i.e., target domains can also project onto source domains), we can create more playful and less constrained ways of using metaphors that are likely to produce more innovative ways of thinking and create new images of organization.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.