Culture Metaphor - Morgan G.1986

This Research was mainly based on theory of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980, which states” metaphor as not merely thinking about something in terms of something else, but

A metaphor is a comparison technique, or a mode of thought, used to compare two different topics by using the language of another. For example, one common metaphor heard in the United States when referring to the wide varieties of population is “the United States is a melting pot”, which is comparing the population of the United States to a melting pot, which has various “ingredients” that are unique as the population of the United

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to structure and culture within an organization since industries and situations can vary. Furthermore, if an organization wants to improve its effectiveness and performance, their organizational culture needs to be strong and provide a strategic competitive advantage when it comes to its beliefs, and values. Organizations can differentiate itself from one another by those that do not have structure and culture. It is important to know that employees in all organizations want to work in an environment of trust and respect where they

“Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations” (Baack, 2012). These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Culture plays a huge role in the guiding of the behaviors of employees of an organization. There are three stages of culture that interact with one another to influence the behaviors in the organization. These stages are: observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values.

Metaphor (n.) - a rhetorical strategy or figure of speech containing a comparison. The comparison can include either literal or nonliteral examples that would normally not be thought of as relatable. Metaphors can describe people, what they’re feeling/doing, and compare their well beings to descriptions similar to themselves. They can also be used to compare things to people based off their personality or looks. A metaphor can be used to portray hidden messages and are usually mostly seen within literature but can also be seen in songs, poems, or even one's daily life. For instance, many writers use metaphors because it allows them to improve and strengthen their writing by adding extra imagery to an otherwise boring description. An example

According to Postman a metaphor is something that enables us to understand the world around us by changing the perception we have of something. He states “metaphors classify the world around us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, color it, argue a case for what the world is like.” A

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that describes a subject by claiming it is the same as another otherwise unrelated object. They are closely related to an analogy as achieve their effect by comparison. One of the more famous metaphors is from Shakespeare's As You Like It, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and

The main focus of Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson is to show that metaphors have a larger meaning than just being a poetic device. The authors state that a metaphor is “a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language” (Lakoff and Johnson 3). Metaphors can be used to enhance a person’s use of language. Metaphors are described as governing our everyday activities without the user even knowing. The authors compare the argument of war and how we cannot just talk about arguments in terms of war. Lakoff and Johnson continue to describe how arguments commonly follow a pattern, meaning there are certain things a person typically does and does not do during an argument. Continuing with reading they introduce more metaphors such as, time is money, time is a limited recourse and time is a valuable commodity. Lakoff and Johnson let it be known, that as we highlight one aspect in our brains, we forget another aspect as it becomes out of focus. “In allowing us to focus on one aspect of a concept, a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that metaphor” (10). The authors conclude their writing by saying that metaphors and their structures can be extended in some ways, but not others. Metaphors can extend beyond the range of ordinary literal ways of thinking and talking and turned into a way of figurative language.

Morgan says metaphor is “a primal force through which humans create meaning by using one element of experience to understand another. Metaphor gives us the opportunity to stretch our thinking and deepen our understanding, therefore allowing us to see things in new ways and act in new ways. Applied in this way, metaphor becomes a tool for creating an understanding about what

Just as Osterwalder believed that the business model canvas served as a visual aid to understanding organizational strategy, Van Engen believes that metaphors enhances communication by way of providing validity, giving clarity, and developing creativity. Anyone can deliver a message verbally, but the ability to deliver that message effectively requires a different skill set. Metaphors are useful communication devices in daily conversations and they are conceptual tools that are used to make sense of an issue, which helps to interpret and deliver meaning. (Ortony, 1974; Oswick & Grant, 1996)

The simple definition of a metaphor acknowledges the active process of understanding ourselves, and others. A metaphor should include anything that helps the student relate to what is being taught, use all the natural senses to aid the comprehension and reasoning. Using the senses as the fundamentals of cognition everyday is working as

Dr. Hofstede performed a comprehensive study of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. In the 1970’s, as a Dutch researcher Dr. Geert Hofstede, collected and analyzed data from 116,000 surveys taken from IBM employees in forty different countries around the world. From those results, Hofstede developed a model that identifies four primary dimensions of differentiate cultures. These include: Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), Masculinity-Femininity (MAS), Individualism-Collectivism (IND), Power and Distance (PD). After a further study of the Asian culture by researcher Michael Bond in 1991, Hofstede added a fifth dimension in his theory, Long- and Short-term time orientation (LTO), also referred to as the Confucian Dynamism. His research has framed how cultural differences can be used in professional business transactions. Geert Hofstede 's dimensions analysis can assist the business person in better understanding the intercultural differences within regions and between countries.

Morgan used the metaphor organizations as culture to frame the complex relationships that exist within organizations. Examining organizations through metaphor allows one to imagine concepts and ideas through their own experiences. According to Morgan the power of metaphors is their ability to challenge innovative reasoning. Metaphors combine language and thought to develop new non-literal meanings, when applied they shape and enhance our reality. According to Morgan there has been extensive research regarding the metaphor of organizations as culture. Culture became a hot topic following the introduction of Westernization management styles into the Japanese commercial markets (p. 120). Morgan says that “organization itself is a cultural phenomenon” (p. 120). Culture is a system of knowledge, ideology, values, laws and day to day rituals. By considering organizations as culture, we can focus on the concepts related to the values, beliefs, knowledge, and ethos of the organization. As such we can use this metaphor to understand leadership and organizational behavior through the language and symbols that are most meaningful to us personally. Employees who wish to remain in their organization do best if they understand the components of the culture where they are employed.

When a business decides to venture internationally into different countries with its products, services, and operations, it is very important that the company gains an understanding of how the culture of the different societies affects the values found in those societies. Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most famous and most used studies on how culture relates to values. Hofstede study enabled him to compare dimensions of culture across 40 countries. He originally isolated four dimensions of what he claimed summarized different cultures — power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity (Hill, 2013, p.110). To cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm Hofstede has since added two more dimensions — Confucianism or long-term orientation and indulgence versus self-restraint (Hofstede, n.d.). Because of the way Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are given an index score from 0-100, it is easy for a company to get a general comparison between the cultures they are expanding into and the culture they are already in.

Study in organizational culture began in the early 1980s. Organizational culture is “work group culture” and involves organization’s personality. Organizational culture includes shared philosophies, ideologies, beliefs, feelings, assumptions, expectations, attitudes, norms and values (Fred Lunenburg, Allan Ornstein, 2012, p. 55). Most organizational cultures include observed behavioral regularities, norms, dominant values, philosophy, rules, and feelings. Organizational cultures includes certain input such as the energy imported by organizations from the environment in the form of information, people, and materials (Fred Lunenburg, Allan Ornstein, 2012, p. 55). This input energy must guide organizational behavior toward shared goals and process. Organizations produce an output because of the input into the