Investigation of organizational metaphors with an emphasis on ontological assumptions

Organization is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to understand its various aspects. The use of metaphorical recognition method in the area of organization and management studies has been a response to this need. None of the expressed metaphors is free of ontological presuppositions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and classify organizational metaphors from an ontological point of view. The method of this research is argumentative – interpretive in nature, and it uses the typology method and document review, in which the types are formed based on induction and by choosing appropriate conceptual labels. In this way, the metaphors expressed about the organization were collected and studied with an inductive approach and analyzed based on their type of view on the existence of the organization. Then, the metaphors were adapted according to the ontological assumptions deduced from them with the paradigms presented in the literature. By clarifying the ontology of the mentioned metaphors, it is possible to open the way for new metaphors, especially regarding Islamic ontology, and secondly, prevent new metaphors from falling into the trap of this tautology or eclecticism.