The Voice of the Shuttle

Abstract

While the literature has emphasized the literal and the narrative within organizations, this article will consider the visual and the imaginal. Organizations are known and experienced through images, and these images must be considered if organizational culture is to be understood or changed. We look at the imaginal inventory provided by classical mythology, with special reference to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and explore the potency and persistence of myth in imaginal terms and introduce the concept of the “voice of the shuttle”, which imprints events within the metaphorical weave of the mythical narrative. This “voice”, always present in organizations, leaves significant and revealing images on the cultural fabric. We try to understand these images through the experiences of an organizational participant and of students trying to make sense of their college culture.