Lesikar's Business Communication: Connecting in a Digital World 13th Edition by Kathryn Rentz,Paula Lentz

Exercise 3

In Images of Organization, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997), management scholar Gareth Morgan has analyzed companies using various metaphors. For example, he has looked at those elements of a company that make it appear to run like a machine (with rigidly organized, specific job roles), an organism (with elements that make it dependent upon and responsive to its environment), a brain (with self-managing teams and employees who can do a variety of jobs as needed), and a political system (with employees vying for power and influence). Think of an organization you know well and decide upon its dominant cultural metaphor. Is it one of Morgan's? Or is it a family? A team? A community? A prison? A mixture of several kinds? Once you settle on your metaphor, be prepared to explain how this organization's culture affects, and is affected by, its communication practices.