The Organization that Never Sleeps: A Metaphorical Pathology of Organizational Insomnia

Abstract

The application of metaphors as a means to advance our understanding of organizations has a long-standing tradition in management studies. Generally speaking, metaphors allow for a description of organizational characteristics and functions in the terminology of another domain of interest. Organizational learning and organizational memory are two prominent examples of anthropomorphic metaphors in management studies which draw on the human mind as the source domain. In the light of recent advancements in neuroscience, however, they lack the complementing metaphor of organizational sleep, though sleep plays a particularly important role for learning and memory of the human mind. Based on the view that communication constitutes organizations (CCO), this study recontextualizes the metaphors of organizational learning and memory in terms of organizational sleep-wake cycles. Finally, the ideal-typical distinction between a regularly resting organization and an insomniac organization leads to a reconsideration of existing theories of organizational learning and memory.