The Importance Of Open Systems And Importance Of The Environment

Bolman and Deal offer four frames with which to break down organizations: their structure, their human resources, their political environment and their symbolic meaning. They offer a metaphor to capture the essence of each frame (translated for orchestra here):

In the first two chapters of Images of Organization, the author, Gareth Morgan defines the theory of metaphor and how it is applied to organization. He challenges the reader to examine metaphor as a tool that is used to understand and recognize organization (Morgan, 1998, p. 5). He also cautions against perceptual distortions and bias of metaphor. In chapter two, Morgan presents organization as a machine, illustrating the theories of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Max Weber, and Frederick Taylor.

Open system: the perspective views organizations as complex organisms that “live” within an external environment.

It is evident that both positive and negative aspects of both approaches exist in the current climate, and from a basic understanding it can be drawn that varying aspects of each approach can nullify the negatives of the other in some manner. Consequently I believe the works of the Burns and Stalker (as cited in Grey, 2012) should be considered, in which it is suggested organizations can be seen as mechanistic and organic (roughly translated to bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic) depending on contingencies. This contingency approach would see organizations exhibiting differing behaviors based on the environmental factors that they work within and the assets that they have so that they may better suit the needs of workers, employers, consumers

Daft, Richard L. Organizational Theory and Design: 12th edition. South-Western College Publisher. 24 April 2015

The Organizational environment refers to the forces that can make an impact. Forces made up opportunities and threats. Organizations do not exist in isolation. It works with the overall environment. Scholars have divided these environmental factors into two main parts as.

We must see that organizations exist in the socioeconomic environment the way fish exist in the ocean, and the way we exist in the physical environment.

Seminal to the understanding of organisational processes as open systems are the writings of Morgan (1986) who identified eight distinctive metaphors through which organisations can be understood (Figure 1). Within organisation theory Interpretations of organisations as living organisms as opposed to mechanistic elucidations facilitated a greater understanding of how organisations engage with the external and internal environment when working towards achieving there key tasks (Morgan 1986, Roberts 1994).

In addition, open systems perspective views an organization as an entity in which they take inputs from these environment which they transform them and release there outputs.

When I was growing up Walmart was a staple of my childhood. Where did my parents buy me toys from? Walmart. Where did my family get its bath and beauty supplies? Walmart. My family pretty much bought almost everything we needed from Walmart except for groceries but, that was before my home town got the Super Walmart which was just a new addition to my town 5 years ago. I remember the day that the Super Walmart in my town opened it was in the middle of January and everyone from my high school after class went there. When we got there it was kind of funny because a lot of people I talked to the next day said to me “dude all Walmart’s are the same”. What else were we suppose to expect?

“The use of machines has radically transformed the nature of productive activity and has left its mark on the imagination, thoughts, and feelings of humans throughout the ages.” An organization as a machine is the first theoretical metaphor that believes that organizations operate as fully functioning machines. According to Morgan, an organization taking the mechanistic approach would be clearly defined as “…a pattern of precisely defined jobs organized in a hierarchical manner through precisely defined lines of command or communication.” Essentially, the mechanistic approach is all about maximizing efficiency and maintaining control. The concept that organizations can run like machines is one that is most easily identified with the factory work that is shown in Norma Rae.

Answer: a. A mechanistic structure gives rise to cultures that have predictability and stability as end states. A change in corporate strategy that is not compatible with the current structure and culture would be difficult to implement successfully. Because the

‘Organisations are open systems (like organisms) and must have an appropriate relationship with the environment if they are to survive’.

In a time where everything is seemingly at our fingertips, it can be difficult for us to adjust to things that are out of our control. Sometimes we don’t always get what we expect. We may have the perfect plan for what we are doing in life, and then something out of our control changes and our entire plan is forced to change with it. Can

Fourth, the organization is represented as being in close inter-relationship with its environment; both influencing it and being influenced by it. The organization does not simply react to its environment but can proactively attempt to change the environment in ways which will benefit the organization.