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The emotional dimensions of metaphors of change

Article  in  Journal of Managerial Psychology · September 2014

DOI: 10.1108/JMP-04-2012-0107

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 Journal of Managerial Psychology
The emotional dimensions of metaphors of change
Roy K. Smollan
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To cite this document:
Roy K. Smollan , (2014),"The emotional dimensions of metaphors of change", Journal of Managerial
Psychology, Vol. 29 Iss 7 pp. 794 - 807
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JMP
29,7
The emotional dimensions
of metaphors of change
Roy K. Smollan
Department of Management, Auckland University of Technology,
794 Auckland, New Zealand
Received 4 April 2012
Revised 1 October 2012 Abstract
21 March 2013
3 May 2013 Purpose – Participants in organizational change use metaphors in discourse as a means of sense
2 July 2013 making, since they provide insight into ways of thinking and feeling about organizational change that
Accepted 15 July 2013 are not as easily or as graphically captured by more conventional language. Although change is often
emotional the affective elements of metaphors of change have been under-studied. Thus the purpose
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of this paper is to examine the emotional content of metaphors that participants use to describe their
experiences in various change contexts.
Design/methodology/approach – In total, 24 people in different industries, organizations,
functional departments and hierarchical levels were interviewed on their experiences of change and
their affective reactions. Evidence was sought of the use of metaphors to portray emotional responses.
Findings – Participants used many metaphors of which the most prevalent were those relating to the
rollercoaster and grief cycle. Other categories emerged from the meanings that underlay the metaphors
and revealed a spectrum of emotions experienced during change.
Research limitations/implications – As figures of speech it is axiomatic that metaphors cannot be
taken literally. Further research needs to discover what actors believe their metaphors mean and
to take account of cultural differences.
Practical implications – Exploring the emotional meanings embedded in metaphors used by
change actors will enable managers to create effective messages and to understand others’ responses
to change.
Originality/value – Since most empirical articles on affective metaphors of change investigate single
organizations or industries, this paper contributes to the literature by reporting on change experiences
in different organizational contexts and by identifying categories of metaphorical expressions.
Keywords Qualitative, Organizational change, Emotions, Metaphors
Paper type Research paper

Scholars in organization studies have explored the use of metaphor by unpacking its
nature (Cornelissen, 2005); by creating their own metaphors in developing theories
of abstract organizational phenomena (Morgan, 2006; Spicer and Alvesson, 2011); by
analyzing the rhetoric used by leaders (Tourish and Hargie, 2012) and by examining
the expressions used by diverse organizational actors (Riad, 2011).
Metaphors used by change participants provide a rich stream of insights into how
people understand unfolding events. Vince and Broussine (1996, p. 3) criticize models
of change which over-emphasize rationality and ignore emotionality and “complexity,
ambiguity and paradox.” Metaphors provide windows into the thoughts and feelings
of change participants but prior empirical studies of the emotional dimensions
have covered a limited range of contexts (e.g. Argaman, 2007; Barner, 2008; Vince and
Broussine, 1996.)
Journal of Managerial Psychology The research questions that this study addresses are therefore:
Vol. 29 No. 7, 2014
pp. 794-807
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0268-3946
RQ1. What types of metaphors do actors in various roles, levels, organizations and
DOI 10.1108/JMP-04-2012-0107 industries use to report on change?
 RQ2. What do they reveal about the experience of organizational change? The emotional
RQ3. What emotions are evoked by change and how do metaphors reflect
dimensions of
them? metaphors of
change
By presenting the findings of a qualitative study of affective metaphors in different
contexts this article contributes to the literature by widening the lenses through which 795
we view images of organizational change.

Literature review
The nature of the metaphor
Metaphors are a type of shorthand (Oswick et al., 2002) that juxtaposes one form of
experience with another to enable people to make sense of phenomena (Lakoff and
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Johnson, 1980). Their embodied nature (Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008) is reflected in
static or kinetic images that can tap all five senses. Kövecses (2000) argues that
metaphorical language does not merely reflect culturally accepted forms of expression,
it actually constitutes experience. Metaphors are social constructions (Barner, 2008)
that enable people to articulate experience often more graphically than literal
language.
Metaphors are taught in formal education as a way of appreciating and creating
literature. They are also intentionally designed in other contexts to illuminate a point,
stir the imagination and spur action. They are harnessed by politicians to win votes
and score points, embraced by marketers to sell products and services and
manipulated by management to achieve corporate goals. As academics we use
building images when referring to theoretical frameworks, social construction, laying
foundations and demolishing arguments. Given their widespread usage, metaphors
become part of everyday discourse and are often used spontaneously to describe
personal experience. At their best, they are vivid images that generate new ways of
conceptualizing phenomena. At their worst, they ossify into buzzwords (Cluley, 2013),
tired idioms, clichés, political sound bites and vapid bumper stickers.

Metaphor and emotion

The emotional dimensions of metaphors are frequently overlooked. However, we tend
to invoke a metaphor partly because of its affective content, such as “I felt up” or
“down” (Lakens, 2012; Meier and Robinson, 2005). While Crawford (2006) takes
a limited view of the emotional elements of the up-down metaphor she emphasizes that
metaphorical use becomes more frequent when issues are emotional. Kövecses (2000)
believes that analyzing metaphorical language is essential in understanding emotional
experience, Siegelman (1990, p. xi) advises that the metaphor is “an ideal vehicle for
embodying the conscious and unconscious, both affect and cognition” and Abel and
Sementelli (2005, p. 447) argue that “the ‘symbolic reality’ of metaphor is more
expressive than literal language, better [at] addressing both the emotional needs and
the unarticulated, perhaps even unconscious, hopes and interests.”
Morgan (2006) writes ominously of organizations as “psychic prisons” and
“instruments of domination” and the emotional elements of metaphors have been
revealed in studies of organizational culture (Gabriel, 2012), leadership (Grisham, 2006;
Spicer and Alvesson, 2011) and self-identity (Alvesson, 2010).
 JMP Emotion in metaphors of organizational change
29,7 Metaphors of organizational change have been constructed by researchers, managers,
consultants and participants. Change is regarded as a quintessential aspect of the
organization, which needs to be constantly adapting to shifting environments, with
Morgan (2006) referring to “organization as flux and transformation.” Images of water
are used by Chia (2003, p. 131), who casts organizations as “islands of relatively stable
796 relational orders in a ceaseless sea of change,” by Clegg and Baumeler (2010), who note
the term “liquid modernity,” and by Lewin (1947), whose concept of unfreezing,
changing and refreezing is probably the most widely cited metaphor of change. Some
researchers use abstract labels such as a, b and d change (Porras and Silvers, 1991)
or first, second and third order change (Bartunek and Moch, 1987) as overarching
metaphors.
Gabriel (2012) writes of “organizational darkness” (p. 1142) and also uses the term
“miasma,” which he asserts is not a metaphor, to depict organizational transformations
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characterized by a toxic and contagious “state of moral and spiritual decay” (p. 1146).
The poignant and visceral recollections of participants in organizational change are
infused by metaphors, such as riding a rollercoaster (Doyle, 2002; Kochan, 1999),
grieving (Elrod and Tippett, 2002; Zell, 2003), running a marathon (Bridges, 2003),
“cutting away the fat” (Dunford and Palmer, 1996) and “being kept in the dark like
mushrooms” (Bryant, 2006, p. 252).
Three studies used drawings as a method of surfacing metaphors of change and
the accompanying emotional reactions. Participants were asked to construct drawings
of change, individually or in groups, then to talk about what the drawings meant to
them. In Barner’s (2008, p. 128) study of actors in one department, the collective image
of an organizational redesign was of “the dark tower of the executive floor” which was
“cold,” “rigid” and “isolated.” Eilam and Shamir’s (2005) study of an office move had
some participants rendering the old building as a friendly village and the new one as a
cold and unhealthy block of cubicles, with a chain-gang of prisoners being marched
between them. Vince and Broussine (1996, pp. 13-14) report positive images of change in
public sector organizations, such as “a dinghy sailing toward a benign sunset,” but more
negative representations, including “pushing a large boulder up a steep hill [y] menacing
clouds on the horizon” and a “ship being swamped by an enormous tidal wave.”
Research has shown how self-identity can be seriously disturbed during
organizational changes which redefine job content, relationships, status, power and
organizational culture (Eilam and Shamir, 2005; Smollan and Sayers, 2009). If, as Kuhn
(2006, p. 1340) suggests, identity is “the conception of the self-reflexively and
discursively understood,” the metaphor is a key linguistic device that generates a self-
image in a specific context. Thus change leaders may conceive of their roles in terms
of labels identified by Palmer and Dunford (2008), such as directors, caretakers and
navigators, or by Spicer and Alvesson (2011) such as saints, gardeners and buddies.
Change leaders in downsizing could position themselves negatively as “butchers” or
positively as “bakers” (Reich, cited in Dunford and Palmer, 1996) while change
managers in the same context have described themselves as “executioners” (Gandolfi,
2008) and “grim reapers” (Clair and Dufresne, 2004). Change recipients (downsizing
survivors) could play the parts of “the walking wounded” or “active advocates”
(Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998). Prasad and Prasad (2000) liken employees to prisoners
who are able to “stretch the bars of the iron cage” with routine acts of resistance.
Metaphors of self-identity may be interwoven with emotional threads such as hope,
pride, anxiety and anger.
 Riad (2011) shows how the same metaphor can be constructed in different The emotional
ways by stakeholders in a merger, and Dunford and Palmer (1996) note the rise dimensions of
of counter-metaphors and how different actors use them to promote their own version of
events. Mumby (2005) maintains that different stakeholders use language as a political tool metaphors of
to achieve their own ends. Competing metaphors therefore muddy the discourse waters. change
Management tends to control the official discourse (Dawson and Buchanan, 2005) and may
use metaphors as “hegemonic tools” (Gabriel et al., 2011, p. 369). Morgan (2001) argues 797
that the metaphorical language of management suppresses alternative interpretations of
change events. The voices thus silenced or muted by official discourses then permeate
unofficial discourses which may strengthen resentment about the way in which the official
metaphor has gained traction (Prasad and Prasad, 2000; Smollan, 2011).
In summary, metaphors are an inherent part of language and are used with deliberate
intent by some organizational actors and less artifice and consciousness by others. Those
who recollect organizational change often resort to metaphors that may combine
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cognition, affect and behavior. As powerful signals of phenomena, the emotional elements
of metaphors should be decoded to gain a deeper understanding of how organizational
actors make sense of change. While prior studies have focussed on the use of metaphors
to explore affective reactions to a change in one work group at one hierarchical level
(e.g. Barner, 2008), in one organization (e.g. Argaman, 2007), or in one sector (e.g. Vince
and Broussine, 1996), none appear to have investigated metaphors across a broad
spectrum of contexts. The current study therefore seeks to address this gap by examining
the emotions of metaphors used by participants in different change settings.

Method
As part of a wider study of emotional responses to organizational change I interviewed
24 people in Auckland, New Zealand. They discussed many types of change in
different industries, organizations and functional departments. Of the 17 managers
interviewed 13 were at senior level, two in middle management and two at first level.
There were 13 male and 11 female participants, comprising two Maori, three Pacific
Islanders, three Asians and 16 Whites. Ages varied from approximately 30 to 60.
In interviews of 60-90 minutes participants were asked, inter alia, about their reactions
to the outcomes of the change, to its scale and speed and about their perceptions of
fairness, organizational culture and leadership. They were repeatedly asked how they
had responded emotionally to these issues. In the deductive phase of data analysis
it became apparent that the participants often resorted to metaphors to articulate
their experiences.
The inductive phase then began with a re-reading of the transcripts to identify all
the metaphors used by the participants and the contexts that made them meaningful.
Initial categories were created from the terms used by several participants, such
the rollercoaster and grief cycle. This proved to be an insufficient basis for analysis and
did not account for all the different metaphors employed. The categories finally
developed emerged from an iterative process of looking for common meanings that
underlay the metaphors that were used.

Findings and discussion

For each category of metaphor found below headings are provided that represent the
meanings I read into the participants’ remarks. Table I shows the main categories
developed, the specific metaphors contained in each, the number of times they were
used and the emotions reported or inferred. Given that context is crucial, both to the
 JMP Category of metaphor and Emotions reported or
29,7 number of examples Specific metaphor used inferred

Oscillating positive and Rollercoaster Excitement, pleasure,

negative experiences over anger, anxiety, sadness
time (4)
Negative experiences over Grief cycle or some of its elements (anger, Shock, anger, sadness
798 time, ending with denial, acceptance, etc.)
acceptance of a
new status quo (6)
Loss (4) Winners and losers Guilt, sadness
Some people are going to lose
Casualties
Abandoned ship
Time moving too quickly (4) Snail fell off [y] freefall Fear, anger
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Blink of an eye
Swept along
Time moving too slowly (3) Like a snail Frustration, irritation
Marathon effect
Sitting back on the starter blocks, you’re not
running alongside the people who are already
out there
Powerlessness and losing Drowningypressure cooker finally bursting Fear, anger,
control (6) Cast in stone [y] Erosion of sense of hopelessness
belonging [y] disenfranchised
In control (1) Swept along Comfort
In the driver’s seat
Mismanaging Balls in the air Anxiety, guilt
responsibility (2) Drop the ball
Domination (7) Bowing down Anger, fear,
Table I. You became a target hopelessness
Metaphors of The Ministry was cold hearted [y] Big
organizational change brother stomping on little brother
and emotions Shat on [y] kept down [y] slap in the face

emotion experienced and the metaphor used, some detail is provided on several of the
participants’ change experiences. The literature engaged in this section relates to the
themes of the categories rather than to the concept of the metaphor.

Oscillating positive and negative experiences over time

As a metaphor, the rollercoaster conveys the impact on actors of processes and
outcomes of change over time. It evokes perceptions and emotions that correspond to
the up and down movements of the ride. The words up and down are commonly used
metaphors in everyday language to express positive and negative thoughts
and emotions (Crawford, 2006; Lakens, 2012; Meier and Robinson, 2005) and it was
noticeable that four respondents in the current study explicitly used the term
rollercoaster.
L, who had been in a junior human resources (HR) position, was told she had to
share a role with another employee for a six-month period until it was decided who
would permanently win the position. She was ultimately successful and observed:
At the beginning of the change I was very grounded [y] During the course of the change,
to shift, I went through quite an emotional turmoil [y] there was a real sort of doubting of
 self-worth [y] it had a happy ending, almost a euphoric ending [y] that set the tone of the The emotional
emotional rollercoaster.
dimensions of
M was a senior manager who disliked the role he would need to fill after a major metaphors of
restructuring. He spoke of the emotions he experienced as the process ran its course:
change
It was such a rollercoaster [y] and I think probably the biggest emotional change was when
I decided I was actually going to leave [y] and I was just a bit disgruntled [y] so I think that
was relief [y] and excitement. 799
W was the HR executive of one company which took over another. He recounted the
hostility and resistance shown by staff of the acquired organization and the energy it
took to implement changes after the takeover. “It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster
and by the end often you wished it was all over and done and dusted so that you could
move on.”
Q was an HR consultant contracted to oversee a major job redesign and redundancy
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exercise which many staff resisted. She spoke of her own excitement and enthusiasm
but also of her sadness and disappointment at the way others had behaved.
She commented somewhat ambivalently:
I think from an emotional perspective, I wouldn’t say for me it was rollercoaster ride.
There were a lot of different emotions through the process but I wouldn’t say it was up and
down all over the place; but I think that certainly got practically every emotion available.
The participants using the term rollercoaster reflected both positive and negative
experiences and emotions. In its literal form a rollercoaster is probably to most
fairground visitors an exciting site of fun, albeit with some scary moments. However, to
a minority it may only be a ride of terror. Images of rollercoasters of change are found
in practitioner publications (e.g. Goss et al., 1993; Schneider and Goldwasser, 1998) and
web sites (e.g. Hainescenter.com). The metaphor has been used by some academic
researchers to capture either their own experience or those of subjects they studied.
For example, Kochan (1999, p. 320) compares her own situation of managing an
organizational change to “riding a rollercoaster, with many up and down periods and
thrilling moments punctuated with stress.” In interviewing change managers, Doyle
(2002, p. 476) observed that many found their roles very stimulating and he categorized
their experiences “as a continuous pattern of highs and lows – metaphorically likened
to being on a ‘rollercoaster ride’ [y] any success or sense of achievement was almost
certainly to be followed by setback and disappointment.”

Negative experiences over time, ending with acceptance of a new status quo
Several participants directly referred to the grief cycle to describe their experiences of
change or used words that are closely or loosely associated with the term: “anger, grief
to an acceptance” (M); “initially fear, shock then excitement, stress” (T); “anger,
resistance, denial, acceptance” (W).
Participant A, a manager in a firm that had been taken over, stated that the changes
in leadership, organizational culture and his own role “was all grief cycle.” He also used
the terms saddened, disenfranchised and disenchanted. R was appointed to the new
position of head of HR for a professional services firm and was involved in creating
and implementing changes in job design, remuneration, benefits and organizational
culture. She commented:
At the beginning I guess my emotion was shock, horror. Then it moved to this is going to be a
piece of cake [y] Then another emotion was excitement to actually see the opportunity to
 JMP create that behaviour change [y] but then there were also other emotions as we went through
the process where you encountered the blockages. So I guess it was a cycle of emotions.
29,7
E, an HR executive, commented on how others had reacted to a restructuring:
They went through quite quickly a series of emotions. You have the normal grief cycle but it
didn’t take didn’t take them long to get to the point of acceptance and then to a healthy space
[y] You go through the fact of shock, then the denial factor [y] and then the acceptance
800 of let’s just focus going forward.
These self-reflections on change processes convey the negative emotions of the
announcement of change, followed by a steeper emotional decline and, in some
cases, through an upward progression to some degree of accommodation. Participants
who used these words showed different levels of familiarity with Kübler-Ross’ (1969)
analysis of how people cope with imminent death. The stages she identified, denial,
anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, are a combination of cognition, affect
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and behavior. However, some of the participants in the current study construed
the grief cycle as any combination of negative and positive emotions. Researchers have
likened organizational change to the stages of death and dying. Elrod and Tippett
(2002) examined many rollercoaster-like models of personal change which use similar
terminology and in their own empirical study of moves to teamwork found similar
responses. Zell (2003), who interviewed participants in change in a university, some
more than once, found many parallels to the stages presented by Kübler-Ross (1969).
It is interesting that practitioner web sites (e.g. Changingminds.org; Strategies-for
managing-change.com) contain diagrams that resemble rollercoasters in portraying
what they label as the grief cycle of organizational change. The term grief cycle, which
Kübler-Ross did not use, now seems to have gained popular usage among organizational
actors and management consultants. Since some participants in the current study
actually used the term grief cycle, while others spoke of associated terms, it is clear that
the concept has entered the lexicon of organizational change management.

Loss
A sense of loss was implied in a number of expressions participants used. For example,
A reflected that in processes of change, “There are winners and losers. It’s just not nice
being on the losing side of the equation.” In trying to balance business and human issues
in managing change S commented, “You know that you’re going to suffer casualties and
that some people are going to lose.” Likewise W remarked that in change “inevitably
you’re at the bottom of the cliff with some casualties but it still has to be done.” Those in
managerial positions revealed feelings of guilt when taking action that would deprive
others of benefits they had previously enjoyed. Negative emotions were evident in those
who suffered loss themselves. For example, T reported unease and sadness in colleagues
who had been relocated to a small town on a temporary but lengthy assignment when
the manager soon returned to the head office: “He abandoned ship and left us down
there.” Wolfram Cox (1997) identified loss as a powerful and pervasive theme in her
study of an organization undergoing substantial change and research by Eilam and
Shamir (2005) and Gabriel (2012) showed how office moves (among other changes)
produced a sense of loss of familiar and more congenial surroundings.

Time moving too quickly or too slowly

Some participants used affect-laden metaphors to signal that time had moved too
quickly for them to be able to adapt psychologically, or to develop new skills, or to be
 consulted on matters that affected them. O, a junior professional in a social services The emotional
agency that was restructuring and retrenching staff, used a combination of metaphors. dimensions of
She first said that the change had been taking place slowly, then “it was like in free fall.
So we’d been going along like a snail and all of a sudden the snail fell off.” Participant metaphors of
A was angry that he experienced “a major change and it happened over the course of change
three weeks, which was a blink of an eye.” It was more the lack of consultation that
he resented than the speed of change but the former contributed to the latter. Similarly, 801
in assessing how change affected staff in his organization E commented, “For those
who thought it was too fast [y] there was anxiety from the point of view of I’m being
swept along with something and therefore decisions are being made on my behalf.”
In contrast, for some leaders change occurred too slowly and they used running
metaphors in recalling the emotions they experienced. Q noted the different responses
by actors in a series of changes and felt that management had erred:
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We didn’t cater for the people who were passionate and excited and enthusiastic about this
change. Often what happens in a change process is that you cater to the negative, the group
that’s sitting back on the starter blocks, you’re not running alongside the people who are
already out there going, oh wow [y] and you want to get engaged and passionate.
W managed part of the acquisition of a company, some of whose employees appeared
to take longer to understand the implications of the takeover than the managers of the
acquiring company. He referred to the “marathon effect” whereby managers:
[y] already know what the outcome is for them and they’re well ahead [y] and they often
don’t realize that the workforce is at a different point from them and they can become
frustrated and annoyed when they don’t have the same enthusiasm for the changes.
He acknowledged that he had “borrowed” the term the marathon effect. Bridges (2003)
uses it to represent the reactions of change leaders to the slow pace of acceptance of
change by others. Researchers have pointed out that time is experienced subjectively,
that personal time is not always the equivalent of “clock time” (e.g. Pettigrew et al.,
2001) and that people may feel anxiety or frustration when events seem to be moving
too quickly or too slowly.
Powerlessness and losing control
Several metaphors previously discussed, such as the rollercoaster, grief cycle, freefall
and being swept along, could also be viewed as metaphors for situations where the
actors lack or lose control. A, who earlier referred to the grief cycle also observed that
since the change “was cast in stone” he “felt a large erosion in a sense of belonging” and
had been “disenfranchised.” B used a number of clashing metaphors in describing
her experience as a junior HR staffer involved in a highly demanding redundancy
exercise. The volume of work she produced in a short space of time led her to exclaim
in the interview that she had been drowning but that nobody had seemed to know or
care. The accumulation of stress led her to observe, “I have an image [y] of a pressure
cooker finally bursting [y] the top finally blowing off.”
Several streams of literature attest to the negative emotions that arise when people
experience powerlessness or a loss of control. Cognitive appraisal theorists Smith and
Ellsworth (1985) showed that fear occurs when impersonal or situational control
deprives people of influence and anger erupts when control is exercised by others.
Taking a critical management perspective, Fineman and Sturdy (1999, p. 650) maintain
that “frustration, resentment, weariness and irritation become more meaningful in the
context of [y] perceived powerlessness.” The need for control during change also
 JMP emerges from literature on stress (Bordia et al., 2004), personality (Kormanik and
29,7 Rocco, 2009) and psychoanalysis (Driver, 2009). Emotions tend to become intense when
employees have little influence on the adverse outcomes of change. In developing an
archetype of survivor responses to downsizing, Mishra and Spreitzer (1998, p. 57) note
the presence of “fright, depression and worry [y] a sense of being out of control [y]
and helplessness.” The metaphors used by respondents in the current study are
802 particularly striking images of actors who experience intense emotion when they lack
or lose control over change. Conversely, one managerial respondent reflected that she
felt more comfortable when she was “in the driver’s seat.”

Mismanaging responsibility
The anxiety that may accompany pressures on change managers to perform is closely
related to the emotions of losing control when they feel overloaded with responsibility, but
in the former there is a greater sense of inadequacy. Two managers in the study used
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similar metaphors to express the anxiety they felt in carrying out multiple responsibilities.
G remarked of a process of managing a branch closure and the ensuing redundancies,
“There was just so much detail in managing the process we knew we couldn’t drop the
ball.” Similarly, R recounted, “It was the pressure, we had so many balls in the air and
were juggling the priorities and switching instantly from one to the next.”
Psychodynamic treatments of organizational change reveal the deep-seated sense
of anxiety of many of those affected (Driver, 2009; Gabriel, 2012), including those in
leadership positions. Bandura (1988) suggests that anxiety over potential failure is a
combination of personality, perception of threat and an assessment of one’s coping
abilities. Organizational scholars (e.g. Herold et al., 2007) have demonstrated that
change self-efficacy, the perception that one has the skills to deal with change, provides
a measure of comfort. Research into occupational stress has shown that managing
multiple demands during periods of challenging change undermines well-being,
particularly when one has insufficient control over events and resources (Bordia et al.,
2004). However, the two managers in the current study did not explicitly report
experiencing stress but, in choosing the metaphors noted above, were probably
expressing normal levels of anxiety associated with handling multiple responsibilities.

Domination
A few metaphors reflected the participants’ feelings about domination by others.
While domination may relate logically to a sense of powerlessness, the former may
signify a deliberate malevolence. As a middle manager, J resented how he was dictated
to by his boss and how his company had developed a culture of “bowing down” to its
clients. X, who worked in an entry-level position for a local government authority,
claimed that if staff resisted change “you became a target and a target is always hit
upon.” P was a senior manager in a public sector agency that had been taken over by a
government ministry. Having spoken of the constructive leadership and culture of her
agency, she claimed that during the takeover the “Ministry was pretty cold hearted
about it. There was a real culture of stamping out any of the sort of features of our
culture in the past. It was big brother stomping on little brother.” Her palpable anger
and frustration in the interview reflected her own powerlessness as well as that of
others in the department she had previously led. B was angered about being asked
to take on a much higher level of responsibility without extra pay. Again using mixed
metaphors she reported, “I’d just been shat on a lot by the organization [y] I felt really
used and kept down [y] it was a slap in the face.”
 These participants’ feelings evoke the images of Morgan (2006) of organizations The emotional
as “instruments of domination” and as “psychic prisons,” which he describes dimensions of
in emotionally charged terms – coercion, exploitation, discrimination, power and
privilege. Prasad and Prasad (2000) point out how employees in “the iron cage” of the metaphors of
organization have resisted managerial power to dictate change. These images signal change
the darker side of organizational life (Gabriel, 2012) and its corrosive influence on
employee perceptions that they are agents of their own destinies. 803
Other metaphors
Other emotionally charged metaphors used by participants did not fit into definable
categories, such as “black clouds and silver linings,” “you don’t want to frighten
horses” and organizational “culture was the glue that made it doable.” One metaphor
appears to have been constructed in an idiosyncratic fashion. V’s role in a community
organization dealt with a specific ethnic group. After attending a meeting where it
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became apparent that his job was threatened he thought it prudent to inform his
“networks” of how this change might affect them. He commented in the interview,
“I used some very interesting phrases to express how I felt. The cream was off the
custard was one of them.” Given the unusual (and inexplicable) nature of this phrase
I consulted a number of my academic colleagues on its possible meaning, and none
of them had heard of the expression, or could make any sense of it, literally or
figuratively. It was nevertheless an image that was meaningful to the participant.

Conclusions
The findings reveal that the participants in the study frequently resorted to metaphors
to explicate their experiences and that these metaphors have affective dimensions that
are mostly negative. A number of these metaphors, such as the rollercoaster and grief
cycle, have become part of the vocabulary of organizational life, as academic and
practitioner literature has shown. Other metaphors are images used by the participants
to graphically reconstruct the impact of change. The study has therefore addressed a
gap in the literature by revealing the widespread use of affect-laden metaphors across
multiple organizational sites, hierarchical levels and types of change. Prior empirical
studies of metaphors of change have produced central themes relevant to specific
organizational contexts, like Barner’s (2008) dark tower and Eilam and Shamir’s (2005)
chain-gang of prisoners. A contribution of the current study is the revelation of the
widespread use of emotion-laden metaphors in different types of organizational change
contexts and the identification of common themes.
The implications for managers are that first they need to be careful in constructing
metaphors of change that are too optimistic or too pessimistic. The former, as Fox and
Amichai-Hamburger (2001) caution, creates cynicism among actors and the latter is
unlikely to create sufficient enthusiasm for change. Second, Morgan (2001) points out
that managerial discourse often imposes an official metaphor that marginalizes other
interpretations of a change and that it is better to listen to the literal and figurative
language actors use to discern where there are similarities and differences.
There are a number of limitations in the current study. First, metaphors are, by
definition, not literal representations of reality (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Morgan,
2006; Weick, 2001) and the inherent weakness of aspects of the comparison may
undermine the power and relevance of the image. Second, metaphors have become so
pervasive in organizational settings that they may become clichéd expressions or
vacuous buzzwords (Cluley, 2013) that are only superficial articulations of experience.
 JMP Third, the metaphors used by the respondents are English sayings that may not
29,7 translate well into other languages and analyses of metaphors of change used in other
languages and cultures may be even more puzzling to those who do not understand the
terms or the historical and cultural contexts that spawned them (Grisham, 2006;
Kövecses, 2000). Fourth, it was not sufficiently clear how the different categories of
metaphor relate to the role of the actor in change. Fifth, I did not ask the participants
804 what their metaphors meant and relied on my own interpretations.
While the current study has focussed on metaphors of change future research needs
to simultaneously unpack the affective dimensions of literal and figurative language
to provide a more holistic picture. Cross-cultural studies will reveal the meanings of
locally constructed metaphors and the extent to which the categories emerging from
the current study are found in other contexts. Gabriel et al. (2011) comment on how
theorists of metaphor and of storytelling in organizations are reluctant to stray into
each others’ fields of inquiry. They advise that both “require a certain flight of
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imagination above the literal and the factual” (p. 367) and that future research needs
the “fecundity of the ensuing cross-fertilization” (p. 368). Despite the potential
weakness of the metaphor, including whimsy, inaccuracy and banality, it remains
an important way of reporting organizational phenomena and is particularly powerful
in uncovering emotional responses to organizational change.

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Further reading
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About the author

Dr Roy K. Smollan is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the Auckland University of
Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. His research interests lie in the fields of organizational
change, organizational justice, emotions at work, emotional intelligence and emotional
labor. He has published a number of journal articles and book chapters on these constructs.
Dr Roy K. Smollan can be contacted at: roy.smollan@aut.ac.nz

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