How to Apply Concepts

Please see my other “Tips in Writing Papers” on my web-site under the teaching section. There, I have information on how to cite, how to organize, how to avoid plagiarism and much, much more!

In this paper, your job is to apply the concepts you have learned from class to your work experience. For an excellent example, please click here. Here are some tips on how to do so effectively.

1) Divide your paper into sections. The sections should coordinate with the metaphors. So, you may a machine section, brain section, organismic section and psychic prison section.

2) Each section should begin with an abstract definition/description of the metaphor. The definition/description should NOT be plagiarized. Rather, you should be able to think about the metaphors in your own words.

Further, the definition/description should discuss the fundamental concepts of the metaphor about which you are writing. Each Morgan book chapter is around 30 pages. You can be sure that all those pages may not have information relevant to your workplace! Your job as an analyzer is to read the chapter and determine which concepts are fundamental to the metaphor. In other words, what concepts make-up the essence of the organismic metaphor and can be applied regardless of any workplace that organizes like an organism? (Obviously, open systems, interconnected subsystems, treating workers like humans rather than machines are examples of the fundamentals).

Before you move on, you may want to apply the fundamental constructs to your workplace. Discuss how your workplace is an open system. If you do this, you must back up your application with evidence. Thus, do not only say that your workplace is an “open system” give us evidence that demonstrates it is organized like an open system.

3) After you have defined the metaphor abstractly, you now want to apply the secondary concepts that are relevant to your workplace. Secondary concepts also help us understand the metaphor, BUT not all of them are applicable to every workplace. For example, in the organismic metaphor, you may want to show how your workplace applies equifinality and homeostasis, though you may not think that requisite variety is relevant. Thus, you would first begin a paragraph defining equifinality abstractly, then you would apply it to your workplace. Finally, you will want to support your application with evidence. In the next paragraph, do the same with the term homeostasis and so on until all the secondary concepts you feel represent your workplace have been discussed, applied and supported with evidence.

4) Recall, the syllabus description of your paper states that you must discuss problems in your workplace. Thus, as you apply the concepts from the chapters, highlight the problems in your workplace that exist. For example, let's say you are applying the political metaphor to your workplace. You have defined and applied the concepts conflict, interests and power. From such analysis you have showcased a particular problem at your workplace -- managers have conflict between their career and extramural interests. Power is resolved through formal authority, the boss threatens to fire the managers. You could argue that this type of conflict resolution creates alienation and dissatisfaction among managers. Each of the metaphors that you apply might reveal some problems that exist in your workplace. You should mention such problems as they are relevant. Such problems will be crucial for accurately writing the recommendations section of your paper.

A common question is the following: What if my workplace has no problems? What if it's perfect? Because workplaces are fluid, and hence always changing, there is always room for improvement. You should thus address some issues or problems as you analyze.

5) Your last section of the paper should be a section called, "Recommendations for Change." In this section you will provide more analysis and application of the concepts. As I stated above, the analysis section has revealed problems that occur in your workplace. Perhaps, the machine metaphor revealed the consequence of a high turnover rate or the culture metaphor showed how some workers feel excluded. In this section, you are going to resolve those problems by applying more metaphors or concepts. You might, for example, claim that the holographic brain can reduce the turnover rate (as we saw in Digital) by providing workers autonomy and knowledge. Or you could claim that it is important to change the culture so that workers feel less excluded. Whatever you decide, you are again applying concepts to help us understand HOW to make your workplace better.

Do not forget to tell us how, logically, the changes you are suggesting would make things better. In other words, you do NOT want to say simply, "Requisite variety is the idea that the organization needs to be as complex as the environment in which it operates. My workplace should incorporate this term." Rather, you need to explain how requisite variety might help. For instance, "As I described above, the managers in my workplace are very homogeneous in race and gender. To change this, my workplace should apply requisite variety. Requisite variety is the idea that the workplace needs to be as diverse as its environment. Given that fifty percent of the workforce is white female, 10 percent is Latina and 10 percent is African-American male, managers should also reflect such diversity. To do this, our workplace should hire more variety in their management personnel."

PLEASE NOTE: you should NOT provide any NEW evidence in this section. All the problems should have already been discussed in the analytical section of your paper as you applied metaphors to help us understand your workplace.

PLEASE FURTHER NOTE: Your final concept can be introduced in this section. Thus, you may want to apply the holographic brain in this section to resolve problems created by politics, machine and culture metaphor.

If you have concerns with how to organize your paper, please look at my handout “Paper Outline” AND my handout on “How to Write a Paper.”

Good Luck!