Since I started posting on my Recruitomatic blog about a year ago I have linked back to Ebbe Munk’s The Technostructure versus Morgan’s Metaphors a few times. In my opinion, it is an excellent work:
This is a study of the technostructure as described by J.K. Galbraith and Henry Mintzberg. Their notion of the technostructure is compared to Gareth Morgan’s eight metaphors in “Images of Organization” to see if Morgan’s metaphors can provide new aspects of the technostructure…
In 1967 John Kenneth Galbraith wrote The New Industrial State. In the book he analyzed his new finding The Technostructure as a part of his description of modern economic life. He defines the technostructure as the leadership of the modern industrial enterprise. He found that it is the complex of specialists and technicians that exercise the decisive power.
In 1983 Henry Mintzberg published both Structure in Fives and Power In and Around Organizations, which among other topics describe the technostructure as taking part in the management and development of individual organizations.
In 1986 Gareth Morgan published Images of Organization where he is using various metaphors to scrutinize our perceptions of organization. The book does not treat the notion of the technostructure as such. Second edition was published 1997.
Since my introduction to Gareth Morgan’s book in 1988 — golly Olly, I’m getting old — it has been a recurring reference for my research and a helpful tool for reconciling some of my experiences in, and at, work. To the extent that have returned over and over to a new reading of Morgan’s metaphor’s I have hardly read John Kenneth Gailbrath or Henry Mitzberg. Ebbe Munk’s reasearch — which is not recent — has rekindled a desire to revisit them more often. And I will.
Ah, metaphors…here’s another that goes with Morgan’s Psychic Prisoner Metaphor - enjoy!
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