Metaphorical Perspectives of Organisational Values

Abstract

This article explores Nietzsche’s philosophy of space, metaphor and values. It shows how metaphor generates perspectives of organisational values through both spatial content and processing. Metaphor reveals and expands horizons, creating space from one perspective and generating multiple three‐dimensional perspectives. It transports meaning across space and generates a tentative open space of understanding, a blended space that embraces diverse values. The Open University case study reveals a ‘multiversity’ that promotes multiperspectival thinking, supported by a hermeneutical space where different values can be acknowledged and respected.

Key words:

• Nietzsche
• Perspectivism
• Space
• Metaphor
• Organisational Values

Notes

1. Postmodernism is here defined as ‘a mode of epistemological perspectivism’ (Hancock and Tyler, 2001: 93).

2. The OU is Britain’s largest university and provides courses for students studying in their homes or workplaces, in their own time and around the world (see ⟨http://www.open.ac.uk/about/⟩).

3. Nietzsche accepted that his assertions were also perspectival, interpretive and metaphorical. It is beyond the purpose of this paper to discuss whether or not this undermines Nietzsche’s perspectivism, making it self‐defeating.

4. The OU’s values are to be open in four ways—open as to people, places, methods and ideas—these values are briefly explained as follows. For the OU, ‘openness as to people’ involves making university study available to a large and diverse student body and providing learning opportunities that meet individuals’ lifelong needs. It widens access through the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority students, disabled students, those from lower socio‐economic groups and students with low previous qualifications. ‘Openness as to places’ involves providing learning opportunities in the home, workplace and community throughout the UK and selectively elsewhere, and serving a mobile population. ‘Open as to methods’ means using and developing the most effective media technologies for learning, teaching and assessment whilst attaching central importance to the personal academic support given to students; and working collaboratively with others to extend and enrich lifelong learning. Finally, ‘open as to ideas’ involves the development of an academic community that reflects and supports the diversity of intellectual interests of students and staff, and that is dedicated to the advancement and sharing of knowledge through research and scholarship (The Open University website ⟨http://www.open.ac.uk/about/⟩, accessed 11 April 2004).

5. Morgan (1998: 94–5) understands the organization as holographic—with the whole enfolded in the parts—its values binding it together, ‘helping every individual understand and absorb the mission and challenge of the whole enterprise’, encoding key elements of the complete organisation and allowing each member to embody and enact the whole.

6. Meta‐metaphor is defined here as the overarching and integrative metaphor that contains imagery and meaning in common with all of the other metaphors in the discourse.

7. The notion of ‘free space’ is salient to education; Kessels et al. (2004: 15) note that the term ‘schooling’ is derived from the Greek ‘scholè’, meaning ‘free space’.