Effective managers are skilled in the art of 'reading' the situations that they must organize or manage. Professor Morgan's book is designed to develop the art of reading and understanding organizations. Firstly, he shows how many of our conventional ideas about organizations and management build upon a small number of images, especially mechanical or biological ones. Secondly, by exploring these and alternative images, he shows how to develop new ways of thinking about organizations. Thirdly, he demonstrates how this method of analysis can be used for the management and design of organizations. And fourthly, he explores the theoretical implications raised by this kind of analysis. Morgan works from the premise that our theories and explanations of organizational life are based on metaphors that lead us to see and understand organizations in distinctive, yet partial ways. He demonstrates how the use of different methaphors provides new ways to manage and design organizations. Overall, this work stands as a treatise on metaphorical thinking that contributes to both the theory and practice of organizational analysis.