Metaphor is one of the important discursive themes in organizational literature (Grant et al.,2001). Metaphors play an important role in the discourse within organizations as well as in theorizing about organizations. This empirical paper focuses on the latter by analysing the role of metaphor in the …

Early 20th century management literature was very decisive about the role of efficiency; it was the ‘one best way’-criterion for organizational decision-making. This paper shows by means of a backward prediction that efficiency was indeed an important measure for organizations in the early 20th century. …