Images of organization

Abstract

Second edition. A provocative new book on how we can see, understand, and manage organizations in new ways. pt. I. An overview -- 1. Introduction -- pt. II. Some images of organization -- 2. Mechanization takes command : organizations as machines -- 3. Nature intervenes : organizations as organisms -- 4. Learning and self-organization : organizations as brains -- 5. Creating social reality : organizations as cultures -- 6. Interests, conflict, and power : organizations as political systems -- 7. Exploring Plato's cave : organizations as psychic prisons -- 8. Unfolding logics of change : organization as flux and transformation -- 9. The ugly face : organizations as instruments of domination -- pt. III. Implications for practice -- 10. The challenge of metaphor -- 11. Reading and shaping organizational life -- 12. Postscript.