Metaphors As A Metaphor

In the first two chapters of Images of Organization, the author, Gareth Morgan defines the theory of metaphor and how it is applied to organization. He challenges the reader to examine metaphor as a tool that is used to understand and recognize organization (Morgan, 1998, p. 5). He also cautions against perceptual distortions and bias of metaphor. In chapter two, Morgan presents organization as a machine, illustrating the theories of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Max Weber, and Frederick Taylor.

Reeves’ chapter on Metaphors in Science shows just how much we rely on metaphors to communicate complex topics. This chapter is an overview of how we would be unable to communicate or think without metaphors. Reeves gives eye-opening examples throughout the text and makes me realize how people fail to realize how often we rely on metaphors. She also discusses how metaphors aren’t a completely reliable source.

It discusses what has previously been researched and distinguishes what arguments the author plans to advance in their essay. Heidt’s literature review focuses on metaphors as a powerful rhetorical tool. He calls on their ability to organize people’s attitudes and beliefs in certain directions, inviting audiences to adopt particular views and ideas. Heidt also discusses a metaphor’s ability to resolve contradiction, pointing to policy discussions in which metaphors are used to direct audiences towards a specific goal or

The two metaphors that I am about to describe to you are machines and organisms. I am also going to note what each metaphor suggests about how humans and their behavior are perceived in the organization. I will also let you know the similarities and differences in the two metaphors. Also conclude on how the ability to switch between metaphors might enhance effective leadership and organizational behavior.

That being said, metaphors are much more difficult (in my opinion) to come up with. All things

In Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson give the following definition: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (5). An obvious focal point of Metaphors We Live By, and the idea this essay will attempt to further explicate, is the notion that the title implies: we live by certain dominant metaphors.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson banded together and wrote an article titled “How Metaphor Gives Meaning to Form.” Their

Metaphors have been shown to extend past basic language involving word. Bultena has shown us through his

But I think the resonate metaphor of my organization is kind of machine. It is because of many reasons. First, we are in a part of government agency that hierarchy and structure of organization is important. There are many position levels which have different authority. The communication at work is cascaded

Metaphoric criticism is a comparison of two items that suggest a resemblance. Through this use of language it can help to enliven ordinary language. Through this is can also help an audience visualize certain ideas. (Blair, 2014). Yet, through a rhetorical perspective, metaphors are now seen as a large means for the creation of reality. “Metaphor is a basic way by which the process of using symbols to construct reality occurs” (Foss, 2009, p. 268). There are two major parts of a metaphor, the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor is known as the topic or the subject, and the vehicle is the mechanism or rather the lens viewing for the target.

(ibid., 2010) There are such metaphors among orientational metaphors. An interesting point about this kind of metaphor is that they map relatively little from a source to a target. Source domains have skeletal image schemas. These basic image-schemas derive from our experience or interactions with the world. This physical experience enables emergence of the image-schemas that structure many of our abstract concepts metaphorically. The image-schemas can be foundation of other concepts. The target domains of many structural metaphors are image schematically structured by their source. (Kövecses,

First to consider is if a metaphor (or school of thought) can adequately represent the totality of our organizational life. This

The view and metaphorical analogy of an organization as a machine was the result of the only frame of reference available at

"All theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that persuade us to see, understand, and imagine situations in partial ways. Metaphors create insight. But they also distort. They have strengths. But they also have limitations. In creating ways of seeing, they create ways of not seeing. Hence there can be no single theory or metaphor that gives an all-purpose point of view. There can be no 'correct theory ' for structuring everything we do."

The overall structure of various types of organizations can be framed by using metaphorical images, which help to clarify the way that organizations operate. Morgan (2006) discusses several of these metaphorical images, including the image of an organization as a machine and the image of an organization as an organism. Each image is unique, but there are some similarities and many differences between the two. In order to understand each image meaningfully, the two images will be introduced, explained, compared, and contrasted in this paper. A personal perspective follows this, outlining which image would be chosen if only one image were available as the single way to structure an organization.