UNDERSTANDING ORGANISATIONS: THE DOMINANCE OF SYSTEMS THEORY (original) (raw)
Lost in Transition? Complexity in Organisational Behaviour – the Contributions of Systems Theories
management revu
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1976
The two papers in this document focus on general systems theory. In her paper, Linda Lederman discusses the emergence and evolution of general systems theory, defines its central concepts, and draws some conclusions regarding the nature of the theory and its value as an epistemology. Don Rogers, in his paper, relates some of the important features of general systems theory and of modern organizational theory to organizational communication theory, and he points out that these theories provide a potentially significant analytical model for organizational communication scholars. (JM) * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDPS are the best that can be made from the original.
In Pursuit of Systems Theories for Describing and Analyzing Systems in Organizations
2018
This research essay illustrates how the IS discipline might pursue systems theories with the goal of understanding IS in new ways, generating innovative and useful systems theories, and achieving more impact in the world. It discusses recent articles that compare different perspectives and expectations related to theories and theorizing in the IS discipline. It uses the term domain-specific systems theory (DSST) to accentuate the difference between general systems theory (GST) and specific systems theories. It provides examples illustrating how DSSTs can illuminate important concerns that variance and process perspectives do not address directly. It shows how work system theory (WST) and several of its extensions are DSSTs that provide useful lenses for understanding, analyzing, and theorizing about systems in organizations. It concludes by summarizing ways in which the IS discipline might welcome systems theories more wholeheartedly.
Usual management theories focus on phenomenological aspects of organisations and management. Systems theory offers a different approach, which can be used to analyze social systems, uncover their internal logic and structure, and to understand their interactions with other social systems. This paper shows how to apply the systems approach to management. This analysis reveals that the management is a sub-system of the organisation, which deals with memories of the organisation, and organizes as an information sub-system and possibly as an identity sub-system of the organisation. We discuss how the systems theory interpretation helps in understanding some management related issues: the growth of management, charismatic leadership, and the trade-off between complexity and standardisation.
2016
The aim of this paper is to present some system-theoretical notions ─ such as constraint, closure, integration, coordination, etc. ─ which have recently raised a renovated interest and have undergone a deep development, especially in those branches of philosophy of biology characterized by a systemic approach. The implications of these notions for the analysis and characterization of self-maintaining organizations will be discussed with the aid of examples taken from models of minimal living systems, and some conceptual distinctions will be provided. In the last part of the paper the epistemic implications of these ideas will be presented.
Theoretical approaches to managing complexity in organizations: A comparative analysis
This paper aims to identify the differences and similarities in the way to explain self-organization from the different theories of complex systems used in management, which we have grouped as complex systems theories, complex adaptive systems (CAS) and organizational cybernetics. For this purpose we suggest three parallel and complementary dimensions to delimit the conceptual spaces where these theories can be placed. Using this classification as an analytical lens we summarize the core arguments suggested by each of these complex systems approaches, regarding the ideas of emergence and new order. This analysis helps us to conclude that the three theories coincide in their interest for studying nonlinear complex systems, but diverge in the nature of the complex problems studied. Finally we analyze the consequences that recognizing the similarities and differences between these approaches have, when using them for the study and research of social and business organizations and their management.
2016
Warren Weaver, writing about the function that science should have in mankind’s developing future, ideas and ideals, proposed to classify scientific problems into ‘problems of simplicity’, ‘problems of disorganised complexity’, and ‘problems of organised complexity’ — the huge complementary class to which all biological, human, and social problems belong. Problems of simplicity have few components and variables and have been extensively addressed in the last 400 years. Problems of disorganised complexity have a huge number of individually erratic components and variables, but possess collective regularities that can be analysed by resourcing to stochastic methods. Yet, problems of organised complexity do not yield easily to classical or statistical treatment since interrelations among phenomenon elements change during its evolution alongside commonly used state variables, affecting behaviour and outcome. Moreover, organisation, the foc...
Using Chaos Theory as a Framework to Explain the Nature of Complexity in Contemporary Organizations
Revista Economía y Política, 2016
Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to explain the complex nature of contemporary business organizations, using the visual narrative of Cube (1997) as a metaphor. The article attempts to answer two main questions: 1) what makes contemporary business organizations complex? and 2) what research approach could provide an alternative explanation on the complexity of contemporary organizations? Design/ Methodology/ Approach: As the answer to the second question, the paper follows a metaphor analysis approach. It is suggested in the analysis that a contemporary business organization can be seen metaphorically as a group of people trapped in a cubic maze that consists of many small cubes (the enterprise system)-some of these cubes in the maze have deadly traps, as in Cube (1997). A business organization's existence and functioning have many characteristics similar to the group's journey through cubes in the maze. Chaos theory is used as a foundation to support arguments made using Cube (1997) as a metaphor. To analyze organizations, three binary oppositions are used: 1) selfinterest versus organizational objectives, 2) stability versus instability, and 3) internal and
European Journal of Operational Research, 2010
The systems approach, or systems thinking, has been intimately connected with the development of OR and management science initially through the work of founders such as Churchman and Ackoff and latterly through innovations such as soft systems. In this paper we have undertaken a review of the contribution that systems thinking has been making more recently, especially to the practice of OR. Systems thinking is a discipline in its own right, with many theoretical and methodological developments, but it is also applicable to almost any problem area because of its generality, and so such a review must always be selective. We have looked at the literature from both a theoretical and an applications orientation. In the first part we consider the main systems theories and methodologies in terms of their recent developments and also their applications. This covers: the systems approach, complexity theory, cybernetics, system dynamics, soft OR and PSMs, critical systems and multimethodology. In the second part we review the main domains of application: strategy, information systems, organisations, production and operations, ecology and agriculture, and medicine and health. Our overall conclusion is that while systems may not be well established institutionally, in terms of academic departments, it is incredibly healthy in terms of the quantity and variety of its applications.
It is better to understand the natural laws that govern society than to create man made laws that will not work. You have to ask yourself, what kind of an organization do you want. Do you want an organization that requires a powerful and ruthless leader or do you want an organization where everyone genuinely cares about one another? If a system is sufficiently complex, all we can do is, tweak the parameters, run it in real time, and watch what happens. How do natural systems find balance? They have no choice, it is either balance or oblivion. All natural laws retain the balance contained within the scope of that law, no man made law can do this. In societies where natural laws are in operation, lawyers are rare but in societies where these laws have been subverted, you will see an escalation of litigation. Having an overwhelming sense of entitlement is not a virtue. When we speak of natural law, we are speaking of a high and lofty thing. Few men have the capacity to truly understand these laws. They dabble at power and control and dig for themselves and others a pit from which no man can escape and in the end the law returns and covers them over. As a process passes through a system, a hierarchy emerges. The form of variation is scale dependent. Society as a whole can be thought of as a system. Because value creation is such a subjective thing our metric must be the system itself. This is the idea of "the ends justify the means" but there is a caveat, we have a feedback loop which causes the means to feedback in a manner that is very difficult to predict. The principles involved can be stated as; extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, criticality at the edge of chaos, resolution and scale, nested hierarchies and unpredictable results. Your influence on the system depends on what you are connected to, along with the systems influence on you. Your values branch out into the network of associations and connect to possibilities. The more good values at the individual levels, the better the chance of finding a fitness peak. Things like trust, dignity, love, charity, empathy and reciprocity matter. In summery; what we value matters, we become what we are connected to. The greater good says "the ends justify the means" the common good says "the means are all important." Liberty is inherently opposed to government, there is a dynamic tension that must maintain balance.
puntOorg international Journal
The biggest challenge for today's organisations is to address the growing complexity of their internal and external environment while gaining a competitive advantage. To do this, the leaders of the organisations must be able to understand this complexity through the knowledge of the environment and the implementation of a governance system based on a decision-making process that considers the enormous amount of data available. Such data must lead to the availability of information that guides the organisations themselves in the learning process. Sustainable development requires organisations to rethink their goals and/or business models, with effects on their day-today activities. Pursuing to become more sustainable is not only a need for marketing reasons but also an opportunity for growth and alignment with emerging trends. However, managing the complexity of sustainability is not straightforward and requires cognitive and practical tools that are able to capture and jointly consider a wide variety of interrelated factors. Modelling the processes that characterise complex organisations is not an easy task. The aim of this contribution is thus to identify a methodology that helps managers in tackling the challenges that organisations have to adopt when faced with a growing complexity of their internal and external environment, and that might help managers at all levels when analysing various business and management situations, to account for non-linearities, path-dependency and time lags, and that may allow also for organisational and social learning. The System Thinking and System Dynamics approach may prove a useful combined tool for next-generation decision-makers, but this approach needs to be understood and learned in order to develop the necessary skills. In particular, this study will show the results of a test conducted with the collaboration of undergraduate university students, who have attended a course about System Dynamics, in order to test their ability to understand the dynamics underlying counterintuitive system behaviour.
Systems Theories: Their origins, foundations, and development
Advances in psychology, 1998
In it's broadest conception, a "system" may be described as a complex of interacting components together with the relationships among them that permit the identification of a boundary-maintaining entity or process. Since social and psychological phenomena tend to resist quantitative modeling by posing basic difficulties already on the plane of boundary identification, alternative approaches must be relied upon. One such approach draws on the body of knowledge derived from General System Theory and its application in the domain of human activity systems.
This article presents work system theory (WST) as a body of theory for analysis, explanation, prediction, and design and action (Gregor, 2006) related to systems in organizations. It provides background about how WST evolved, summarizes major components of WST, and explains that each of the five types of theory identified by Gregor (2006) appears in WST. The discussion of WST emphasizes its overall contribution to knowledge by emphasizing areas in which it differs from commonly used terminology, frameworks, and beliefs within the IS field. In a discipline in which even basic terms such as system, service, implementation, and user have many contradictory meanings, a key goal of WST is to demonstrate the possibility of using an internally consistent set of assumptions, concepts, frameworks, and principles as a basis for analysis, explanation, prediction, and design and action.