Title: Metaphorisation of staff's behaviour in organisation

Authors: Alireza Amini; Seyed Mohammad Moghimi

Addresses: Department of Management, Shiraz University, Shiraz, 7194684334, Iran ' Public Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, 1417935840, Iran

Abstract: The present study aimed to make a metaphor for the employees' behaviours in Iranian governmental organisations. In phase one, the organisational life of the staff was studied using the phenomenology strategy. A total of 43 middle managers in governmental organisations were selected through snowball sampling. In this stage, 13 metaphors related to organisational behaviours such as organisation as god sanctum, candle, meaning reflection, tortoise/rabbit organisation, action-puzzle (Chameleons), organisation as a hotel, promenade, farm, reflection of managers' action, relationship maze, treasury of wealth, turnery of subterfuge, and organisation as a herd of horse or donkey were created. In the second phase, the Delphi technique was used to collect data in order to explore the nature of the behavioural metaphors, as well as their main impacts, which confirmed the validity of the first phase of the study. The results indicated behavioural metaphors for including cognitive-behaviour, structural, political, social, and adaptive behaviours.

Keywords: behavioural phenomenon; making metaphor; phenomenology; thematic analysis; Delphi technique; cognitive behaviour; structural behaviour; political behaviour; social behaviour; adaptive behaviour; governmental organisations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2021.119042

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2021 Vol.14 No.3, pp.467 - 494

Received: 24 Jul 2020
Accepted: 08 May 2021
Published online: 18 Nov 2021 *

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