Embodiments of organizational fitness: The Viable System Model (VSM) as a guide

Managers are facing new problems in their quest for organizational fitness. With environments of growing complexity, foresight, adaptability, and learning become critical features for a social system to survive and develop. Established models of organizational control are insufficient to cope with this proliferating complexity. The science of cybernetics provides powerful models to master this key challenge to management. The present article offers a synthesis of Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) and a multilevel concept of organizational fitness, based on recent progress made in the field of planning theory.     

Managing Complexity—The Path Toward Intelligent Organizations

Coping with complexity is at the heart of management and leadership in the turbulent environments faced by the organizations and societies of our day. The systems approach provides transdisciplinary theories and tools for dealing with this challenge more effectively than efforts merely based on disciplinary insights or pragmatic recipes. In this paper, a concept of "intelligent organizations" is introduced. A framework for the design of intelligent organizations is proposed that links three organizational cybernetic models: the Model for Systemic Control, the Viable System Model, and the Team Syntegrity model.² The proposition is that a combined use of these models, guided by the integrative conceptual framework, enables a more effective response to complex situations than merely pragmatic approaches to "integrative management." Provisional empirical evidence gathered from applied research indicates that the proposed framework is capable of enhancing such superior potential for effective response. As such, it promises to meet the specific needs of the new types of organizations that have already begun to emerge in the knowledge societies.     

Enhancing Validity and Reliability Through Feedback-Driven Exploration: A Study in the Context of Conjoint Analysis

This study proposes a research design for the enhancement of validity and reliability in conjoint analysis research. For this purpose, we are applying the concept of feedback-driven exploration to conjoint analysis and assess the proposed research design concerning its benefits and limitations in respect of validity and reliability of results. The article is of interest for the field of preference elicitation through stated preference methods, and for model validation in transdisciplinary research. By applying the principle of feedback-driven exploration, we allow for feedback loops between researchers, industry experts and survey participants in order to strengthen both validity and reliability. A multi-case study of the agricultural markets in Switzerland illustrates the functioning of the proposed research design. We find that feedback-driven exploration significantly increases validity and reliability by enhancing methodological rigor and implementing an error-correcting mechanism. Additionally, a better understanding of the underlying decision processes is supported by the design due to increased interaction between researchers, industry experts and market participants.