Organizations as
organisms
This metaphor of organizational life sees the organization
as a living, adaptive system. Gareth Morgan says, ‘The metaphor suggests that
different environments favour different species of organisations based on
different methods of organising … congruence with the
environment is the key to success.’ For instance, in stable environments a more
rigid bureaucratic organization would prosper. In more fluid, changing
environments a looser, less structured type of organization would be more likely
to survive.
This metaphor represents the organization as an ‘open system’.
Organizations are seen as sets of interrelated sub-systems designed to balance
the requirements of the environment with internal needs of groups and
individuals. This approach implies that when designing organizations, we should
always do this with the environment in mind. Emphasis is placed on scanning the
environment, and developing a healthy adaptation to the outside world.
Individual, group and organizational health and happiness are essential
ingredients of this metaphor. The assumption is that if the social needs of
individuals and groups in the organization are met, and the organization is well
designed to meet the needs of the environment, there is more likelihood of
healthy adaptive functioning of the whole system (socio-technical systems).
The key beliefs are:
-
There is no ‘one best way’ to design or manage an
organization.
-
The flow of information between different parts of the
systems and its environment is key to the organization’s success.
-
It is important to maximize the fit between individual, team
and organizational needs.
This leads to the following assumptions about organizational
change:
-
Changes are made only in response to changes in the external
environment (rather than using an internal focus).
-
Individuals and groups need to be psychologically aware of
the need for change in order to adapt.
-
The response to a change in the environment can be designed
and worked towards.
-
Participation and psychological support are necessary
strategies for success.
What are the limitations of this metaphor? The idea of the
organization as an adaptive system is flawed. The organization is not really
just an adaptive unit, at the mercy of its environment. It can in reality shape
the environment by collaborating with communities or with other organizations,
or by initiating a new product or service that may change the environment in a
significant way. In addition the idealized view of coherence and flow between
functions and departments is often unrealistic. Sometimes different parts of the
organization run independently, and do so for good reason. For example the
research department might run in a very different way and entirely separately
from the production department.
The other significant limitation of this view is noted by
Morgan, and concerns the danger that this metaphor becomes an ideology. The
resulting ideology says that individuals should be fully integrated with the
organization. This means that work should be designed so that people can fulfil
their personal needs through the organization. This can then become a
philosophical bone of contention between ‘believers’ (often, but not always the
HR Department) and ‘non-believers’ (often, but not always, the business
directors). See Burns and Stalker’s book The Management of
Innovation (1961) for the original thinking behind this
metaphor.
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