Organisational Design, Development and Change, Complete Notes of MBA,

APPROACHES TO THE ORGANIZATION

The nature of an organization can be better understood by using different metaphors . A metaphor is defined as speech that characterizes an object in terms of another . The use of metaphor implies a way of thinking and a way of seeing that pervades how we understand our world generally. According to Morgan , a series of metaphors that can be used to think and explain about the nature of the organization. Together, these metaphors can be used to generate a wide range of complementary viewpoints and competing on the strengths and weaknesses of different points of view .


Morgan illustrates his ideas by exploring eight archetypal metaphors of organization: machines , organisms , brains, cultures , political systems, psychic prisons , flux and transformation , instruments of domination.

a) Organizations as machines : 

mechanistic approaches to the organization of work and only under the following conditions: ( a) When it is not an easy task to perform, ( b ) when the environment is stable enough to ensure that the products produced shall be appropriate , ( c ) when you want to produce exactly the same product time and again, ( d ) when precision is at a premium , and (e ) the parties ' machine ' humans are compatible and behave as they are designed to do.
Mechanistic approaches to the organization have proved very popular , partly because of its efficiency in the performance of routine tasks that can be successfully and partly because managers offer the promise of a strict control over the people and their activities . In stable times , the approach worked from the point of view of management. But with the increasing pace of social and economic changes , its limitations have become more and more apparent.
Its limitations are that ( a) can create organizational forms that have a great impediment in adapting to changing circumstances , ( b ) can lead to mindless bureaucracy and automatic, ( c ) can have unforeseen and unwanted as the interests of those working in the organization take precedence over the goals of the organization is designed to achieve , and ( d ) may have effects on workers , particularly those in the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy dehumanizing

b ) Organizations as organisms

Morgan parallel between the agencies and organizations in terms of organizational performance , relations with the environment , relationships between species and ecology in general. The organism metaphor focuses on the following:
• Organizations such as "open systems" .
• The process of one of the organizations adapt to the environments.
• Organizational Life Cycles .
• Factors influencing health and organizational development.
• Different species of organization.
• The relationships between species and their ecology .
The metaphor of the body sees the organization as a living system struggles to survive in an uncertain environment.

c ) Organizations as brains

This approach to understanding organization , originally known as "the focus of decision making " , was a pioneer in the 1940s and 1950s by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon and his colleagues as James March . The exploration of the parallels between human decision-making and decision -making of the organization, Simon is famous for arguing that organizations can not be perfectly rational because its members have limited information processing capabilities . Arguing that people : (a ) usually has to act on the basis of imperfect information on possible courses of action and its consequences, ( b ) are able to explore only a limited number of alternatives in relation to any decision , and ( c ) are unable to assign precise values ​​of the results , Simon challenged the assumptions made in the economy on the optimizing behavior of individuals. He concluded that individuals and organizations make a " bounded rationality " of decisions "good enough" based on simple rules of thumb and limited information search and .

d ) Organisations as cultures

Organizations are mini - societies that have their own distinctive patterns of culture and subculture . Culture is a modern concept used in social and anthropological sense to refer in general terms to "civilization " and " social
heritage " . Durkheim ( 1934 ) is particularly valuable for understanding the relationship between culture and industrialization.
The approach known as " institutional theory " has developed the broad tradition by examining the links between the organization and the social context , revealing how the two intertwine in the most fundamental sense . The greatest strength of this metaphor is that it shows how organizations relies on shared systems of meaning , values, ideologies , beliefs, norms and other social practices that ultimately shape and guide organized action .

e ) Organisations as political systems

Organizations can be understood as mini - states in which the relationship between the individual and society in parallel by the relationship between the individual and the organization. There are three frames of reference that are relevant to an understanding of organizations as political systems . The reference pluralist framework highlights the plural nature of the interests , conflicts, and the sources of power that shape organizational life. The unified framework of reference views that society can be considered as an integrated whole , where the interests of individuals and society are synonymous. And the reference frame of opinions society radical comprising antagonistic class interests , is characterized by social and political divisions remain entrenched and both coercion and consent . These three views are shown in Table 1.

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