Biological metaphor and analogy upon organizational management research within the development of clinical organizational pathology

Abstract

Human body, other animate beings, plants, and organizations are all dynamic and systemic entities. The similarity between living organisms and organizations, especially considering highly evolved organisms such as the human body, is noteworthy. Therefore, whenever an organization fails to accomplish its function and mission, an organizational symptom or disease may be envisaged to have come up; as a result, a variety of organizational symptoms and diseases can be considered. Recent studies have attempted to find analogies between the human body system and a social system such as an organization, to find analogous malfunctions and ailments, in order to enable the introduction of guidelines for the diagnosis of organizational symptoms and diseases, and their remedies and treatments. This paper deals with the concepts of biological metaphor and analogy, which have been present in organizational management for several decades. It attempts to study some subsystems of the human body analogous to the organizational subsystems, and their correspondingly analogous symptoms and diseases. Thus, some treatments and remedies are proposed accordingly, hoping to pave the way for further organizational management research within the development of clinical organizational pathology, based on the concepts of biological metaphor and analogy.