BE707 Understanding Organisational Management, Essay, University of Essex, UK

Assessment task

Critically evaluate and compare two metaphors as theoretical tools for understanding organisations/management and examine the practical implications of these metaphors in management and organisations.

Throughout the module we have explored how organisational theory can inform our understanding of organisations, using the concept of metaphor. We have also explored how these metaphors can inform organisational and management practices highlighting their limitations and potential to shape organisations in both beneficial and harmful ways.

To support your essay, you should refer to relevant academic theory/research and real-life examples/case-studies that we have covered in the module, or which you have identified through your own research. 

The assessment task seeks to assess the following three learning outcomes of this module:

1.  Describe and evaluate different theories of organisation and management.
Theories of organisation and management covered in the lectures have been organised under different metaphors e.g. Machine, Organism etc. under each metaphor we have touched on a wide range of theory including but not limited to: Bureaucracy, Scientific Management, Fordism, McDonaldization, Human Relations Theory, Theories of motivation – Maslow, Hertzberg, McGregor, Marx, Weber, Labour process theory etc. 

2. Identify the changing characteristics of organisations and forms of organisation and explain the drivers for these changes in respect of intellectual, social, economic, and technological developments. 
Under the heading of different metaphors, we have covered the development of organisations over a long historical period, identifying respective factors at the time, and how wider socio-economic and technological developments have shaped organisational management. The lectures throughout have also established how more recent developments inform changes in organisation and organising, as well as how metaphor might be used to understand these. 

3. Critically evaluate the suitability of competing organisational forms and styles in addressing the challenges of social and economic justice and environmental sustainability.

Although mechanistic metaphors for organising such as bureaucracy remain prevalent organisational forms, the module has also covered varied and alternative ways of organising that sit under different metaphors. The ways in which we think about organising and management influences the way this is practiced and how organisations address challenges of environmental sustainability, inequality and social justice, and technological developments. You may have realised that these challenges are interrelated in different ways and that different organisational forms and ways of understanding organisations impact how these challenges may be addressed.