Item Detail
-
5037
-
1
-
10
-
English
-
Heavenly Father or Chairman of the Board? How Organizational Metaphors Can Define and Confine Religious Experience
-
Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
-
Fall 1992
-
25
-
36-55
-
"Many Latter-day Saints worry that as the Mormon Church has become more corporate in nature, it has not retained its strictly religious focus. Some have argued that its extensive financial holdings have made the Church a major political power, and numerous essays, studies, and even books have analyzed the Church's bureaucratic, corporate, and financial aspects. However, while the corporate aspects of the Church have created problems for leaders and members alike, some form of bureaucracy is essential if the Church is to accomplish its goals. Organizational tools such as authority, rules, chains of command, professional training, and positions awarded by merit are clearly useful and necessary for large organizations such as the Church. When I began my doctoral studies in organizational behavior, I expected not only that I would understand my Church experience more fully but that my studies would be of great value in my future service to the Church. I continue to believe that organizational studies have much to offer the Church and its members. In this essay, I will first introduce the concept of organizational culture as a device for understanding organizations such as the Church, then explore three dominant cultural metaphors that have shaped the Church and its members' identity through the years, and finally, propose that the current dominant metaphor be replaced." [Author]
-
Excommunication : Metaphors of Discipline
Franchising the Faith : From Village Unity to the Global Village
Magic and the Supernatural in Utah Folklore
On Being Human: The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries
On Fidelity, Polygamy, and Celestial Marriage
Priesthood and Philosophy
Ritual as Theology
Top Kingdom : The Mormon Race for the Celestial Gates
We Are All Enlisted : War As Metaphor
Where Are the All-Seeing Eyes? The Origins, Use, and Decline of Early Mormon Symbolism