Discussion: View Thread

Management thought and education seems to be clouded by the need for a
cook book with recipes and/or a prescription that one can follow and apply
to organizational responses to environmental uncertainty, ambiguity, or
equivocalities. To posit that the "system" or "system thinking" is the
"only" or most appropriate basis for understanding organizational behavior
is a bit naive. To do that marginalizes other items such as role
structure, subjectivity, politics, power, interest formulation. Each as
important if not moreso then the mantra of system, system, system.

Managing knowledge has been touched upon in this list. It's dominant
discursive spin positions the following items as unproblematic:
-innovation
-sharing
-communication
-creativity
-its newness

Yet a growing body of critical research points out that there are indeed
problems in each of these discursive threads to the same level and extent
that serious problems underlie the "fads" of business process
re-engineering, downsizing, and TQM.

If there is an important item for management education it is the
development of a critical mood NOT one that blindly accepts things like
system, system, system.

I touch on this issue in a book that I co-authored with Prichard, Hull,
and Wilmott entitiled, "Managing knowledge:critical investigations on work
and learning" macmillan (in press). See
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar/Introduction.htm

Mike Chumer

I was a bit surprised to see the following commentary on "shortfalls" of
"systems thinking." Of course "systems" is an overloaded word. However, the
"Systems Science" community is pretty well defined albeit with a number of
branches. As a member of this community I agree with your admonitions as
listed in the portion of your message below. ( However, these are indeed the
subject of developments in Systems Science over the past two decades.
Perhaps we simply have a semantics difference here.)

I submit to you that this may simply be a shortfall of awareness of current
developments in the systems science community under the names: Critical
Systems Theory, Emancipatory Systems Theory, Liberating Systems Theory,
Critical Systems Heuristics, Complementarism, Diversity Management,
Discordant Pluralism, Methodological Pluralism, and Interpretive
Systematology. Indeed at the heart of these developments, in large part
inspired by Habermas, Gadamer, Heiddeger, is a concern with
inter-subjectivity, pluralist ethics, power & politics, world views, meaning
and innovation - especially social innovations.

Kevin Dye
Chief Process Scientist
www.CWALTD.com

In a message dated 99-11-05 09:56:16 EST, Mike Chumer writes:

> To posit that the "system" or "system thinking" is the
> "only" or most appropriate basis for understanding organizational behavior
> is a bit naive. To do that marginalizes other items such as role
> structure, subjectivity, politics, power, interest formulation. Each as
> important if not moreso then the mantra of system, system, system.
>
> Managing knowledge has been touched upon in this list. It's dominant
> discursive spin positions the following items as unproblematic:
> -innovation
> -sharing
> -communication
> -creativity
> -its newness
>

Mike Chumer writes...

>To posit that the "system" or "system thinking" is the
>"only" or most appropriate basis for understanding organizational behavior
>is a bit naive. To do that marginalizes other items such as role
>structure, subjectivity, politics, power, interest formulation. Each as
>important if not moreso then the mantra of system, system, system.

Who posited that? I must have missed the message in which that happened?


Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@worldnet.att.net
(609) 490-0095

Hello Kevin,
Thanks for your e-mail which outlines the different versions of systems
thinking/theory. Can you put some names to these versions? It would be
great to know authors etc. so I can bone up on the reading. Have you got
reading list??
Cheers Patricia

Dr. Patricia Morrigan
School of Management
Faculty of Business & Public Management
Edith Cowan University,
Churchlands, 6020
Western Australia
Tel: +61 8 9273 8528
Fax: +61 8 9273 8754

>>> Kevin Dye <KevinDye@AOL.COM> 11/06/99 12:29am >>>
I was a bit surprised to see the following commentary on "shortfalls"
of
"systems thinking." Of course "systems" is an overloaded word.
However, the
"Systems Science" community is pretty well defined albeit with a number
of
branches. As a member of this community I agree with your admonitions
as
listed in the portion of your message below. ( However, these are
indeed the
subject of developments in Systems Science over the past two decades.
Perhaps we simply have a semantics difference here.)

I submit to you that this may simply be a shortfall of awareness of
current
developments in the systems science community under the names:
Critical
Systems Theory, Emancipatory Systems Theory, Liberating Systems
Theory,
Critical Systems Heuristics, Complementarism, Diversity Management,
Discordant Pluralism, Methodological Pluralism, and Interpretive
Systematology. Indeed at the heart of these developments, in large
part
inspired by Habermas, Gadamer, Heiddeger, is a concern with
inter-subjectivity, pluralist ethics, power & politics, world views,
meaning
and innovation - especially social innovations.

Kevin Dye
Chief Process Scientist
www.CWALTD.com

In a message dated 99-11-05 09:56:16 EST, Mike Chumer writes:

> To posit that the "system" or "system thinking" is the
> "only" or most appropriate basis for understanding organizational
behavior
> is a bit naive. To do that marginalizes other items such as role
> structure, subjectivity, politics, power, interest formulation. Each
as
> important if not moreso then the mantra of system, system, system.
>
> Managing knowledge has been touched upon in this list. It's
dominant
> discursive spin positions the following items as unproblematic:
> -innovation
> -sharing
> -communication
> -creativity
> -its newness
>