Metaphors of Organizations

Some time ago I participated an Organization Theory course at University of Jyväskylä. One of the ideas presented at the course was Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organizations. According to Morgan organizations can be seen as: 1) machines, 2) organisms, 3) brains, 4) cultures, 5) political systems, 6) physic prisons, 7) flux and transformation and 8) instruments of domination. The classification gave me foods for thoughts so here are some ideas that came to my mind in ownership context.

Images of organization

If organization is a machine, it is something physical, something material so it is easy to be owned. "This machine is mine", is clearly defined. A machine is a physical asset.

If organization is an organism, how can it be owned? How to own an organism? Organism is a living unit.

If organization is brains, how can brains be owned? How to own human capital? How to own immaterial asset which is in people’s heads?

If organization is culture, it is even more complicated to be owned. How to own culture? What is the role of ownership in organization culture? Whose culture it is in organizations?

If organization is a political system, it seems that owners are either the people, in the case of democracy or dictators, in the case of tyranny. Ownership can be political, and actually there seems to be a lot of politics involved in ownership. Still, if organization is a political system, how it can be owned? Is politics in this sense related to power? I have no answers, just a lot of questions to be considered.

If organization is a physic prison, it means that there are prisoners inside the organization. Is it so, that owners own the physic prison and enforce people to stay in there? Are owners actually owners of prisons that lock people in? What would it be, if there were no prisons like this? Would people be free? What would they do? I guess this line of thinking might lead to some ideas of Karl Marx.

If organization is flux and transformation, is ownership also flux and transformation? In one end, in family businesses ownership of organizations seem to be very stable and long-term, but in the other end, in stock exchange, the ownership of organization can change hands in seconds. One conclusion is clear, the relationship between company and it’s owners is not permanent, it can change and will change, it is just a matter of time.

If organization is an instrument of domination, it reflects to idea that there are owners who dominate workers by using organization as an instrument in this means. This would mean that owners are dominators and workers dominated. In this sense ownership is about owning ways to have power and instrument for domination.