Applying systems concepts

A key claim of general system theory is that its principles apply to systems regardless of their components or environment and that it explores wholes not physical and chemical entities. The basis of the open systems model is the dynamic interaction of components. This would mean then that laws that apply to a cell would also apply to a human, to a human system, to the earth system, to the planetary system, and to the universe system. Bertalanffy described this as a hierarchy of systems within systems. Philosopher Ken Wilber (2000) expanded on this idea by saying “natural hierarchies” are “orders of increasing wholeness or “holarchies” (p. 39).

Ecology

Capra applied systems theory concepts to the earth system by presenting James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory (2005) which proposes that the earth is a living organism in which integrated physical components and subsystems interact “within a single web” (215) to maintain the planet in a state of homeostasis while exchanging matter with its environment. Capra argued that the earth is an autopoietic system that is a dissipative structure.

As an autopoietic system, the earth is self-bonded, self-generating, and self-perpetuating. As a dissipative structure, the earth is structurally open but organizationally closed; maintaining itself by continuously exchanging matter with its environment by continuously discharging excess waste out of the atmosphere and filtering sufficient energy to maintain life processes.

Humanity

So how does general systems theory apply to humanity? Bertalanffy (1972) said: “Social science is the science of social systems” (p. 195). Granted, man introduces some new variables that might be limited or non-existent in biological and ecological systems, like consciousness, values, choice, culture, and other characteristics. However, Bertalanffy proposed that humanity presents the “widest possible application of the systems idea” (p. 195). Whereas natural science deals with physical entities, social science deals with “human beings and their self-created universe of culture” (197). In addition, the values of humanity “transcend the sphere of the physical world”.

Bertalanffy offered the biological organism as a metaphor to explain how organizations are complex open systems, a concept that was later applied to organizational development practice by Katz and Kahn (1966) and other practitioners. The organization-as-organism metaphor shows how the internal components and subsystems dynamically interact within the organization's boundaries to maintain the organization and assure survivability, while the organization continuously exchanges resources with and adapts to its environment. The concept of open systems is considered an “anchor” of organizational behavior (McShane & Von Glinow, 2005).

The anchor is represented as a dynamic process of input, process, and output. The organization imports sustenance from the environment while influencing the environment through its output. The organization consists of interrelated subsystems comprised of individuals, groups, and processes dynamically interacting to maintain the organization within its competitive environment. If the organization exists as a monopoly in a static competitive environment, the internal processes can be maintained at a steady state.

However, as the competitive environment becomes increasingly dynamic, the internal people and processes must increasingly enhance productivity, innovation, and adaptation so the organization can survive. As an interrelated web of relationships, change that happens to an individual, group, or subsystem within the organizational system or to any variable outside of the organization can have unplanned and unintended consequences throughout the organization, as follows:

• The organization has a pattern of relationships that determine its essential characteristics, which can be described by mapping the informal relationships within the culture.
• The organization has a structure that shows the pattern of the organization, which can be described using an organizational chart.
• The organization has processes by which the people and technology continuously interact to meet organizational goals while pursuing individual interests.
• The people and processes within an organization make their own processes and relationships for accomplishing personal, group, and organizational objectives.
• The organization is structurally open but organizationally closed, with its boundaries enclosing the network of people and processes while filtering resources into the organization and producing products into the market in a way that allows the organization to build and strengthen relationships inside and outside the organization that will assure its survival.
• Finally, the organization can develop a collective cognition, as represented by its cultural assumptions and artifacts.