Images of Organization

This book provides solid theoretical models for understanding what is occuring in organizations. I read this book over 10 years ago and STILL find it the second best and most enlightening thing I have ever read on organizations. This has dramatically aided me in being a very successful business consultant.

The foundation of this book is the notion that you cannot understand complex organizations in any meaningful way through a single perspective. People in the organizations operate on many different perspectives. Each view of the world creates its own understanding of the organizational problems, solutions and daily pattern of interaction. This book provides you the tools for understanding organizations through a number of key perspectives or metaphors, and gives you indications on how to perform a multi-perspective systems analysis.

If you spend the time with this book, you will find yourself able to understand your surroundings FAR better than your peers.


The not so simple Organization   November 7, 2000
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Morgan decribes common assumptions about organizations - he helps to reveal the hidden assumptions behind the managers perceptions. What do we mean when we say that 'organizations are like animals'? It is pretty easy to start to think from a metaphor, and end up in literal believing in it (e.g. that 'organizations live and die', 'organizations have evolutions'). Such reifications are carefully described by Morgan - several most recurrent metaphors of organizations and popular organization theories basing on them are clearly described, and their pros and cons are pointed out. Having read 'Images of Organizations', it is much more difficult to adopt illusionate metaphors, and to get persuaded by a biased visioner.


Most valuable read of my MBA   February 15, 2003
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

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.


Single Best MPA Book   December 1, 2007
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This was the single best book of all the books I was required to read for my Masters in Public Administration, and it remains a valued reference in my rather large personal library.

Other books I recommend:
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development.
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials)
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
The Knowledge Executive
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
End of Bureaucracy and the Rise of the Intelligent Organization


Morgan Images of Organization   January 3, 2007
Judith A. Gazik
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

great metaphors from author to help understand organizational thinking but read slowly if you are a concrete thinker. Easy reading really if you think metaphorically. Had to write a paper on psychic prisons, uncanny how true Morgan's analogy is to real workplace environment. This book was better than our required text. Hated the Organizational Behavior instructor I had but loved the book and the subject matter.