Images of organization /

Morgan, a respected academic, author, and business consultant, here 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. C. Tausky; University of Massachusetts at Amherst