Diagnosis of Organizational Soft Problems in a Peruvian Financial Institution by Systemic Thinking

Managing financial institutions in an underdeveloped economic context has become a real challenge nowadays. In order to reach the organization’s planned goals, they have to deal with structural, behavioral and informational problems. From the systemic point of view, this situation gets even worse when the company does not present organizational boundaries and a cohesive identification for their stakeholders. Thus, European countries have some special financial lines in order to help the development of micro credit in Latin communities in an attempt to help the local economy. However, institutions like Caixa dos Andes in Peru present management problems when dealing with this complexity. Based on this, how can the systemic eye help in the diagnosis of soft problems of a Peruvian financial company? This study aims to diagnose soft problems of a Peruvian financial company based on soft variables like identity, communication and autonomy and also intends to identify possible ways to redesign its basic framework. The (VSM––Viable System Model) method from Beer (1967), applied in this diagnostic study, was used in a practical way as a management tool for organizations’ analysis and planning. By describing the VSM’s five systems, the creation of a systemic vision or a total vision is possible, showing the organization’s complexity from the inside. Some company’s soft problems like double control, inefficient use of physical and human resources, low information flows, slowness, etc. The VSM presented an organizational diagnosis indicating effective solutions that do integrate its five systems.     

A Systemic Model for Managing and Evaluating Conflicts in Organizational Change

Change or innovation diffusion is a key issue for most business organizations but is yet difficult to implement as the change management process is often complex as it relies on an organized methodology to complement an organization’s commitment and participation. An ambiguous environment surrounding change mechanism tends to develop unintended attitudes, resulting in resistance and conflict. The study proposes a model for the management of such conflicts among change participants (involved and affected) in the context of organizational change. The authors consider organizational change process as an innovation project that treats change and conflicts holistically with the Ulrich’s notion of boundary considerations (boundary critique). A social network setting of multiple stakeholders is considered to effectively help in resolving problematic situations that hinder organizational learning and change. The proposed model provides a theoretical foundation based on concepts governing Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH), change theory, stakeholder theory and conflict management.     

A Model for Design of Human Activity Systems

A background is given to the common failures of management information systems and the authors' view of the causes behind these failures. There seems to be a lack of effective methods for analyzing information requirements. Different scientific methods are discussed as to their propensity for analyzing the information requirements. The importance of the systems design approach instead of the system improvement approach is emphasized. The concept of Human Activity Systems is discussed and an analysis of the interdependence of the soft and hard parts of these systems indicates that an integrated view is necessary. A methodology based on a systemic and systematic analysis of the information requirements in an organization is proposed. This methodology focuses the settings of the decisions on all levels in organizations and also indicates organizational discrepancies and information imbalances. The methodology can be regarded as a dynamic, learning system.     

跨组织信息共享的概念、特征与模式

本文定义信息共享是信息资源的所有者基于特定的目的,在一定时期和范围内,与利益相关者共同管理信息资源并共担风险的正式沟通形式。信息共享具有目的性、时间性、交互性、范围性、重复性、风险性和层次性等特征。在既有研究成果的基础上,将跨组织合作中的信息共享归纳为4种模式,分别是:信息查询、信息更新、信息理解和信息创新等,对不同合作关系中与信息共享有关的组织形式及信息系统应用进行了研究。     

Granularity as a determinant of system architecture

The size of unit components in general systems is claimed to be the major determinant of architecture. Three generations of systems are characterized in terms of their component size. Architectural issues in information systems, production management, and organizational structure are identified and related to the size of their unit components. Historical debates on classification of information systems, production systems, and organizational structures are reviewed, analyzed, and explained in terms of three general architectural classes based on a selection of a unit component and the size of that unit component.     

Impact of University's Optimal Human Resource Management Practices on Organizational Performance

This study explored the construction of the university optimal human resource management practices (OHRMP) and the impact of OHRM on organizational performance. A sample of 700 staff from 7 universities in China was used for data analysis by structural equation modeling. The result indicated that (i) OHRMP were composed of staff recruitment and allocation, motivation mechanism, participation, and performance management, and (ii) organizational performance was composed of staff satisfaction, teaching and research performance, society satisfaction, and financial performance. Further, the result also showed that (i) staff recruitment and allocation have significantly a positive impact on staff satisfaction and society satisfaction, and (ii) motivation mechanism has significantly a positive impact on teaching and research performance and financial performance, and (iii) participation has significantly a positive impact on society satisfaction; organizational performance management has significantly a positive impact on staff satisfaction. Implications for management theory and practice are discussed.     

Beer's “organizational tensegrity” and the challenge of democratic management

Many systems scientists are keenly interested in the democratization of management, particularly in the development of better processes for democratic decision making. Stafford Beer's recent development of a consensus decision-making process based on “organizational tensegrity” is an exciting contribution in this area, which also has important implications for the design of democratic organizational structures. This paper describes some experimentation with these ideas (with assistance from Beer) in two work groups at Pacific Bell and explores the potential of Beer's process for democratic management.     

Developing an Information System for Sustainable Natural Resource Management in Alborz Watershed, Northern Iran

This article explores the potentials of systems analysis and design of information system for sustainable natural resource management. Soft and hard system analyses were performed to better understand the information needs and design of an information system for improving decision making for achieving sustainable natural resource management. In order to analyze the complex and soft systems situations for developing an effective information system, which meets related actors’ changing needs, a conceptual model inspired by soft systems methodology (SSM) was developed. This model is based on information derived from twelve farmers who were purposely selected to represent diverse conditions and 23 agricultural extension experts across the Alborz Watershed in Mazandaran Province, located in northern Iran. Since a conceptual model resulting from SSM is not in itself sufficient as the basis for the implementation of information systems, a hard system methodology was used to structure the data handling by using unified modeling language. This research has shown the promising potentiality of using soft system analysis methodology as a preliminary step to the actual design of an information system in the natural resource management situation in the watershed system level when combined with hard system analysis methods.     

Facilitation of Collaborative Management: Reflections From Practice

Collaborative management of natural resources requires that multiple stakeholders come together to negotiate agreements. Who is a stakeholder, what is the boundary and the definition of an issue, and who has legitimacy to convene are interrelated, systemic questions. To address this challenge, this paper provides a conceptual framework with nine Contextual Dimensions. A workshop on collaborative and conflict management of the fishery in Chile, designed and facilitated by the authors, serves as a case study where multiple stakeholders came together to vision desirable futures and explored organizational linkages that could accommodate the different agendas. The workshop is analyzed through a conceptual framework and some conclusions are drawn on the value of experiential learning and on the importance of the iterative consultations that must precede such collaborative management events.Member of the International Support Group (www.isglink.org), a community of practice dedicated to facilitating collaborative learning for natural resource management.     

系统工程方法在管理中的应用

本文论述了系统工程理论与方法及其在某培训工程组织管理中的应用,论述了对培训工程进行系统分析、系统设计、系统管理、系统评价的科学管理的思路和方法。实践证明,系统工程理论与方法对实际工程系统具有重要的实用价值,是对工程系统进行组织管理的科学方法。     

人力资源管理的发展新趋势——从基于工作的人力资源管理到基于能力的人力资源管理

以工作为基础进行组织设计的思想已经统治了组织行为学与人力资源管理数十年 ,但是这种思想目前已受到了挑战 .许多学者提出了基于能力的组织设计方法才是更适当的组织方法 .在日益激烈的全球竞争中 ,一个组织的报酬系统 ,人员选拔系统以及组织结构需要转换到以能力为中心 .本文着重从当今工作性质的转变、组织的转变、组织机构的变化、对全球经济竞争的适应几个方面论述这种转换的必要性 ;同时 ,论述了基于能力的组织方法的潜在效果 .     

管理信息大系统分析与设计的一个新方法

本文将ＣｈｅｃｋｌａｎｄＰ．Ｂ．的软系统方法论与ＨａｌＡ．Ｄ．的硬系统方法论有机结合起来，提出一种管理信息大系统的“软系统分析／硬系统设计”方法，同时通过一个地方政府宏观经济管理信息系统的实践说明方法的应用．     

Systems Thinking and Systems Practice: Working in the Fifth Dimension

This paper describes how a messy organizational problem was tackled using a systems approach which led to a resolution of the problem and to an improvement in the working relationships of the people involved. The example also shows how people who are not familiar with systems thinking, as such, can quickly be helped to develop a shared systemic view of a complex situation using activity modeling. At a deeper level, the paper also shows how the underlying dynamics of the problem situation was altered as a result of using a cooperative, dialogical working method, leading to an improvement in the quality of service provided by that part of the organization. The paper uses Peter Senge's five disciplines of a learning organization, together with various systems concepts, as a framework for describing how the process of change was brought about through the simultaneous management of task and social processes, leading to both individual and organizational learning.     

用于短波高速数据传输的迭代合并均衡算法

在短波高速数据传输系统中,为了消除电离层反射信道所产生的符号间干扰和快速时变深衰落,依据最小均方误差准则提出一种迭代合并均衡器及其算法。所提算法对空间分集合并和均衡进行联合优化,并与译码器交换软信息进行迭代,从而充分利用时域和空域信息。为降低迭代引入的运算量,进一步提出一种基于自适应选择机制的低复杂度算法。仿真结果表明,所提算法能够明显改善短波数据传输系统的接收性能,而低复杂度算法则在保证算法性能的前提下使运算量得到有效控制。     

校企合作氛围对高校科研人员科研绩效的影响——技术能力的中介作用

在跨层次视角下,基于哈尔滨工业大学987位科研人员的相关数据,采用多层线性模型(HLM)方法和软件,研究了中国高校组织层次的校企合作氛围对高校科研人员科研绩效的直接影响及科研人员技术能力的中介作用。研究发现：高校组织层次的校企合作氛围对科研人员科研绩效的影响呈倒U型;科研人员的技术能力与科研绩效之间显著正相关;跨层次视角下,高校组织层次的校企合作氛围对科研人员的技术能力呈倒U型影响;高校科研人员的技术能力在校企合作氛围与科研人员科研绩效之间存在跨层次的部分中介作用。研究揭示了高校组织层次的校企合作氛围影响科研人员科研绩效的具体机制,丰富了校企合作与高校科研绩效关系的研究成果,为国家政府部门和高校管理部门制定科学合理的科技管理政策提供了理论依据和实践参考。     

基于网格的先进分布式仿真综述

当前的先进分布式仿真技术部分解决了模型的互操作和重用问题,但是它在支持强健的系统性能、仿真资源管理和仿真活动协作方面存在缺陷。网格技术支持动态异构环境、资源的优化管理和强健的系统性能,将网格技术应用于先进分布式仿真领域能够弥补现有先进分布式仿真技术存在的这些缺陷。该文提出了基于网格的先进分布式仿真,从仿真系统性能增强、仿真资源管理、仿真技术集成与机构协作、以及仿真网格四个方面综述了相关的研究成果,在仿真资源管理中提出了一种仿真资源分类方法,接着概述了基于网格的先进分布式仿真技术在国防军事、工业、生物医学和环境等方面的应用现状,最后展望了发展方向。     

Constancy and change: Flexible organization structures

Management organization structure is the most sensitive characteristic displayed by a business organization in the process of its adaptation to the changing environment. It is well-known, however, that excessive changeability of the structure makes the management system unstable and leads to less effective organizational behavior. The author believes that the reason lies in the fact that the structural changes almost always involve the management system's composition too. This shortcoming is rarely found in matrix management of goal-oriented programs. However, application of this type of management structure is limited as complexity of management increases disproportionately. Systems analysis of the problem situation leads to two new conclusions: (a) the variety of management organization structures required by business organizations to adapt to the changing environment can be extended if the organizational relations are regarded as part of organizational/economic symbiosis and their interrelated change; and (b) enhancement of the program component in the matrix structure makes it possible to design stable manage-management structures with a dynamic composition. Implementation of this concept in large-scale business systems brought about essentially new forms of production units' self-organization that became known as state production associations. It makes the large-scale business organizations' structures far less complex and increase their flexibility without disturbing the management systems' resilience. The newly developed principles of organizational design are universal.     

Management Sciences/Operational Research Units in Business and Management Courses in the UK

The paper reviews the development of management science/operational Research (MS/OR) in management education and explore how far the syllabuses of undergraduate business courses and MBA courses in the UK, are giving space to the teaching of management sciences methodologies (MSM). The academic phase of early MS/OR is outlined and a time-based framework to map the evolution of four MS/OR discourses informing a set of MSMs currently in use is advanced. At an undergraduate level the review is based on a sample taken from Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (UCAS) of business and management studies degrees and at a postgraduate level the review considers a sample of MBA programmes offered by six UK universities. Results indicate that most of the MBA courses include a core unit in quantitative methods in the first year and that universities are still at large teaching the ??hard?? end of the MSM spectrum, the type of problem solving methods developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Business courses incorporating units containing systemic thinking and management sciences methodologies developed from the 1970s to now (e.g.: soft systems methodology, viable systems model, cognitive mapping), are rarely taught at undergraduate (UG) level; and at post-graduate (PG) level they have been confined to a handful of institutions in the UK. The paper highlights the fact that MSMs associated with the soft and critical end of the spectrum are still lacking of credibility amongst the designers of management education at both undergraduate and graduate management education. Conclusions from the survey results are drawn and an agenda for further research is proposed.     

Practical Contributions of the Systems-Based Evolutionary Learning Laboratory to Knowledge and Stakeholder Management

This paper reports on a case study on improving the quality of life for women smallholder farmers in Vietnam, using the systems-based Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab) approach. The study aims to provide evidence of practical contributions of the ELLab to project stakeholder and knowledge management through the case study. A transformative learning framework was developed to provide initial reflections on the planning phase of the project. Practical contributions of the ELLab process to stakeholder identification and management, and knowledge creation during project planning and implementation are discussed. Strong evidence was found of transformations in awareness and perspectives amongst project actors that subsequently led to systemic and executable action plans. This clearly proved the value of the ELLab approach in informal transformative learning.