Metaphors of Organization

Your filing cabinet metaphor seems simple enough to help technically challenged individuals to understand how a tablet works. Notably, Jesus used parables in the same way we use metaphors to explain difficult concepts or kingdom principles to his first-century audiences. For example, The Prodigal Son parable communicates God’s unconditional love towards sinners (NIV Lk.15:11-32); God values souls above rules and regulations. From a practical position, Jesus demonstrates the critical need to share God’s word to communicate God’s heart with sinners. Like the first century context during Jesus’ ministry, people were shocked or angered by Jesus’ decision to hang out with sinners (Keener 2011), Christians have permission to do the same understanding

     Bolman and Deal organize their book around the idea of framing, and they give many metaphors, examples, and comparisons in defining this approach. It is compared to a paradigm or a map, a mind-set or a general approach to problem solving. Managers work best, they claim, when they use a holistic approach, reframing problems in four different categories: structural, human resource, political, and symbolic. Leading a complex organization requires artistry to combine these approaches as well as an embrace of uncertainty. The best management needs a commitment not only to excellence but also to flexibility, dialogue, and open-mindedness. In this paper, I shall examine the general

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 author’s use of anecdotes in different chapters to describe how individuals established their criteria of what was important to them was a great way to get the point across. However, due to the mention of Patton’s previous book volumes being updated many times to accommodate the changes in evaluation, I was surprised that there was not a bigger section on the importance of metaphors to avoid alienating an audience. The section on avoiding technical jargon along with negative connotations when evaluating could be the dividing factor between personal factors and primary intended users. In the end, if you consider the consumer or organization as the primary users, metaphors or a common ground of understanding can especially “break the ice”

Therefore, it can be concluded that the "trustee metaphor" is used to design the organization's forms, structures and management in order to create and distribute the

Armenakis, Achilles A., and Arthur G. Bedeian. 1992. The role of metaphors in organizational change. Group and Organization Management, 17: 242-248.

Gareth Morgan's 1998, Images of Organization, is an attempt to identify metaphors as tools to visualize organizational life. When managers use metaphors to view an organization they can increase their capacity to be open, flexible, and suspend judgment until a comprehensive view emerges. Once a comprehensive view is available, a manager can then build a storyboard indicating an organization's dominate frame of view and its supporting lenses. The storyboard or line can then be used for insight or leverage points in answering different organizational concerns and situations.

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

The four metaphors addressed on the article were fire, which represented ambition, snowball represented accountability, mask represented authenticity and finally movie represented self-reflection. This were ways that a leader could become more effective and analyses what is working both professionally and personally. Based on the 360-degree feedback the CEO’s received from their personal effectiveness, the company’s financial performance, approval from their customers and finally employee engagement. The metaphors in this article acted as a catalyst for change in their organizations (Fuda & Badham, 2011).

It was from these experiences that our model took form. As a case example, we refer to the work at British Airways later in this article. For a more recent overview of that change effort, .see Goodstein and Burke (1991). Other Organizational Models Frotn the perspective of both research about organizations and consultation to organizational clients, we have experienced some frustration about rnost if not all current organizational tnodcls that do little more than describe or depict. A case in point is the 7S model developed by Pascale and Athos (1981) and futthcr honed by Peters and Watertnan (1982). Parenthetically, lot us quickly add that by cotnparing our tnodel with others, particularly those the teader may be familiaj" with, if not fond of. we wish to clarify the nature of our thinking and. ideally, its distinctive contribution, not cast our comments in a competitive manner. The strengths of the 7S model arc (a) its description of organizational variables that convey obvious importance—strategy, structure, systems, style, staff, skills, and shared values (as will be seen, we have incorporated these dimensions in one form or another in our model)—and (b) its recognition of the importance of the intenelationships among all of these .seven variables, or dimensions. The 7S model, on the

According to Lewis (2007), “Metaphors are statements that make comparisons between objects, some literally spelled out, others implied” (p.119). Metaphors shape and define our way of thinking and are often common practices with businesses. How we effectively communicate depends on our word choice. Words more specifically metaphors bring what we are trying to say come to life. Metaphors are useful when trying to communicate ideas that may be difficult to understand. As they use familiar objects as their vehicles to “make a point or reinforce a point” (Miller, 2008, para 6 & 7). This paper will look at the concept of the following business metaphors: business as a journey and my new venture. Included in this paper is the history and reasons for these metaphors. Also, this paper examine the vehicle/tenor relationship, denotative and connotative meanings and the implications and effects of these metaphors. Metaphors are useful in the business world as they build relationships with the target domain it describes. For instance, a business described as a ‘journey’ can be associated with words like adventure, exploration, progress, process and venture. Similarly, the word ‘venture’ can mean deal, enterprise, investment, undertaking or set-up. These are common words associated with the business language. Subsequently, a relationship is created between business and journey/venture. The vehicle/tenor relationship for business as a journey and my new venture are as follows: the tenor is

According to Hatch (with Cunliffe) (2006), the prospective of Symbolic-interpretive extends the definition of empirical reality to include experiences that lie outside the reach of the five senses, to include emotions and intuition. As a result, this concept is subject to subjectivity, and cannot be easily replicated by others. The symbolic-interpretive perspective focus on meaning and understandings, resulting in findings that are presented in generalized fashion. In contrast, modernist perspectives focus on the organization as an independent objective entity and take a positive approach to generating knowledge.

The importance of managing paradoxes increases with the complexity of organizational environments. To successfully manage paradoxes organizational leaders must learn to deal with contradictions and embrace incompatible forces, rather than choose between them (Belasen). Three management paradoxes that Bjorn Gustavsson faces as Engineered Woods are the paradox of change and stability, the paradox of individuals and teams, and the paradox of direction and empowerment. This essay will discuss these three paradoxes faced by Gustavsson at Engineered woods.

Metaphors of organization rely on a set of assumptions about organizational reality. A comparison of dominant concepts of organization in Germany and France shows that the preference of scientists and practitioners for certain metaphors of organization is culturally determined. The history of organization science in research and practice determines the emergence of preferred metaphors. These find expression in German and French textbooks on organization as much as in the organizational structures of German and French companies. In essence, the differences between the

For the past two decades continuous problems have occurred concerning company’s expatriates. Expatriates are sent overseas to manage the parent company’s additional branch according to the company’s culture. The goal for these expatriates, “domestic equals overseas performance”, is, having the ability to run the company as efficiently overseas as it is in the states. For the past two years expatriates are have not been able to attain this goal. Many companies did extensive research and decided on four components every expatriate must learn in order to adjust successfully. The four dimensions are: The Self-Oriented Dimension, The Others- Oriented Dimension, The Perceptual Dimension, and The Cultural-Toughness Dimension.