The Traditional View on Organizations

Abstract

In the introduction I referred to Enterprise Engineering as a paradigm change. A paradigm is the reference framework from which we interpret reality. Enterprise Engineering allows us to change the reference framework and look at organizations in a whole different way. But before we look further into the new paradigm, we first need to establish what our old reference framework was. We will therefore discuss the current approach in this chapter, whereby the organization is seen as a black box. Many managers, experts on change and others involved in the functioning of organizations often don’t realize they look at organizations in this way. However it is clear from their actions that they do.