ABSTRACT
Researchers use a wide range of analogies to characterize organizations, referring to them as trash cans, market places, data processing machines, or octopuses. They are compared to space ships and brains. Associations with beehives or prisons are evoked. Images of Organizations, to quote the title of a book by US organizational sociologist Gareth Morgan (1986), can be used to illustrate the differences between organizations. For example, a major corporation that is precisely programmed from start to finish and therefore reminiscent of a symphony orchestra can be distinguished from a somewhat more flexible and decentralized organization that might be compared to a jazz band, or a growth company that is constantly breaking the rules and in some respects reminds one of a rock group. Meanwhile, the organizational charts of administrations, corporations, or associations prompt us to think of organizations in terms of pyramids, onions, or trumpets, depending on how many echelons the hierarchy comprises and how broad or narrow a range of middle management functions appears on the diagram.
