This said and done, the metaphor does have major limitations, most of which are
associated with the basic way of seeing that the metaphor encourages. The first of these is the
fact that we are led to view organizations and their environments in a way that is far too
concrete. We know that organisms live in a natural world with material properties that
determine the life and welfare of its inhabitants. We can see this world. We can touch and
feel it. Nature presents itself as being objective and real in every aspect. However, this image
breaks down when applied to society and organization because organizations and their
environments can, at least to some extent, be understood as socially constructed phenomena.
As we will discuss in some detail in Chapter 5, organizations are very much products of
visions, ideas, norms, and beliefs, so their shape and structure is much more fragile and
tentative than the material structure of an organism. True, there are many material aspects of
organization, such as the land, buildings, machines, and money, but organizations
fundamentally depend for life-in the form of ongoing organizational activity-upon the
creative actions of human beings. Organizational environments can also be seen as being a
product of human creativity because they are made through the actions of the individuals,
groups, and organizations who populate them.