Images of Organization
Author: Gareth Morgan
List Price: $34.95
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ISBN: 0761906320
Publisher: Sage Publications (10 December, 1996)
Sales Rank: 11,952
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Absolutely fantastic.
This book allows the reader to formulate his/her own opinion on each type of organization structure. Morgan brings in depth insights into the various forms of organizations through discussions of theories and examples. The book is concise and easy to understand, at the same it challenges readers by asking them to thoroughly exame each concept included in the book. Absolutely fantastic - a great leisure time book for the intelligent.
Rating: 3 out of 5
A Solid Effort!
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, thinkers have used evocative images in trying to explain just what a corporation is. Have they succeeded? Gareth Morgan presents a thoughtful, well-documented look at images that arise from our theories and metaphors about reality. He discusses how they shape the way we view the corporation as an entity and how we act. His analysis involves a mix of philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, biology and organizational examples. He moves from industrial-age notions of the organization as a machine, to biological analogies about the organization as an organism. Other metaphors - the organization as a brain, as social reality, as the source of cultural difference and as an arena for power struggles - shape what occurs within corporations. While this book is not an easy read, it illuminates the dynamics of organizational life. We [...] recommend this book to executives, and to readers intrigued by serious societal expositions.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Most valuable read of my MBA
Gareth Morgan's book provides an antidote to the finance, marketing and HR texts that are required reading for an MBA student. The clever use of metaphor allows the reader to absorb the huge anount of information contained within the book (check out the bibliography!) - you don't even realise how much you are learning until you start relating concepts to others around you. My fellow students, colleagues and even my parents had to listen ...I found it a very easy to read book, if you are willing to put aside your existing ideas (psychic prison) about the way the organisation works(?) If you prefer big words, read Morgan and Burrell's Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis - essential reading, but even more brilliant as a companion to Images.
Learn the stuff you are expected to know from your finance, marketing, statistics, strategy and HR texts, but understand the stuff that will change your world from Images of Organisation.
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