Summary
Contents
Subject index
This major work from renowned scholars in the field analyzes the role of language and symbolic media and show how this enables us to move to new levels of understanding of contemporary organizational issues. Chapters examine the role and growing importance of discourse in the study of organizations; the relationship between discourse, action, and interaction and their impact on organizational structure and behavior; the analytical potential of the “store” as a means of illuminating the ways in which organizational members make sense of their experience of organization; the fundamental significance of linguistic usage and discursive construction to the ontologies of “organization.” Finally, a concluding discourse explores the claims and limitations of organizational discourse as a means of enriching our understanding of organization.
Metaphor, Language and Meaning
Metaphor, Language and Meaning
In this chapter we critically assess some of the principal claims that have been made about metaphor in organizational analysis. We then present our own assessment of the value of metaphor in the study of organizations. Throughout the chapter, we are operating with a definition of metaphor given by Cuddon. To him, metaphor is ‘A figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of another’ (1991: 542).
Claims about the Value of Metaphor in Organizational Analysis
We feel that claims about the value of metaphor in organizational analysis can be divided into three broad types: those concerning its role in the structuration of organization theory; those concerning metaphor and the discursive texture of organizations; and those concerning metaphor as an ethnographic tool.
The Structuration of Organization Theory
It has been argued that metaphor can shed some different light on the theoretical developments in organizational analysis. In this way the classical pitfall of a ‘historical’ presentation of schools of thought in organization theory is bypassed. In this latter view, schools follow one another throughout history, from the rational school, to the school of human relations, followed by the contingency school and ultimately the cultural school. Knowledge is assumed to be developed during a continuous and cumulative process which constitutes progress: each school capitalizes on the attainments of former ones, by criticizing or completing them, so that the evolution of knowledge is achieved.
Such an allegedly historical presentation clearly yields to an evolutionary and linear view of theoretical developments in organizational analysis which has long been criticized by historians and philosophers of sciences (see also Burrell, this volume). It eventually appears to be supported by an organismic metaphor: knowledge is conceived like an organism with its own progress, learning and change (Schlanger, 1983: 147). As underlined by Schlanger (1971), such a Lamarckian conception of evolution typically dates from the nineteenth century.
In sum, presenting the field of organizational analysis in terms of metaphors provides an expanded view because it is then portrayed as a heterogeneous field composed of a number of schools which rely on different world views. Moreover, such a presentation avoids any normative assessment of these schools, for instance in terms of ‘newer’, thus ‘better’.
Metaphors and the Discursive Texture of Organizations
Another claim is that the use of metaphor acknowledges the importance of language in organizations and organizational analysis. For instance, according to Morgan, it ‘provides us with an effective means of dealing with [the] complexity, the ambiguity and the paradoxical nature of organizations’ so that ‘we can read the same situation from multiple perspectives in a critical and informed way’ (1986: 322).
This view is relevant to organizational analysts as well as practitioners. Morgan's argument is that people and organizations tend to act or think according to implicit metaphors of, for example, action, others and organizations - and then ‘to get trapped by the images they hold of themselves’ so that the basic problem is ‘that genuine change requires an ability to see and challenge these self-images in some way’ (1993: 288). The issue is, then, not to replace the prevalent hidden metaphor by another one, more efficient or relevant than the former. What is at stake is to highlight this metaphor, to emphasize its merits and limits, and to show how alternative metaphors can give complementary insights.
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