The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Paradigms, Metaphors, and Puzzle Solving in Organization Theory
Open accessAbstract
The purpose of this paper is to present the elements of a radical humanist critique which suggests that the discipline of organization theory has been imprisoned by its metaphors, and to stimulate an awareness through which it can begin to set itself free. The paper explores the relationship among paradigms, metaphors, and puzzle solving showing how organization theory and research is constructed upon a network of assumptions that are taken-for-granted. The metaphorical nature of theory and the implications of metaphor for theory construction are examined. A theoretical and methodological pluralism which allows the development of new perspectives for organizational analysis is suggested. While orthodoxy is based upon a few metaphors characteristic of the functionalist paradigm, metaphors characteristic of other paradigms, which challenge the ground assumptions of orthodoxy, are shown to have much to offer.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
Multiparadigm perspectives on theory building
Gioia, D. A., & Pitre, E. (1990) · The Academy of Management Review · doi:10.5465/amr.1990.4310758 · Cited by 1,426
Central Perspectives and Debates in Organization Theory
Astley, W. G., & de Ven, A. H. V. (1983) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2392620 · Cited by 1,224
Thompson, C. J. (1997) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1177/002224379703400403 · Cited by 1,142
Leonardi, P. M., & Barley, S. R. (2010) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/19416521003654160 · Cited by 733
Ramaul, L., Ritala, P., Kostis, A., & Aaltonen, P. (2026) · Journal of Management Studies · doi:10.1111/joms.13246 · Cited by 41
Brennan, M., Rondón-Sulbarán, J., Sabogal-Paz, L. P., Fernandez-Ibañez, P., & Galdos-Balzategui, A. (2021) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113361 · Cited by 31
Chan, T. M. S., & Lau, C. Y. V. (2026) · Research on Social Work Practice · doi:10.1177/10497315251315103 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Morgan, G.
- Venue
- Administrative Science Quarterly
- Publisher
- JSTOR
- Published
- 1980-12
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 605
- ISSN
- 0001-8392 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2038204327
- Cited by
- 1,409
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 29.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
