Cooperation,power, and the impact of information systems

Imagination suggests that the computer as a communication tool is potentially a significant factor in enhancing cooperative work, especially where the participants are located over a physical or temporal distance. Implementation of innovative information technology offers enhancement of operational efficiency to an enterprise in a turbulent business environment. Communications and decision making are inseparable. Industrial democracy (ID) is a particular arrangement of decisionmaking power where decision makers have to be informed and decisions have to be communicated. Cooperation implies a redistribution of power and the weakening of the traditional management organizational heirarchy. Cogently, this effect is mirrored by the potential of management information systems to redistribute information and, hence, power within an enterprise. The response of traditional management personnel to the threat of information technology (IT) to established positions of authority, is one of defense. Conventional systems analysis is unsuited for the design task of ID information systems. The methods employed by systems analysis preserve or reproduce the formal hierarchical structure of managerial organization. Soft systems methodology is explored as a means of confronting the sociopolitical factors present in the specification of information systems for an ID.     

基于Agent组织的作战模拟

基于Agent的建模方法是一种自底向上、综合的建模方法，是通过微观细节和规则研究宏观现象和模式的独特的研究方法，是一种研究复杂适应系统十分有效的工具。把作战系统视为一个复杂适应系统，将Agent组织理论应用于作战模拟，通过Agent在底层的交互作用来研究作战系统的涌现行为。在建模过程中，主要从作战单元Agent组织的角色的定义、静态结构建模和动态行为建模三个方面对作战系统进行建模。其研究结果表明基于Agent组织的作战模拟有助于揭示作战行为的本质特征和演化规律。     

All together now: The circular organization in a University Hospital. Part I. Planning and design

During a period of significant change in health care, hospitals are being transformed. This article—part I—reports on one university hospital's experience with a project funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts initiative. The article presents the history and conditions that led to a planning year during which participants defined external and internal conditions contributing to the needs for change. Along with the driving pressures, the article addresses the planning process and the basic design for organization change, Ackoff's idealized design and circular organization. This model had been used in industry, but not in a hospital. Key themes related to the design and start-up are offered. Part II addresses the implementation of the model, the process of change, supports and barriers, and progress to date.     

What systems thinking can learn from history

A new concept of history would enable members of the systems community to reflect on two closely linked issues: teleology and a way of reasoning which arises out of it. In other words, by rethinking the role of a concept of history we will be able to grasp a sense of cultural purpose for a system or an organization and, next, be led into a way of reasoning which will direct the collective mind of such a system or organization as a whole.     

“Fifth Discipline”: Review and Discussion

The book Fifth Discipline is Peter Senge's account of the learning organization. For Senge, five disciplines are necessary to bring about a learning organization—personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking (called systemic thinking from here on). Systemic thinking is the discipline that integrates all five disciplines. Each discipline is briefly explored in this paper, with emphasis placed on systemic thinking. Senge's concern with localness and openness is also touched upon. The paper concludes with an outline critique of Senge's work.     

Industrial organizations as knowledge systems

Industrial organizations are traditionally seen around a nucleus of large-scale mechanized facilities. In today's knowledge society, however, industrial organizations cannot be described sufficiently by mechanistic metaphors. Knowledge has become the decisive factor for corporate growth. It can be created through access to individuals' cumulative experience and wisdom. This paper proposes a model to describe industrial organizations as knowledge systems which communicate and evolve in accordance with their environments. Knowledge which has been previously unknown to an organization emerges out of the interplay of internalization, creation, distribution, and externalization of knowledge. The emergence of knowledge is seen as a self-organizing process, without intervention by the outside environment or an internal designer.     

Implications of Knowledge Economy for Citizens: An Empirical Exploration

We describe the application of Priority Pointing, a generically applicable research procedure, to the question how Ireland can become an innovative knowledge economy. Questioning received orthodoxy, we show that Irish culture should put more value on scientific skills, promote a scientifically literate culture, and reform institutional and structural support systems to develop an innovative knowledge-based economy. In autopoietic terms, we illustrate how structure of the social systems and the history of those systems determine the space and capability for future development and innovation. The Systems Science theory used is Nomology, which claims that three different processes of adjusting, convincing, and committing comprehensively describe how the mind structures decisions. Committing and convincing are subjective and correspond to the processes that build the autopoietic aspects of a society or organization. Consequently, the proposed adjustments that emerge from the research should not challenge what we are as citizens, within our autopoietic societal boundary.     

Piaget,self-organizing knowledge,and critical systems practice

An examination of Piaget's conception of the source, nature, development, and use of knowledge reveals that his model for the genetic development of human knowledge is cybernetic and self-organizing. Moreover, Piaget presents a model of cognition which is a reflection and extension of autopoietic biological organization; both cognitive and organic systems are seen to exhibit organizational closure and structural plasticity. An action-based intervention method, modeling embedded learning structures as cybernetic, autopoietic systems, may provide insight toward clarifying some theoretical and methodological problems of critical systems thinking.     

Knowledge Management for Social Workers Involved in Disaster Planning and Response in Malaysia: An Action Research Approach

This paper explores the idea of using a knowledge management system to support disaster planning and response (DPR) efforts for social workers involved in such efforts in Malaysia. The study was funded by the Government of Malaysia. Canonical Action Research was used to conduct the study. The Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW) was the client organization. The study began with problem formulation to ascertain issues inherent in DPR within the MASW. The next phase of the research, involved action planning—the team considered implementing a web-based knowledge management (KM) system to support DPR efforts for the organization. Post intervention, we conducted an evaluation of our action, based on interviews with key members affiliated to the MASW. Our findings are in tandem with prior work that has examined the role and relevance of KM systems in light of DPR efforts. The client organization in general forms the view that KM systems can support DPR efforts by providing vital information (pertaining to DPR) and assist the overall coordination and planning efforts for the organization.     

松散耦合系统动态资源组织方法研究

松散耦合系统（loose coupling system, LCS）是针对采用松散耦合方式组成的一类系统的统称。实现面向任务的资源动态组织、配置与应用,是这类系统的共性问题。分析了松散耦合系统概念和特性,构建了松散耦合系统资源网络模型和资源组织模型,提出了针对松散耦合系统资源动态组织的“资源两级绑定”方法,论证了该方法对形成和保持松散耦合系统适应性、灵活性、开放性和可靠性的重要作用。     

Implementing Cost Control in Health Care: Strategies Driven by an Organizational Systems Approach

In this paper, we offer a systems approach to assist health care organizations in their cost-containment efforts. A general model of the organization which specifies the various components of this approach is offered. Each system—technology, structure, psychosocial, managerial, and cultural—is linked to illustrative selected actions designed to improve cost performance. In our view, the key to successful interventions to contain costs lies in careful consideration of both the direct and interactive impacts on all systems of the health care organization. A case example of an Academic Medical Center's effort to curtail costs illustrates both the model and the sample actions.     

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.     

Control,organization, and accounting: A genealogy of modern knowledge-power

Much social scientizing tends to be ahistorical, particularly with regard to its fundamental terms and constructs, which are implicitly defined atemporally as simply “being there,” the givens of discourse. The history of two such terms, “control” and “organization,” is investigated here. In an elaboration of Foucault's idea of power-knowledge relations, a two-stage history of the terms is set out linked to the historical emergence of accounting. In the first stage, the initial invention of the terms in the thirteenth century is aligned with the contemporaneous invention of the doubleentry system, with all these innovations embodying a new power of writing. However the constructs only develop their modern significance as forms of knowledge-power at a much later stage, following the establishment of a “disciplinary” power-knowledge nexus post-1800. Under this interpretation, accounting, control, and organization, far from being ahistorical givens of discourse, are constructs which help establish the modern world of “disciplinary,” that site where the power of expert knowledge must operate.     

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.     

The organization as a doublet

Organizations are living systems, similar to other living systems, but with an important difference. They are multiminded living systems. In this paper, the changing concept of organizations is sketched and it is shown how models actually influence the evolution of organizational types. In the history of organization there have been basically three main stages,viz., the machinistic, organismic, and multiminded stage. All three types still exist, so far as the later stages in fact include the former ones. The living systems theory (LST) is firmly based in the organismic model and thus provides an excellent basis for organizational development. However, the concepts of process autonomy and flexibility as well as dispersed decision-making will have to be included if the theory is to have an impact in the evolution of modern organizations. We believe that the extension of the LST using Biomatrix principles might be sufficient to meet the present challenge.     

组织的系统结构定义探讨

为了解释现实中存在的,有着相同的组织部门结构却有着不同的功能,似乎与“系统的结构决定其功能”的系统原理相矛盾的现象,在肯定结构决定功能的系统原理、在系统结构的一般定义以及切克兰德的系统分类的基础上,借鉴有关悖论的智能,提出了“系统的类型不同,共结构的具体定义也应不同”的观点,由此得出了直接移植“被设计系统”的结构定义到组织导致了上述矛盾的结论,并进一步给出了作为“人类活动系统”的组织的结构定义,还用案例对这个定义的意义做了说明。     

生命复杂系统——进化场中的自组织系统

通过对生命复杂系统理论的研究，从热力学和系统科学的角度出发，总结出生命系统的五个基本特点，阐述了进化场理论，并通过与引力场理论的比较，引入了包括广义自组织、结构力、负熵、序能、熵势等一系列新概念统一描述生命系统的普遍现象。从一个全新的角度，揭示了生命系统在生长发育，生老病死及进化过程中所遵循的自然规律。不仅架起了物理学、生命科学和系统科学的一座桥梁，也为进一步认识生命科学系统提供了新的思路。     

社会系统学的系统仿真研究

社会系统的仿真研究涉及研究对象所处的现实空间、形成理论认知的意识空间与模型表述的虚拟空间.社会系统的仿真研究,应从本体论(研究对象)、方法论(研究方法)和认识论(知识管理)以及所获得理论知识的应用研究(信息系统模型)等方面进行.社会系统的知识管理包括:知识的学习;知识的选择、加工与组织;知识的运用.不同的社会系统会在知识管理的不同方面有所侧重.形成的组织知识结构应包括:业务知识、组织管理知识与系统文化知识.     

基于设计结构矩阵(DSM)的复杂研发项目建模与优化研究进展

研发项目是由流程架构、组织架构和产品架构组成的复杂系统.本文首先分析了研发项目复杂性的特征、分类和产生原因,指出设计结构矩阵(DSM)方法是量化分析复杂研发项目的有效工具.进一步,本文从流程架构中迭代和重叠的建模,到流程DSM的排序优化与仿真;从组织架构中团队之间依赖度的测度,到组织DSM聚类准则的确定;从产品架构中部件之间依赖度的测度,到产品DSM的模块化设计以及聚类算法的演变和发展;从单一领域的DSM扩展到多领域矩阵(MDM)的建模与应用,清晰地展示了基于DSM的复杂研发项目建模与优化的几条研究脉络和最新研究进展.最后,本文提出"系统架构的复杂性研究-DSM中元素间依赖关系的测度-DSM优化/聚类"相集成的理论分析框架,并指出了有待进一步研究的关键问题.     

System Archetype to Understand Unintended Behavior in Indian Shrimp Industry and to Aid in Strategy Development

The Indian Shrimp Industry has exhibited an interesting phenomenon of fast growth in the early nineties (1990–1994), decline in the mid-nineties (1995–1997), and slow revival in the recent years (1997–2009). The cyclic behavior of the Industry, though, was much discussed in the literature, but no explanation regarding such behavior was explicitly discussed in the literature. The strategies following such behavior were mostly ad-hoc and symptomatic in nature. In this paper, we have analyzed the Industry’s past behavior using a systems approach and have developed the structure of the Industry in the form of a system archetype, which explained the cyclic behavior of the Industry. The system archetypical structure of the Industry was made keeping the existing system archetypes as the foundation. The system archetype developed here is generic enough to explain any growth-decline-revival behavior of an industry or organization. The archetype of Indian Shrimp Industry also helped us in designing sustainable strategies for the Industry that included controlling over-expansion in a shrimp farming zone and controlling pollution generation by each shrimp farm.