Notes on Open System Theory
Organizations and the System Concept (Katz + Kahn)
-To understand human organizations it is best to describe what is important in their form, aspects, and functions by looking for the cycles of growth + decline and predicting their effectiveness. -Common sense approaches to understand organizations rely on two key assumptions which can be misleading:
1. Nature of an organization of organization are indicated by name of organization
2. Organization has inherent goals
a. Decided by managers
b. Given by current leadership
c. Emerged through activities
Problems in understanding an organization/social system:
1. Location and identification
a. How do we know if it is an organization? What the characteristics are? What they value? b. Popular names exist which help represent stereotypes about the organizations (i.e. psychological nature, role structure, and boundaries)
i. Names help identifying area of behavior
2. Organization is understand as the columniation of purposes of important members
a. It takes time to implement these purposes
3. Primary mission of an organization is to provide a set of distinct clues about mission of organization. However, the stated mission is not always true; rather it can be misleading.
a. Equate the purpose (goals) of organizations with the purposes of individuals working there
4. Organizations are social devices for groups to efficiently accomplish a articulated purpose a. BUT, the design of organization is typically decided by the founder not group members i. It is not always easy to find out the founder or the biggest contributors to organization ii. Stated important features may not be in reality whereas seemingly small aspects of the organization may dominate
1. Merton- Unanticipated consequences
Katz + Kahn suggest starting with concepts that do not look at what the designers were looking at (and then working backwards) but rather beginning with the input, output, and functioning of an organization as
-To understand human organizations it is best to describe what is important in their form, aspects, and functions by looking for the cycles of growth + decline and predicting their effectiveness. -Common sense approaches to understand organizations rely on two key assumptions which can be misleading:
1. Nature of an organization of organization are indicated by name of organization
2. Organization has inherent goals
a. Decided by managers
b. Given by current leadership
c. Emerged through activities
Problems in understanding an organization/social system:
1. Location and identification
a. How do we know if it is an organization? What the characteristics are? What they value? b. Popular names exist which help represent stereotypes about the organizations (i.e. psychological nature, role structure, and boundaries)
i. Names help identifying area of behavior
2. Organization is understand as the columniation of purposes of important members
a. It takes time to implement these purposes
3. Primary mission of an organization is to provide a set of distinct clues about mission of organization. However, the stated mission is not always true; rather it can be misleading.
a. Equate the purpose (goals) of organizations with the purposes of individuals working there
4. Organizations are social devices for groups to efficiently accomplish a articulated purpose a. BUT, the design of organization is typically decided by the founder not group members i. It is not always easy to find out the founder or the biggest contributors to organization ii. Stated important features may not be in reality whereas seemingly small aspects of the organization may dominate
1. Merton- Unanticipated consequences
Katz + Kahn suggest starting with concepts that do not look at what the designers were looking at (and then working backwards) but rather beginning with the input, output, and functioning of an organization as