Philosophical Foundations of Morgan's Metaphors in Management and Allameh Tabataba'i's Meta-theory of E'tebariat (Agreed Perceptions)

Abstract

Among the scientific trends that could find accepted position in the humanities, in contrast to the prevalent positivism, was conventionalism. Conventionalism in its branches including the organizational studies is intended to use the knowledge results of different paradigms and tries to benefit from all the available conceivable possibilities to recognize organization. The most notably example of these efforts is the Morgan's use of metaphors to understand and deal with organization problems. These metaphors are not meant to be exhaustive and he acknowledges that they can be used individually or in combination to guide our understanding of organizations and organization problems. His aim is to show how metaphor is central to our thinking about organization and management and open new possibilities. This trend regardless of the reciprocal fundamentals in different paradigms fostered a paradoxical suggestion in itself. In contrast to this approach, the present paper introduces Allameh Tabataba'i's Meta-theory of E'tebariat (Agreed Perceptions) as a stronger version for human sciences that can provide a growing capacity for the Morgan's Images of Organization.

Keywords

• e'tebariat
• conventionalism
• organizational metaphors
• social action
• paradigmatic pluralism
• idealization