Metaphorical Shadow Boxing: A Response to Cornelissen’s Reply to our Rejoinder

Abstract

tions. We stand by ours, as well. After these several rounds of point/counterpoint, punch and counterpunch, we ask only that you, the reader, do two things: 1) carefully consider that Cornelissen’s entire case against the value of the identity metaphor hinges on his questionable and weakly defended assertion that there is allegedly little conceptual similarity between individual and organizational identity and 2) carefully consider the implicit power of paradigmatic assumptions in assessing the value of any concept or metaphor. On the first point, we believe his philosophical grounds for making this assertion are not workable. Almost any reasonable consideration would dismiss his assertion that there is little isomorphic similarity between ‘organization’ and ‘identity’ as simply untenable. Actually, the similarity at issue is not between organization and identity, per se, but between individual identity and organizational identity. No matter. In the end, we trust that the power of the organizational identity metaphor and its use by interested scholars will settle this debate in the academic marketplace of ideas anyway. On the second point, even if we acknowledge that Cornelissen’s proposed procedures have some usefulness for the field in weeding out metaphors of marginal value, we nonetheless disagree that the procedures are as universalist as he implies. Clearly, the criteria of their application favors metaphors that can be parsed and concretized over those that are more gestalt – a not-so-subtle hint that, despite his protests, functionalist criteria are once again being invoked to evaluate nonfunctionalist ways of understanding. We reiterate that according to the criteria articulated, many rich metaphors would fail Cornelissen’s tests of usefulness. Conceiving of organizations as brains, as theatres, as psychic prisons, as instruments of domination, etc. would all now be purged from our vocabulary. Curiously, the main metaphor that would appear to pass his ‘rigorous’ tests is the machine metaphor, which we believe to be adequate testament to the functionalist roots of his analysis and the perhaps unwitting hidden agenda of his article. We continue to see this method of metaphor assessment as essentially one that sets up metaphors that it can knock down on paradigmatically inappropriate criteria. That old tactic suggests yet another useful (but probably not very long lived) metaphor by which Cornelissen might better understand his own project: he appears to be shadow boxing with metaphorical opponents of his own making. It is not surprising, then, that the match he has set up is rigged and that his metaphorical sparring has more to do with an image he has created than with the pragmatics of metaphor use in organizational study. British Journal of Management, Vol. 13, 281 (2002)