Jan Achterbergh

Introducing Organizations as Social Systems Conducting Experiments

In this book, it is our aim to describe organizations as social systems conducting experiments with their survival. More in particular, we want to explain what we mean by this description, and based on this explanation, we want to formulate principles for the design of organizations, enabling them to survive, i.e., enabling them to continue to conduct these experiments. Organizations as social systems conducting experiments: “What kind of description is that?” “Can it deepen our understanding of organizations?” “Can it help to improve the conditions for their survival by providing principles underpinning organizational design?” and if so, “What are these design principles?” These are all relevant and “natural” questions that might come up when reading the aim of this book. We do think it deepens our understanding of organizations and allows for finding principles improving their design. However, it may take the rest of the book to argue why. In this introduction, we cannot exhaustively answer these questions, so we have to content ourselves with a tentative and hopefully sufficiently persuasive description of the main topic of the book: organizations as social systems conducting experiments and finding principles to improve their design.

The Experimental Arche: Ashby’s Cybernetics

In this chapter we introduce Ashby’s cybernetics – a theory about the regulation of all kinds of systems. Ashby’s cybernetic theory is fundamental to our perspective on organizations as “social systems conducting experiments” because it provides us with the conceptual tools to describe the “experimental arche” of organizations (see Chap. 1). In particular, Ashby’s theory on regulation enables us to arrive at a first description of organizations conducting experiments, making apparent (1) that the objects organizations experiment with – goals, transformation processes, infrastructural parts or operational regulatory activities – are related to three types of (organizational) regulation, and (2) how conducting such experiments should be regulated itself. Moreover, because Ashby’s notion of regulation is intimately tied to the survival of systems, his theory can be used to make explicit how conducting organizational experiments is linked to the survival of organizations.

Beer: Functional Design Principles for Viable Infrastructures

In Part I of the book, we explored the two “archai” of organizations indicating that they are social systems conducting experiments. In the present part, we will give a systematic exposition of ways of organizing this experiment. Given the “logic” of the experiment, this means that we have to look for principles enabling the design of infrastructural conditions allowing organizations to experiment. These infrastructural conditions are so important because an organization’s potential to select and reselect goals, infrastructures, operational regulation, and transformation processes (and all other “objects” related to these “focal” objects), crucially depends on the design of its infrastructure.

Epilogue to Part I: The Two “Archai” Combined

In Chap. 1 we advanced the position that organizations have an experimental and a social “arche.” These “archai” are features of organizations that cannot be negated without negating organizations altogether. They are unavoidable characteristics of the “phenomena” we call organizations. Following Aristotle’s “method” of starting with the phenomena as we experience them, we introduced the “archai” referring to everyday experiences with organizations.

Poor Survival: Disciplining Organizational Behavior

In this chapter, we want to discuss poor survival. Because there are many possible instances of poor survival, we selected an especially vivid example, i.e., an example that illustrates everything that is possibly worrying about it. We take this example from Foucault’s book Surveiller et Punir (1975, 1977).

Epilogue to Part II: functional and specific design principles

In the previous two chapters, we unfolded Beer’s functional and de Sitter’s specific design principles. As argued, these principles can be used to diagnose and design organizational (infra)structures supporting experiments with meaningful survival. This means that we have realized the objective set for Part II of the book. In this epilogue, we summarize these principles (8.2) and reflect on their status (8.3). In this reflection, we argue that the design principles are not contingent and risky, like the selections figuring in the experiment, but necessary and certain. Section 8.4 marks the transition to Part III of the book.

The Second “arche”, Organizations as Social Systems: Luhmann

In the previous chapters, we explored the first organizational “arche,” i.e., we discussed organizations as conducting risky experiments with meaningful survival. We based this discussion on insights taken from first- and second-order cybernetics.

Specific Design Principles: de Sitter’s Organizational Structures

In the previous chapter, we discussed Beer’s Viable System Model; a functional model specifying desired effects required for viability. These effects can be used as criteria for diagnostic or design purposes. We also pointed at limitations of the Viable System Model. As a functional model it does not address the question of the embodiment of functions. Although it specifies desired effects, it does not positively address the question of how to design their realization. Simply put, the strength of the Viable System Model is stating what effects should be realized, not how they should be realized. For instance, functions three and four should engage in a relatively complex and balanced dialogue about plans for innovation, but what is needed to realize this dialogue? How should one distribute tasks and responsibilities among organizational members, so that this dialogue can be carried out properly? How should one select, allocate, and train the people involved in these dialogues, and how does one design the technological infrastructure supporting the complex communication processes required for innovation? In short: how does one design the infrastructure realizing the desired effects for viability?

The Experimental Arche Continued: Von Foerster on Observing Systems

In the previous chapter we used Ashby’s cybernetic theory to discuss the “experimental arche” of organizations. This arche referred to a continuous and risky process of control, design and operational regulation with respect to organizational transformation processes. At the heart of our discussion of the experimental arche was Ashby’s regulatory logic, stating that, in order to regulate a particular concrete system, one has to: Select essential variables and desired values Identify parameters, disturbing the essential variables Design an infrastructure (a “mechanism”) by means of which: Disturbances are attenuated The system’s transformation processes can be realized Regulatory potential (regulatory parameters) becomes available And, given 1, 2, and 3: select values of regulatory parameters (= select regulatory actions) in the face of actual disturbances.

Organizational Structures Supporting Rich Survival

Aristotle’s ethics provides us with a description of what it means to live a fulfilled life. However, this description is not an end in itself. What we are really after is formulating a set of principles allowing for the design of organizational structures supporting “rich survival.” In order to find both these principles and the structures that result from their application, we need to take two additional steps.