Research on organizations
since the late 1 960s, for example, has been dominated by
attempts to conduct detailed empirical studies of various aspects
of the contingency approach, as the volumes of ASQ
over the last ten years or so indicate. Although these
studies have generated numerous detailed insights, which
inform our understanding of organizations as machines and
organisms, it is important to appreciate that the kind of insight
generated is limited by the metaphors upon which
they are based.