Understanding organizations through embodied metaphors
Journal
Organization Studies
ISSN
0170-8406
ISSN-Digital
1741-3044
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2008-01-01
Author(s)
Abstract
We outline the dominant, positivist approach to conceptualizing and researching organizations through multi-level research that views levels as independently existing, hierarchically nested entities, and problematize this view by offering an alternative approach based on embodied realism. We operationalize this approach through a study of three organization development workshops where organizational actors constructed artifacts we label embodied metaphors. We propose that analysis of embodied metaphors can enable access to actors' first-order conceptions of organizational levels and related organizational dimensions and reveals alternative qualities and interrelations among them; can support a clinical approach to organizations; provides a window to organizational, divisional or task identities; and poses substantial challenges to established conceptions of ontology and method in organization theory.
Language
English
Keywords
embodied metaphors
embodied realism
organizational levels
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Sage
Publisher place
London [u.a.]
Volume
29
Number
1
Start page
45
End page
78
Pages
34
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
37924