The study will provide a summary of Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization, focusing on the ways the ideas in the book relate to public organization theory and what the book is trying to say about the cultures of various organizations.
It is a generally accepted maxim that the realm of organization theory --- public and private---is a very fluid one, one which is at times quite disorderly. This is due to the fact that the theory presented must deal with human behavior in highly complex situations, in which both individual and group motivations and needs are at play. It is not a precise field, in other words, and no single theory can make the realm of organizations clear and understandable.
Morgan immediately makes the preceding points clear in his book. He notes first that "Effective managers and professionals in all walks of life, whether they be business executives, public administrators, organizational consultants, politicians, or trade unionists, have to become skilled in the art of 'reading' the situations that they are attempting to organize or manage" (p. 11).
Morgan writes that this process usually involves the exercise of the manager's intuition, which in turn involves processes in the subconscious mind.
It is all well and good that the manager use his or her intuition, but is it enough to trust in the subconscious mind as the guide in managing organizations and dealing effectively with the people in that organization?
The answer is clearly in the negative. The purpose of organization theory is to give the conscious mind some measure of guidance and control over organizational situations. The problem, which Morgan recognizes and acknowledges, is that no single organization theory can fulfill all the needs of the manager. This is so because organizational situations and interrelationships are too complex and dynamic to be explained or contained by any such single theory.
The aim of organization th...