The 'converge' vs, 'fragmentation' dilemma in metaphoric analysis of organizations

Abstract

Eight different organizational studies were performed on ANFA, Ankara Fair Limited Company through the lenses of Morgan’s( 1986) metaphors in 1993 before the municipality elections that changed the political party in charge of the municipality. These eight organizational studies were done through eight different metaphors which were introduced in Gareth Morgan’s book, “Images of Organizations”. These were Organizations As ‘Machines’, ‘Organisms’, ‘Brain’, ‘Culture’, ‘Political Systems’, ‘Psychic Prisons’, ‘Flux & Transformation’ and ‘Instruments of Domination’. The metaphoric organizational analysis are considered part of the postmodern approach. According to this approach, the organizational analysis should be able to find the ‘instabilities’ of the ‘formal’ reality of the organization to uncover the ‘difference’ -- multi-dimensions of the organizational reality . The eight metaphoric studies were designed as an experiment. The purpose of this study to test this postmodern proposition of a multifaceted representational reality.