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2009 | Buch

Introducing Organizations as Social Systems Conducting Experiments Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Organizations

Social Systems Conducting Experiments

verfasst von: Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

to do to ensure survival, and (2) principles for designing organizational structures in such a way that they can realize the required functions adequately. In the course of their elaboration, we will show that these principles are general – i. e. , that they hold for all organizations. 1. 5 Conceptual Background To describe organizations as social systems conducting experiments and to present principles for designing an infrastructure supporting the “social experiment,” we use concepts from (organizational) cybernetics, social systems theory, and Aristotle’s ethics. In this book, we hope to show that concepts from these traditions – as introduced by their relevant representatives – can be integrated into a framework supporting our perspective on organizations. To this purpose, we introduce, in each of the following chapters, relevant concepts from an author “belonging” to one of these three traditions and show how these concepts contribute to either describing organizations as social expe- ments (in Part I of the book), to formulating principles for the design of functions and organization structures supporting meaningful survival (Part II), or to formul- ing principles for the design of organization structures enabling the rich sense of meaningful survival (Part III). Of course, the relevance of cybernetics, social systems theory and Aristotle’s ethics can only be understood in full, after they have been treated in more detail – but based on what we said above, it may already be possible to see why these theories have been chosen as conceptual background.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introducing Organizations as Social Systems Conducting Experiments
Abstract
In this book, it is our aim to describe organizations as social systems conducting experiments with their survival. More in particular, we want to explain what we mean by this description, and based on this explanation, we want to formulate principles for the design of organizations, enabling them to survive, i.e., enabling them to continue to conduct these experiments.
Organizations as social systems conducting experiments: “What kind of description is that?” “Can it deepen our understanding of organizations?” “Can it help to improve the conditions for their survival by providing principles underpinning organizational design?” and if so, “What are these design principles?” These are all relevant and “natural” questions that might come up when reading the aim of this book. We do think it deepens our understanding of organizations and allows for finding principles improving their design. However, it may take the rest of the book to argue why. In this introduction, we cannot exhaustively answer these questions, so we have to content ourselves with a tentative and hopefully sufficiently persuasive description of the main topic of the book: organizations as social systems conducting experiments and finding principles to improve their design.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 2. The Experimental Arche: Ashby's Cybernetics
Abstract
In this chapter we introduce Ashby’s cybernetics – a theory about the regulation of all kinds of systems. Ashby’s cybernetic theory is fundamental to our perspective on organizations as “social systems conducting experiments” because it provides us with the conceptual tools to describe the “experimental arche” of organizations (see Chap.​ 1). In particular, Ashby’s theory on regulation enables us to arrive at a first description of organizations conducting experiments, making apparent (1) that the objects organizations experiment with – goals, transformation processes, infrastructural parts or operational regulatory activities – are related to three types of (organizational) regulation, and (2) how conducting such experiments should be regulated itself. Moreover, because Ashby’s notion of regulation is intimately tied to the survival of systems, his theory can be used to make explicit how conducting organizational experiments is linked to the survival of organizations.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 3. The Experimental Arche Continued: Von Foerster on Observing Systems
Abstract
In the previous chapter we used Ashby’s cybernetic theory to discuss the “experimental arche” of organizations. This arche referred to a continuous and risky process of control, design and operational regulation with respect to organizational transformation processes. At the heart of our discussion of the experimental arche was Ashby’s regulatory logic, stating that, in order to regulate a particular concrete system, one has to: Select essential variables and desired values Identify parameters, disturbing the essential variables Design an infrastructure (a “mechanism”) by means of which: Disturbances are attenuated The system’s transformation processes can be realized Regulatory potential (regulatory parameters) becomes available And, given 1, 2, and 3: select values of regulatory parameters (= select regulatory actions) in the face of actual disturbances.
Moreover, in this Ashby-based notion of regulation, one needs a model of the behavior of the concrete system: a transformation. According to Ashby (1958), a good (conditional, single-valued) transformation relates the selected variables and parameters in such a way that predictions can be made about the behavior of the concrete system. To arrive at such a transformation, the black-box method was introduced – a method enabling a regulator to derive a transformation based only on the values of the variables and parameters that are chosen to describe the concrete system that should be regulated. Ashby’s black box method seems to suggest that we can “objectively” select variables and parameters, and derive a transformation connecting them based on trial and error, without, as Ashby puts it, “reference to prior knowledge”. If this is what regulating systems is about, one might say that it does not contain much risk. It is “just” a matter of selecting variables/parameters; observation and deduction. The risk attached to it may have to do with the mistakes we make in selecting variables/parameters or in deducing a conditional transformation from empirical observations; or it may have to do with time-constraints we face while regulating; or with the probabilities appearing in a transformation and governing the behavior of the system.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 4. The Second “arche”, Organizations as Social Systems: Luhmann
Abstract
In the previous chapters, we explored the first organizational “arche,” i.e., we discussed organizations as conducting risky experiments with meaningful survival. We based this discussion on insights taken from first- and second-order cybernetics.
In this chapter, we shift our attention to the second “arche,” to organizations as social systems. As argued in Chap. 1, experiments in organizations are characteristically social. Selecting goals, designing infrastructures, and performing operational regulation are all communicative events belonging to the “system of connected communications” we call the organization.
This “addition” of the social character to the experiment changes nothing of what we said about control, design, and operational regulation in earlier chapters. At the same time, it also changes everything. Because organizations are a particular type of social systems, we need to specify the social character of the experiment.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 5. Epilogue to Part I: The Two “Archai” Combined
Abstract
In Chap. 1 we advanced the position that organizations have an experimental and a social “arche.” These “archai” are features of organizations that cannot be negated without negating organizations altogether. They are unavoidable characteristics of the “phenomena” we call organizations. Following Aristotle’s “method” of starting with the phenomena as we experience them, we introduced the “archai” referring to everyday experiences with organizations.
In the chapters that followed, we explored the experimental and social “arche” separately. We formulated them in terms of the “languages” of (first and second-order) cybernetics and social systems theory. This resulted in a “theoretical” understanding of our everyday experiences with each of the two “archai.” However, this leaves us with a separate understanding of the : “archai” which is still insufficient to theoretically understand organizations as social systems conducting risky experiments. For this reason, we need to take one final step in which the two “archai” are combined.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 6. Beer: Functional Design Principles for Viable Infrastructures
Abstract
In Part I of the book, we explored the two “archai” of organizations indicating that they are social systems conducting experiments. In the present part, we will give a systematic exposition of ways of organizing this experiment. Given the “logic” of the experiment, this means that we have to look for principles enabling the design of infrastructural conditions allowing organizations to experiment. These infrastructural conditions are so important because an organization’s potential to select and reselect goals, infrastructures, operational regulation, and transformation processes (and all other “objects” related to these “focal” objects), crucially depends on the design of its infrastructure.
Above, we distinguished two classes of design principles: functional design principles and specific design principles. Functional design principles specify what a system’s infrastructure must be able to do if the system is to survive. Specific design principles, specify rules and heuristics for the design of particular parts of the infrastructure (the division of work, human resources management, technology), given the set of functional design principles.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 7. Specific Design Principles: de Sitter's Organizational Structures
Abstract
In the previous chapter, we discussed Beer’s Viable System Model; a functional model specifying desired effects required for viability. These effects can be used as criteria for diagnostic or design purposes. We also pointed at limitations of the Viable System Model. As a functional model it does not address the question of the embodiment of functions. Although it specifies desired effects, it does not positively address the question of how to design their realization. Simply put, the strength of the Viable System Model is stating what effects should be realized, not how they should be realized. For instance, functions three and four should engage in a relatively complex and balanced dialogue about plans for innovation, but what is needed to realize this dialogue? How should one distribute tasks and responsibilities among organizational members, so that this dialogue can be carried out properly? How should one select, allocate, and train the people involved in these dialogues, and how does one design the technological infrastructure supporting the complex communication processes required for innovation? In short: how does one design the infrastructure realizing the desired effects for viability?
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 8. Epilogue to Part II: functional and specific design principles
Abstract
In the previous two chapters, we unfolded Beer’s functional and de Sitter’s specific design principles. As argued, these principles can be used to diagnose and design organizational (infra)structures supporting experiments with meaningful survival. This means that we have realized the objective set for Part II of the book. In this epilogue, we summarize these principles (8.2) and reflect on their status (8.3). In this reflection, we argue that the design principles are not contingent and risky, like the selections figuring in the experiment, but necessary and certain. Section 8.4 marks the transition to Part III of the book.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 9. Poor Survival: Disciplining Organizational Behavior
Abstract
In this chapter, we want to discuss poor survival. Because there are many possible instances of poor survival, we selected an especially vivid example, i.e., an example that illustrates everything that is possibly worrying about it. We take this example from Foucault’s book Surveiller et Punir (1975, 1977).
In this book, Foucault discusses the emergence in the eighteenth century of what he calls the “disciplines.” According to Foucault, the disciplines constituted a new way of subjecting human behavior. It was the aim of the disciplines to make human behavior both “productive” and “controllable” and to do this in a scientific, deliberate, and methodical way. As such, the disciplines were applied in all kinds of societal domains and in all kind of institutions such as factories, schools, asylums, hospitals, barracks, or prisons.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 10. Towards Rich Survival: Aristotle
Abstract
The previous chapter was about poor survival. To be more precise, it was about a bad case of poor survival; the disciplines. We argued that attached to them there are six disquieting features, all related to the instrumental use of trivialized behavior to realize contingent goals of organizational production processes. By analyzing the disciplines, we arrived at a set of general cybernetic and social systemic principles underpinning all management of organizational behavior. The question arose whether the application of these principles in organizations necessarily leads to “discipline-like” forms of management. This question is disquieting because an affirmative answer would mean that all organizations trivialize the behavior of their members, using it as an instrument to their contingent and possibly evil ends.
Against this bleak picture of organizing and organizations, we think that rich survival is possible. This means that organizations do not necessarily trivialize behavior and that the ends of their primary processes are not necessarily contingent.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 11. Organizational Structures Supporting Rich Survival
Abstract
Aristotle’s ethics provides us with a description of what it means to live a fulfilled life. However, this description is not an end in itself. What we are really after is formulating a set of principles allowing for the design of organizational structures supporting “rich survival.” In order to find both these principles and the structures that result from their application, we need to take two additional steps.
Rich survival, as described in Chap. 1, is about organizations contributing to the creation of societal conditions, enabling human beings to live a fulfilled life. Until now, we only discussed the “fulfilled life”-part of this description. To explain how organizations can provide a rich contribution to society, we first need to discuss the relation between organizations and society. This is the topic of Sect. 11.2.
Once we have a model of how organizations are related to society, we can go into the question what this relation should look like, i.e., which requirements should be met, if organizations are to make a rich contribution to society. Based on these requirements, we define principles for the design of their structure. Moreover, we can, in terms of de Sitter’s parameters, discuss organizational structures fitting these principles. This is the topic of Sect. 11.3. In Sect. 11.4, we summarize and discuss our findings.
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Chapter 12. Epilogue
Abstract
In this epilogue, we want to provide a brief summary of the book (Sect. 2.2), make a few closing remarks about poor and rich survival (Sect. 2.3), and propose our agenda for future research (Sect. 2.4).
Jan Achterbergh, Dirk Vriens
Metadaten
Titel
Organizations
verfasst von
Jan Achterbergh
Dirk Vriens
Copyright-Jahr
2009
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-642-00110-9
Print ISBN
978-3-642-00109-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00110-9

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