13. The Book Metaphor and Its Representation of an Organization

The book metaphor depicts parallels between books and organizations. The Bible is an example of a book with significant metaphorical representations, with numerous lessons. Books come in different forms and sizes and so do organizations, thus different types of books can figuratively depict or represent different types of organizations. Book authors and publishers can represent organizational leadership, while the structure of a book can depict organizational structure. Organizations meet different needs just as different books meet different readership needs and interests. Nevertheless, though the symbolism of the book metaphor can be a powerful tool in organizational leadership theory, as a single metaphor it has limitations and will not depict everything about an organization – thus a combination of metaphors can be much more effective.