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Organization and Explanation

New Metaphors for Old Problems

University of South Carolina

At the core of most research programs lies a suggestive metaphor systematized into a model and then developed into an empirically testable theory. In organizational theory, machine, organic, and dramatic metaphors have abounded; however, the concerns of these metaphors may be subsumed by conceiving of organizations as explanatory structures. The suggestiveness of this new metaphor is illustrated by demonstrating how it represents fundamental organizational characteristics, serves as a basis for a typology, and isolates certain forms and processes of change. The explanatory metaphor discourages the tendency to hypostatize organizations into concrete entities and emphasizes their nature as verbal and nonverbal behavioral arrangements.

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