Understanding How Concerns for the Natural Environment are Integrated into Prectical Strategic Decision Making: An Application of Ashby’s Law

  • Gerard J. Lewis
  • Neil Stewart
Chapter

Conclusions

We have shown that Ashby’s Law can be applied to measure organisation performance and inform our understanding of strategic decision making.This is a positive first step since although research on the development of environmental performance indicators currently occupies a major area of activity in environmental management, it will be some time before criteria and metrics will contribute to organisational comparisons in this area In the meantime, a more promising way forward would be to develop the application of Ashby’s (1956) Law to cover non-rational (heuristic based) decision making. This would provide a more accurate picture of requisite variety in the organisation.

Keywords

Senior Manager Strategic Decision Business Performance Green Performance Environmental Management System 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Referneces

  1. Ashby, W.R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. Chapman and Hall Ltd., London.Google Scholar
  2. Beer, S. (1967). Cybernetics and Management. 2nd ed., The English Universities Press, London.Google Scholar
  3. Duncan, R.B. (1972a). Characteristics of organisational environments and perceived environmental uncertainty. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, pp. 313–327.Google Scholar
  4. ENDS (1996). Chemical Industry eases towards comparability in environmental reporting. Industry Report No. 65. ENDS, 259 (August 1996), pp 19–22.Google Scholar
  5. Hart, S.L. (1997). Beyond greening: Strategies for a sustainable world. Harvard Business Review, Jan–Feb 1997, pp. 67–76.Google Scholar
  6. Janis, I.L. (1989). Crucial decisions: Leadership in policy making and crisis management. Collier Macmillan Publishers, London.Google Scholar
  7. Ketola, T. (1993). The seven sisters: Snow whites, dwarfs or evil queens? A comparison of the official environmental policies of the largest oil corporations in the world. Business Strategy and the Environment, 2, pp. 22–33.Google Scholar
  8. Lee, B.W. and Green, K. (1994). Towards commercial and environmental excellence: a green portfolio matrix. Business Strategy and the Environment, 3, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar
  9. Lewis, G.J. (1997). A cybernetic view of environmental management: The implications for business organisations. Business Strategy and the Environment, 6 (5), pp. 264–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Miller, D. (1987). Strategy making and structure: Analysis and implications for performance. Academy of Management Journal, 30 (1), pp. 7–32.Google Scholar
  11. Miller, K.D. (1993). Industry and country effects on managers’ perceptions of environmental uncertainties. Journal of International Business Studies, 24, pp. 693–714.Google Scholar
  12. Mintzberg, H. (1973). Strategy-making in three modes. California Management Review, 16 (2), pp. 44–53.Google Scholar
  13. Moxen, J. and Strachan, P. (1995). The formation of standards for environmental management systems: Structural and cultural issues. GMI, 12, pp. 32–48.Google Scholar
  14. Schaltegger, S. and Sturm, A. (1996). Managerial eco-control in manufacturing and process industries. Greener Management International, 4(1), pp. 79–91.Google Scholar
  15. Simon, H.A. (1987). Making management decisions: the role of intuition and emotion. Academy of Management EXECUTIVE, February 1987, pp. 57–64.Google Scholar
  16. Tosi, H.L. and Slocum, J.W. (1984). Contingency theory: Some suggested directions. Journal of Management, 10 (1), pp. 9–26.Google Scholar
  17. Tushman, M.L. and Nadler, D.A. (1978). Information processing as an integrating concept in organisational design. Academy of Management Review, 3, pp. 613–624.Google Scholar
  18. Waelchli, F. (1989). The VSM and Ashby’s Law as illuminants of historical management thought. In Espejo, R. and Harnden, R., eds. The viable system model: Interpretations and applications of Stafford Beer’s VSM, pp. 51–75. John Wiley & Sons, New York.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002

Authors and Affiliations

  • Gerard J. Lewis
    • 1
  • Neil Stewart
    • 2
  1. 1.Faculty of Economics Dresden University of Applied SciencesDresdenHungary
  2. 2.Manchester Business SchoolManchesterUK

Personalised recommendations