21512 Chap.7 Open Systems Theory
Open Systems Theory
Week 3 moves from organisations as rational tools to organisations as social systems. Open systems theory, rooted in the organismic perspective in biology associated with Bertalanffy and carried into organisation studies by Katz and Kahn, sees an organisation as interrelated subsystems that import resources from the environment, transform them and export goods and services back to it.
The lecture lists ten elements, from importation of energy, throughput and output to negative entropy, feedback, homeostasis, differentiation, integration and equifinality.
The chapter maps a bus operator through the elements the tutorial uses, explains the contributions of systems thinking for strategy and change, and contrasts open with closed systems.
It presents open systems theory as a grand theory that contains others, including structural contingency theory and the industrial organisation paradigm, and closes with its limits and its use on social and environmental issues.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Systems, subsystems and open systems
- 02
Inputs, throughput and outputs
- 03
The ten elements of open systems
- 04
Negative entropy, feedback and homeostasis
- 05
Equifinality: many paths to one goal
- 06
Closed systems and synergy
- 07
A grand theory and its limits
Worked example · free
Sort feedback into positive and negative for a sports club
- 1Rising registrations after the free day are positive feedback: the environment confirms that part of the input-process-output cycle works, so the club should repeat it.
- 1Parents' complaints about training times are negative feedback: a deviation from the output families want, so the club should adjust its schedule to restore balance.
- 1The early lease renewal is positive feedback from a stakeholder, securing a key input and helping the club achieve negative entropy, its survival and growth.
Key terms
- Open system
- A system that takes resources from its environment, converts them into goods and services and returns them to that environment.
- Throughput
- The main method or technology an organisation uses to transform inputs into outputs.
- Homeostasis
- The steady state an open system keeps through feedback and continuous adjustment.
- Closed system
- A self-contained system unaffected by its environment, which undergoes entropy and fails.
- Synergy
- Performance gained when parts coordinate so that the whole exceeds the sum of its components.
Open Systems Theory FAQ
What is negative entropy in open systems theory?
Entropy is the dissolution or death of a system. Negative entropy is the process of reversing or slowing that decline so the system survives and grows, which an organisation achieves by importing energy and resources such as people, money, information and legitimacy from its environment. Recruiting staff after key retirements is a simple example.
What does equifinality mean?
Equifinality is the principle that the same final state can be reached from different starting conditions and by different paths. In the tutorial, students give different advice for the same strategic goal, and many of those options would move the organisation towards it. For a manager it means there is rarely only one acceptable strategy.
What are the drawbacks of open systems theory?
The lecture lists three. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive, so it does not say how best to manage a system or which subsystem matters most. It is a grand theory that subsumes others, which makes it very general. And optimal inputs, processes and outputs, and the interactions between subsystems, are hard to measure.
What is the difference between an open and a closed system?
An open system exchanges resources and information with its environment, importing inputs and exporting outputs, and uses feedback to hold a steady state. A closed system is self-contained and unaffected by its surroundings; because it imports nothing, it runs down through entropy, loses control of itself and eventually fails.
Assessment move
Learn the ten elements in three groups: the basic cycle, the elements that keep it going, and those that appear as the system grows. For any case, pick three or four elements the evidence shows and link them in a chain, for example feedback triggering a change in throughput. Practise one paragraph in which open systems theory frames an organisation's response to an environmental issue.
If your team chooses this theory for the documentary, storyboard the input, throughput and output scenes first, then add feedback as the turning point of the story.
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