Systems Theory Flashcards
What does our professor argue may have caused the challenger to explode?
Systems theory
What do we mean when we talk about interconnections in systems theory?
There is an interconnectedness between parts of the organizations and between organization environment
What is the overview/principle of systems theory?
All organized entities demonstrate similar sets of properties and patterns. We can take these laws and apply them to an organization and predict certain tings about behavior and outcomes of that organization
What science does systems theory come from?
Biology
What is the metaphor for systems theory?
Organism
What is the definition of an organization/organism?
Complex set of INDERDEPENDENT PARTS that interact to ADAPT to a constantly changing ENVIRONMENT in order to achieve its goals. (why you went to college)
What is the transformation model?
Input PROCESS Output (works like and system in our body) think about how the environment influnces it
What does the transformation model teach us?
It’s not enough just to look at an organization, but you have to look at the environment in which it lives, if you don’t keep plants healthy, we die.
What term is the extra energy created when the parts of a system work together? What does it lead to?
Synergy leads to nonsummativity
What is nonsummativity?
Also called “holism” Whole is equal to more than the sum of its parts.
What is the term- the same final conditions can be reached by the system form different initial conditions in many different ways?
Equifinality
What is the key final condition for most every organization?
Survival (negentropy)
What are boundaries?
Walls between the focal organization and its environment (look this up in book)
Those entities that are relevant to the survival of the organization (how do we monitor this?
Environment
How do we monitor the environment?
Twitter
Cnbc
The wall street journal
boundary spanners (public relations people)
What are the two roles for communication in a system?
Exchange relevant information between subsystems
Monitor the environment
What is a system?
Any organization that turns inputs into outputs via processing
What is a subsystem?
Internal parts of the system that do the processing
What is a suprasystem?
Larger system to which the focal system belongs
What is entropy?
The NATURAL STATE of an organization to tend toward disorganization (tendency to fall apart)
What is negentrophy?
Negative entropy- the system’s ability to resist entropy, develop the organization, and grow
What is the 2nd law of thermodynamics?
Entropy must increase to maximum. This is similar to misunderstanding, in that if you leave something alone in its natural state it will continue to decrease. you have to find ways to adapt.
What is Openess? Are all organizations open? always open?
The degree to which a system is responsive to its environment. No living system is ever totally closed to its environment. Openness varies by situation, sometimes you need to shut off inputs and outputs.
What is requisite Variety?
The internal workings of a system must be as complicated and diverse as the environment in which it exists. (we are much more complicated than the bottom of the ocean)
What were the two parts to Weick’s model of organizing?
Routine= Rules bureaucracy
Complex= Communication
We needed to go through complex communication cycles because of texas shooting, nothing like that had ever happened before. Complex inputs must be met with complex processes.
