The Metaphor of the Organization - Essay Example

Organizational Metaphors Organization as Brains The metaphor of the organization as the brain perceives the brain as an information processing system with the modern concept of the metaphor being inspired by the developments in information technology (Morgan, 2006). This metaphor seeks to combine the logical capacity and creativity elements of the brain into successful organizational processes. Organizations do not have the capacity to be perfectly rational given that the human resource in most cases has limited information processing capabilities. This it is argued is because members in the organization have incomplete information related to the whole process of operation therefore being able to utilize a fraction of available options and consequences while also lacking the capability to precisely measuring outcomes (Sadler-Smith, 2008). The concept of organization as an information processing system borrows from the work of James March and Herbert Simon and is based on their theory of decision-making. This analogy relates organizational processes to the brain based on the institutionalized practices that routinize, fragments, and bound organizational decision-making function therefore making management easy. Decision making theory in organizational functioning asserts that organization hierarchy does not only define a structure of work activity, but also provides a structure of attention, interpretation and decision-making (Morcol, 2006). The decision making structure according to Jay Galbraith has the capacity to adjust when faced with information overload and uncertainty. This adjustment is achieved through mechanisms that allow for the organization to reduce the need for given information while it can also take place by rising capacity of information processing. These adjustments are similar to the function of the brain to overcome a challenge where human beings are faced with decision making challenges that forces them, to strive for rationality even when such choices are confined to the limitations of human resource capacity (Colapinto, Sofo and Ammirato, 2013). Knowledge of decision-making based on the metaphor of the organization as the brains has led to the development of various systems intended to improve the information and tools needed to make rational decisions. Organizations have adopted mechanisms such as operations research (OR), management information systems (MIS) and management decision systems (MDS) (Schuff, Paradice, Burstein, Power and Sharda, 2011). However, there are a number of shortcomings for the information processing perspective in the brain metaphor among them that it has biasness toward left-brain behavior and over centralization. It is argued that the model would better if it balanced between both the left and the right therefore adding intuition, logic or pattern recognition, which are functions of the right brain in the decision are making process. This approach would allow the organization shift focus from reduction of uncertainties to embracing the situation while looking for mechanisms to enable functioning through such periods. Additionally, this approach insists on the limited-information processing capabilities of individual members of the organizational. This assumption of the information processing system has been negated through the technological development, which allows for the running of an organization by a small team of central coordinators. Such technological advancement makes it possible to maintain high levels of output even with minimal human resources interactions (Morgan, 2006). An additional component of the organization as brains metaphor is the concept of holography, which refers to the ability of an organization to create mechanisms that will make it possible for information to diffuse across all the departments and sections of an organization through established patterns of connectivity (Morgan, 2006). This connectivity creates a system that equips every part or section with the capacity to function as a whole during periods of chaos that renders parts of the system incapable of supporting the rest. A good example of an organization that explores the concept of brains as holographs is the management in Toyota Company. Through this undertaking, Toyota integrates its operations for improvement of quality of output and to have a quick response for instance in situations where there are mechanical faults in the produced units. This vision is contained in the company’s people management initiative that seeks to encourage perception of every employee as a problem solver. Through the holographic functioning of different parts, Toyota has been able to create a system that is self-sustaining due to existence of mechanisms to adjust various levels of functioning in terms of emergencies. The just in time message created by the founder of the Toyota encourages employees to become inventors and seekers of solutions through absorption of company values and maxims (Hoque, Faruque, Shahid, Pasha, and Rahman, 2013). IBM adopts a different approach from that of Toyota Company to solve existing organizational problems. The approach explode by IBM relies on another aspect of the organization as brains related to cybernetics. Cybernetics approach to organization functioning involves a negative feedback method which is about error detection and corresponding mechanism for correction which entails repetitive error corrections that are in the confines predetermined limits. The end process of such error correction is reaching a target or goal through error avoidance. IBM Corporation is an example among organizations that utilizes this approach to ensure knowledge acquisition and behavior changing that result from newly developed knowledge is part of the corporation’s design. Organizations such as IBM Corporation, which employs this approach, ultimately find better operational methods through experimentation and testing of potential solutions. IBM Corporation uses this measure in adjusting to both internal and external environments although the approach is not limited to dealing with environmental threats only, but is also a process of identifying future opportunities. Cybernetics at IBM Corporation involves identification of highly successful managers who are then placed to be in charge of emerging business opportunities. Given the high number of innovations and new ideas that have been patent by IBM in the past. cybernetics has worked perfectly for the corporation as it continues to strive to become a market leader in the competitive market, yet commercializing these ideas has been a problem in the past, owing to an emphasis on short-term results. In the initial stages, IBM Corporation experienced a number of challenges in managing new ideas and making them a success; however, since the corporation began the experimentation and adoption of the emerging business opportunities, there have been great strides in the number of new ideas that have been parented. The emerging business opportunities concept as adopted by IBM Corporation involves an organizational norm where failure is tolerated while risk taking is encouraged (Tasler, 2009). Organizations as Organism Organization as an organism contrasts the perception held by Taylor that human could be influenced to work as machines. The perception of organization as organism differs from that viewing organization as machines on the way the environment influences the functioning of the organization. While the environment does not affect machines, organisms are shaped according to the environment in which they exist. This view of the organization is based on the belief that just like organisms which are open systems and are consequently vulnerable to influence from the environment, so are organizations (Jackson, 2000). This is true of an organization since the functioning and structure of the organization is influenced by both the internal environment and external environment. The internal environment affecting an organization’s processes is majorly related to the culture of the organization while the external environment is related to the competition and other market forces, which determine the level of demined and supply for the products of the organization. Consequently, the organization just like the organism needs to adapt to the environment that it exists in order to survive (Morgan, 2006). A critical component of the organization as organism metaphor is explained based on the contingency theory. The theory claims that just as the organism are forces to adapt to the environment in order for it to gain the physical and physiological needs. The organization must also adapt to the environment to continue offering goods and services in the business environment the first theory booing the Contingency Theory, which focuses on adapting the organization to fit the environment. Organizational leaders are tasked with the designing of a good fit while being aware of the dynamic nature of the environment and recognizing the fact that there is no one way to best organize (Morgan, 2006). Adapting to the environment involves devising proper mechanisms to handle various groups affecting the organization structure and process. This groups include the customers who must satisfied by the services and products offered by the organization for establishing customer loyalty. Customer loyalty will ensure the company is built for sustainable future as the organization is assured of making sales when it produces goods and services. Competitors as part of the environment are important as the organizations are linked and related through what is seen in this metaphor as organizational ecology. This interrelatedness mean the organization should study and compare the adaption of competitors to the environment in order to determine what makes them a success or failure in the competitive environment. The organizational environment is also considered in relation to the technology that is being used in the organizational processes. The technologies have to be current for them to reflect the ongoing situation in the business environment and to be at the same level or better than others to ensure survival when faced with competition. The organization is also affected by government policies which determine the political situation especially stability in the environment therefore affecting the future of the organization (Morgan, 2006). There is also the theory of natural selection that applies the Darwinian concepts of survival for the fittest in determining how an organization survives competition for the limited resources. Organization also face their own natural selection in the competitive environment with those based suited being able to gain advantage over the others while organizations that cannot face competition are forced to close shop or shift to another business environment. The tobacco industry provides the best instance organizational adaptation to the environment. Since early 20th century, organizations operating in the tobacco industry have been forces to adjust to multiple changes that have been brought about by changing business environment. By around 1930, tobacco companies enjoyed a growing market for their products, which had been embraced by many in consumers in past decades. However, the business environment commenced its transformation process when doctors and researchers started releasing reports about health complications that resulted from smoking tobacco (Cummings, Brown and OConnor, 2007). The continued association of tobacco smoking with diseases such as lung cancer and early death led to public awareness targeting consumers with news about the negative effect on their health being the main focus of articles such as "Cancer by the Carton" by Readers Digest in 1952. Due to the health risks reported in these articles, sales stated taken a dramatic fall threatening the benefits for these organizations. The sales and profits were further reduced by the ban on public smoking and legal action taken against tobacco companies (CNN, 2000). Among the companies that were adversely affected by the new business environment in the tobacco industry is Philip Morris. The management of Philip Morris Company was forced to develop an effective mechanism to respond to the new conditions around therm. Consequently, it was decided that the current market could not meet the needs of the company making it a matter of necessity for the organization to find a new business environment that had favorable conditions of operation. The company was then forced to look for new markets by expanding to overseas the level of awareness about health risks associated with smoking was not as widespread as in the United States. Additionally, the company had to diversify its operation so that their survival will not depend on selling tobacco only. This was achieved through investment in food industry when Phillip Morris took over food companies such as RJR Nabisco, General Mills and Kraft. The decision to expand sales to overseas markets and takeover of other companies proved an effective survival mechanism for Philip Morris Company as failure to do so would have resulted in the company winding up operations or downsizing like many other organizations did. The reaction by Philip Morris Company can be explored in terms of evolution where an organism as a member of a species is forced to adopt by undergoing modifications which makes it suitable for a given environment. This also explains why some organizations are able to adapt to their environment while others do not and consequently decline. The case of Philip Morris Company shows that the environment has greater levels of control over the outcomes that individual organizations might achieve since it presents the organization with limited resources and challenges with which to perform their tasks. Leadership in the metaphor of the organization as organism is about developing different models of operation that will reflect the current situation in the business environment. Organizational leaders have to develop a mechanism that identifies the strengths and weaknesses within the organization when hiring new human resources. This is because just as the organism are made of subsystems such are respiratory system, blood circulation system and digestive systems, organizations are also made of different subsystems that contributes to the success of the whole system. Consequently, available human resource must have the capacity to respond to the needs of the organization to adapt to the environment by improving on their weaknesses and maximizing their strengths (Pennington and Hoekje, 2010). The different subsystems in the case of an organization can be perceived in terms of various departments that contribute to the overall processes of the organization. The departments sometimes work as separate entities of the whole system to achieve specific goals that are the functions of the particular system. However, the functioning of specific department has an overall effect on the organization as whole since the resources used in functioning are diverted from other areas (Morgan, 2006; Pennington and Hoekje, 2010). Conclusion This paper has analyzed organization as brains and organization organisms in determining the processes and structures of the organization. The metaphor of Organization as brains has relates to the comparison the brain functions such as information retrieval, processing and storage to inform organization process and structure. This analogy leads to discussion of organizational information processing system, holography and learning. The functioning and processes in organizations based on the metaphor of organization as brains have been investigated based on the functioning of IBM Corporation, which has developed a mechanism called emerging business opportunities, and depends on learning by allowing a predetermined level of trial and error to generate new ideas. Toyota Company on the other hand uses holography concepts of organization as brains concept to provide solutions to challenges in production and management, which ensures it, remains competitive. The second metaphor explored under this report is the organization as organism metaphor, which relates the processes and adaption of organisms to the structure and processes of the organization. A key component of this metaphor is the adjustment of the organization to the environment in which it operates. Organizations that do not have in place an adaptive strategy is bound to fail due to the existing competition for the available resources. This has been exemplified using the reaction of Philip Morris Company to changes in the tobacco industry. The company was able to survive changes in its environment by introducing new changes the resulted in evolution of the functioning and processes in production. References CNN (2000). A brief history of tobacco. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/US/9705/tobacco/history/ Colapinto, C., Sofo, M., & Ammirato, S. (2013). Adaptive Decision Making and Intellectual Styles. New York: Springer. Cummings, K. M., Brown, A., & OConnor, R. (2007). 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