SATM 6.2 Organizations-as-Systems

"Organizations-as-systems" thinking had its theoretical roots and developed within the disciplines of sociology and management and organization theory. That it has two strands: one dominated by the mechanical analogy and the other by the organismic analogy.

Pareto's sociology, which looked at society as a system in equilibrium, was popularized by Henderson and brought into the domain of management thinking by Roethlisberger and Dickson, and by Barnard's work is taken as an example of this approach because of its contemporary relevance.

The organismic analogy, employed in sociology by Durkheim and Spencer, see society as an interconnected whole, capable of adaption and evolution, and with the parts fulfilling the needs of the whole.

The organismic model of the nature of organizations provided the theoretical basis for the two most important research programs developed within the "organizations as systems" tradition - contingency theory and social technical system theory.

The work of Barnard, contingency theorists and social-technical theorists represents the most prescriptive side of the organizations-as-systems tradition, giving managers specific advice about how they should run their organizations.

(Jackson, Michael (2000). Systems Approaches to Management. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. NY. P108)