SATM 6.1 Introduction the Functionalist Systems Approach

When functionalist perspective is adopted, systems appear as objective aspects of a reality independent of us as observers. Using the methods of the natural sciences, they are examined in order to discover the laws that govern the relationships between their parts or sub-systems.

The "root metaphors" of mechanism, organicism and formism hold sway within functionalism. In terms of Morgan's images of organization, we find the machine, organism, brain, and flux and transformation metaphors most commonly employed.

For many decades in systems thinking functionalism and the systems approach were virtually synonymous. Functionalism supplied the philosophical and sociological ground on which systems thinking cud grow, and systems thinking provided the concepts and models that enabled functionalism to blossom in the social sciences.

Roughly, and according to the date of their emergence, I take for study the "organizations-as-systems" tradition, "hard systems thinking", "system dynamics", "organizational cybernetics", "living systems theory", "autopoiesis", and "complexity theory." It should be possible to recognize how all of these hold to the basic tenets of functionalism while differing in certain of the details, for example in terms of the metaphors they most frequently employ.

(Jackson (2000). Systems Approaches to Management. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. NY. P107)