So how do all these elements worth
together as a system, is the next
question.
Unfortunately, Richard Scott's review of
organizational research not
only identifies organizational elements,
but it also describes how
theories in different era's focused on
certain organization elements
over others, and characterized their
interrelation in certain patterns.
In short, he recognized three classes of
organizational theory.
The earliest
class of theories regarded organizations
as rational systems.
Here the theories characterize the
organization as a collective, a collective
that was oriented toward the pursuit of
specific goals and whose behaviour.
exhibits are formalized structure.
These theories tend to focus on the
administrative units of organizations, and
their efforts at rational decision making
to optimize, and to solve problems.
An ensuing class of organizational
theories characterize them as natural
systems.
Here, the theories related related
organization as a collectivity whose
participants
persued multiple interests, and these
interests were forged in conflicting
consensus.
However, the participants recognized the
value of
perpetuating the organization as an
important resource.
So therefore, they, they wanted the
organization to survive.
As a natural system, the organization's
unplanned and
it has emergent relations an coalitions
that matter.
For example things like the informal
structure
of relations that develop among
participants, is
more influential in guiding behavior than
the
formal structures, role expectations, an
guiding prin, principles.
So, the formal organizational chart is
less important
than the informal organization that
emerges in between it.
so this class of theories is regarded as
a, an organization, as
an adaptive organism, as opposed to as a,
a rationally administrative one.
Most recently, organizational theorists
have come
to characterize organizations as open
systems.
And here, organizations are congeries of
interdependent flows and activities
linking shifting coalitions of
participants
embedded in wider material-resource and
institutional environments.
This class of theory focuses more on
the environment than any other
organizational feature.
Hence the shift goes from a rationally
administrative unit of the rational actor
view
to a natural system of informal, emergent
processes and inconsistent preferences
within an organizational environment.
To the wider environment, influencing the
actual organization itself and being the
kind of primary concern.
So let's review what we've covered and
what I'm
going to do now is just walk through this
table here.
the three systems we have are rational,
natural and open systems.
and what I'm going to do is first look at
the primary unit of analysis.
Here, we have a single organization with
the rational system view.
And as a single organization, the focus is
on
the administrative unit, or the brain of
an organization typically.
And it views the organization as a unitary
actor.
For the natural system, we see a single
organization again, but with multiple
actors and divisions.
The organization's more of a coalition, or
a loose federation than a unitary actor.
Then finally with the open system view the
unit of analysis shifts to an
organizational field.
We have multiple organizations.
Next, we have our organizing concepts and
as you recall, these organizing concepts
were actors
or participants, the social structure, the
goals,
the technology or tasks, and finally the
environment.
So, for actors and participants, lets take
each theory again.
For the rational system, we see that the,
the key actors that
are focused upon are the leaders of the
organization, the administrative unit.
The natural system.
the focus is on participants of cross
rules and in the direct environment.
The immediate environment around the
organization.
Then, finally, for, for the open system
view, we, we
focus on stakeholders, employees and even
mass consumers in wider society.
For the social structure.
Here we have a, another organizing
concept.
It also varies across rational, natural
and open.
So for social structure we see that in a
rational system it's formal and planned.
It's a hierarchical kind of organization.
In the natural system it tends to be more
of an informal and, and emergent kind of
system.
and it's more important than the formal
and planed.
The external kind of seeps in here with
norms as well.
With the open system, we see that
the external world permeates the internal
organization.
So beliefs from outside, resource
dependencies, from outside.
All of those matters start to, to, greatly
affect.
The way in which an organization relates
to
others, other organizations and survives
in this environment.
Third, we have goals, and for rational
system the goals are a specific
missions or objectives, right.
For a natural system the goals aren't so
clear, they're multiple and conflicting.
And then for an open system, it tends to
be, a goal of survival and legitimacy in
the environment.
So with each of these theories you'll
notice that,
each kind of system from rational,
national and open.
We see a shift in how these organizing
concepts are
being related and described, by these
prevailing kinds of types of theories.
So for example, with technologies and
tasks we
again see with rational actor views that
there is
an effort to maximize decisions to have
decision trees
and to identify standard operating
procedures and the like.
In a natural system we see contingent
decisions or decisions that have
unintended outcomes.
so here efficacy is kind of a concern of
tasks.
And then finally we have the open system,
and here the tasks or technology
is, is less about decision and more
about environmental determinism and
legitimation from the environment.
Where it dictates if your organization
fits conceptions of what that type
of organization should be, for example
what schools should look like, you
therefore
survive and acquire resources.
And finally we have different notions of
environment across these different types
of theories.
So for example with a rational actor
view, the envirnonment is almost entirely
ignored.
In a natural, natural system view, it
tends to
have kind of a minor role, albeit it's
there.
And then finally with the open systems
view, the enviroment
is pretty much everything in great part.
It's the key variable that drives the
behaviour of the organization.
So we have these three theories, rational,
natural, and open, that are kind of
general frameworks for how our concepts or
our analytic features relate and combine.
Now one could argue these theories reflect
the organizations of their day.
But
I'm not sure that's the case.
And, and by this we mean that rational
systems were early theories that you had
for Taylorism.
When people tried to kind of organize
things, and plan everything, and have
administrators
kind of, find the most efficient decision
trees they could entail in designing a
workplace.
To later in modernist times after the
industrial revolution we had
more of these kind of natural system kind
of views, to finally
today we have this open-system perspective
in a global economy where organizations
are highly dependent on their environment
to survive.
We could say that, that's some kind of
historical shift.
But, it may also be that most
organizations always entail
these features, it's just that scholars,
and the kind of
information we collected, we just shifted
what we focused on,
as we learned more and more how to study
them.
So we have three classes of organizational
theories.
Or three meta-narratives about
organizational
theories, from rational, to natural, to
open system views.
And, each of these theories has been
argued to reflect The organizations
of their day so that the rationale system
view reflected early kinds of
organizations in the industrial revolution
where people tried to make factory lines
very efficient and administrator's plan
everything
and had decision trees with rationale
action.
being the word of the day.
but then later in the modernist time or
era we had more of
these kinds of natural systems where
organizations
were rife with conflict and lacked
consensus.
And it was this kind of dynamic and
emergent
process of organizing to what we have
today, which is
where in a global economy, we have
organizations maybe that
are highly contingent on relations in the
environment to survive.
Now one could argue
that this is kind of a historical
progression,
but I'm not so sure that's the case.
most organizations still entail all the
features and the
processes that a rational, natural and
open system perspective entail.
So I think we'll gain a lot by
learning these different kinds of
perspectives in the course.
Another view could be that organizational
theory's have expanded
their focus as our understanding of firms
and instrumental
social groups has grown, all these
features have likely always
been there within organization and they've
perhaps shifted some in salience.
But to this day, rational, natural, and
open system qualities persist in many
organizations.