Organizations As Systems

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Organizations As Systems Systems approach builds
on the principle that organizations, like
organisms, are open to their environment and
must achieve an appropriate relation with that
environment if they are to survive. (Morgan, p.
39)
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• Characteristics of Open/Living/Organic Systems
• Exchange with environment
• Homeostasis self-regulation, maintenance of
  steady state, negative feedback
• Entropy self-sustaining, dont run down

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• Structure, function, differentiation, integration
• Complexity
• Requisite variety diverse internal regulatory
  mechanisms cant isolate from diversity in
  environment

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• Equifinality many different ways to get to end
  state flexible patterns of organization
• System evolution cyclical process of variation,
  selection, retention of selected characteristics

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• Focuses
• Emphasis on the environment in which the org
  exists
• Task or business environment
• (Classical management theorists treated org as
  closed system, with no relationship to
  environment)

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• Interrelated sub-systems Chinese boxes key
  patterns and interconnections importance of
  interdependency
• Establishing congruencies, alignments between
  different systems identifying and eliminating
  potential dysfunction
• (principle of requisite variety)
• Applies to different tasks

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• Contingency Theory adapting organization to
  environment
• Satisfy and balance
• Alignments and good fits
• Different management approaches for different
  tasks
• Different types of organizations for different
  types of environments

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• Five configurations of organizations
• Machine bureaucracy
• Divisional form
• Professional bureaucracy
• Simple structure works best in small
  entrepreneurial orgs
• Adhocracy temporary by design project teams

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• System a complex set of relationships among
  inter- dependent parts or components
• Orgs must
• Continually scan environment
• Work with (communicate with) environment

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• Compare addictive system (closed)
• Confusion
• Self-centeredness
• Dishonesty
• perfectionism

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Interdependence Failure leads to tragedy of the
commons (Garrett Hardin) people with access to
common resource use it for personal needs rather
than needs of the whole pollution, rain forest
destruction Interdependent division of labor
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Organizational Goals Goals of individuals vs.
goals of organization Goals can differ across
system levels
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Processes and feedback System as interdependent
processes interacting over time Feedback series
of loops connection communication and action
Feedback contains information about message and
deviation from what sender intended (no 100
communication)
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Cybernetic feedback (steersman) Seeks to
reestablish goals/guality levels initially
established Todays businesses need both
deviation-counteracting and deviation-amplifying
feedback for success
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Openness, Order, Contingency Openness helps
organizations see themselves as part of a dynamic
system of intricate interdependencies and
relationships Equifinality same goal can be
reached different ways
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• Contingency Theory
• There is no one best way to organize
• All ways of organizing are not equally effective
• Imply need to match organization and environment

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• Implications of Systems Theory for Organizational
  Communications
• Wheatley (New Science 1992)
• No things only networks of interactions
• Information, not matter, is creative energy of
  the universe
• All living things engaged in self-renewal orgs
  do this by making creative use of environment

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• Search for machinelike control by management is
  counterproductive
• disorder is part of natural process of order
  making
• Desire to make meaning is strange attractor
  which keeps humans in constant tendency toward
  self- organization

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• Senge (1990) Learning Organizations
• Systems thinking holism, interdependence, for
  one to succeed, all must succeed
• Personal mastery commitment by all to learning,
  self-reflection
• Flexible mental models (patterns of belief)
  must understand and change mental models that
  guide thinking

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• Shared vision members act in concert because
  they share a common vision and understand how
  their work helps to build on that vision
• Team learning team members communicate to lead
  the team toward intelligent decisions, with
  emphasis on dialogue as key

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