Since its first publication over twenty years ago, Images of Organization has become a classic in the canon of management literature. The book is based on a very simple premise-that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit

PrefacePart I. An OverviewIntroductionPart II. Some Images of Organization2. Mechanization Takes Command: Organizations as Machines Machines, Mechanical Thinking, and the Rise of Bureaucratic Organization The Origins of Mechanistic Organization Classical Management Theory: Designing bureaucratic organizations Scientific Management Strengths and Limitations of the Machine Metaphor3. Nature Intervenes: Organizations as Organisms Discovering Organizational Needs Recognizing the Importance of Environment: Organizations as Open Systems Contingency Theory: Adapting Organization to Environment The Variety of the Species Contingency Theory: Promoting Organizational Health and Development Natural Selection: The Population-Ecology View of Organizations Organizational Ecology: The Creation of Shared Futures Strengths and Limitations of the Organismic Metaphor4. Learning and Self-Organization: Organizations as Brains Images of the Brain Organizations as Information Processing Brains Creating Learning Organizations Cybernetics, Learning, and Learning to Learn Can Organizations Learn to Learn? Guidelines for "Learning Organizations" Organizations as Holographic Brains Principles of Holographic Design Strengths and Limitations of the Brain Metaphors5. Creating Social Realty: Organizations as Cultures Culture and Organization Organization as a Cultural Phenomenon Organization and Cultural Context Corporate Cultures and Subcultures Creating Organizational Reality Culture: Rule Following or Enactment? Organization: The enactment of a Shared Reality Strengths and Limitations of the Cultural Metaphor6. Interests, Conflict, and Power: Organizations as Political Systems Organizations as Systems of Government Organizations as Systems of Political Activity Analyzing Interests Understanding Conflict Exploring Power Managing Pluralist Organizations Strengths and Limitations of the Political Metaphor7. Exploring Platös Cave: Organizations as Psychic Prisons The Trap of Favored Ways of Thinking Organization and the Unconscious Organization and Repressed Sexuality Organization and the Patriarchal Family Organization, Death, and Immortality Organization and Anxiety Organization, Dolls, and Teddy Bears Organization, Shadow, and Archetype The Unconscious: A Creative and Destructive Force Strengths and Limitations of the Psychic Prison Metaphor8. Unfolding Logics of Change: Organization as Flux and Transformation Autopoiesis: Rethinking Relations With the Environment Enactment as a Form of Narcissism: Organizations Interact With Projections of Themselves Identity and Closure: Egocentrism Versus Systemic Wisdom Shifting "Attractors": The Logic of Chaos and Complexity Managing in the Midst of Complexity Loops, Not Lines: The Logic of Mutual Causality Contradiction and Crisis: The Logic of Dialectical Change Dialectical Analysis: How Opposing Forces Drive Change The Dialectics of Management Strengths and Limitations of the Flux and Transformation Metaphor9. The Ugly Face: Organizations as Instruments of Domination Organization as Domination How Organizations Use and Exploit Their Employees Organization, Class, and Control Work Hazards, Occupational Disease, and Industrial Accidents Workaholism and Social and Mental Stress Organizational Politics and the Radicalized Organization Multinationals and the World Economy The Multinationals as World Powers Multinationals: A Record of Exploitation? Strengths and Limitations of the Domination MetaphorPart III. Implications For Practice10. The Challenge of Metaphor Metaphors Create Ways of Seeing and Shaping Organizational Life Seeing, Thinking, and Acting in New Ways11. Reading and Shaping Organizational Life The Multicom Case Interpreting Multicom Developing and Detailed Reading and "Storyline" Multicom From Another View "Reading" and Emergent Intelligence12. PostscriptBibliographic Notes Introduction The Machine Metaphor The Organismic Metaphor The Brain Metaphor The Culture Metaphor The Political Metaphor The Psychic Prison Metaphor The Flux and Transformation Metaphor The Domination Metaphor The Challenge of Metaphor Reading and Shaping Organizational Life PostscriptBibliography