Abstract
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?
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Notes
- 1.
It should be remarked that the resulting sub-transformations may differ in degree of “autonomy.” Sometimes, they can be treated as autonomous “flows” of production (which, as Beer (1995) suggests, may even be “hived off” from the original organization), and in other cases, one aspectual sub-transformation may be tied intimately to the other. This is the case with defining regulatory and operational sub-transformations (see explanation below).
- 2.
It may be noted that regulatory and operational sub-transformations are “relative” in two senses. First, they are relative to the selection of a designer modeling a particular transformation. Since operational and regulatory transformations are transformations too, they can also be decomposed regarding their operational and a regulatory aspect. Therefore, what appears to one designer as a regulatory or operational transformation may be selected by another designer as a transformation in focus and decomposed into an operational and a regulatory transformation. This entails that all transformations (including operational and regulatory sub-transformations) always contain an operational and a regulatory aspect. Second, operational and regulatory transformations are also relative to each other. Realizing an operational sub-transformation presupposes a regulatory sub-transformation, otherwise, disturbances cannot be dealt with. Moreover, realizing the regulatory sub-transformation presupposes the operational sub-transformation as its object – it deals with disturbances of some operational transformation.
- 3.
This description is derived from several definitions of de Sitter (pp. 93, 100 and 101). Moreover, de Sitter sometimes uses the term architecture in his definition, to refer to the specific grouping and coupling of transformations (e.g. 1994, p. 93, 100). This seems to be redundant and even de Sitter himself sometimes omits it. Therefore, we do not follow de Sitter in using this term.
- 4.
In fact, he adds a third external requirement with respect to the quality of work – one he labels “the need to balance “qualitative demand for work and social and economic developments,” by which he means that (1) jobs should fit the demands from the labor market and (2) jobs should help in increasing one’s chances on the labor market. We will not elaborate this requirement.
- 5.
From this reasoning, it follows that designing an organizational structure means building into the organizational structure the (regulatory) capacity to change the organizational structure itself (in fact, to change all parts of the infrastructure) – compare to Chapter 1. This is so because we defined regulation by design (1) as a way to deal with disturbances – i.e. as a part of the organization’s regulatory potential, and (2) in such a way that it included changing the transformation’s (task’s) infrastructure. In this sense it could be said that one designs for self-design.
- 6.
Actually, he formulates it as a function of this ratio. The reason for this has to do with the interpretation of the ratio as a real quotient. To be able to do so, we might define the “potential for regulation” as “the number of situations, calling for regulation that can actually be regulated” and the “required regulation” as “the number of situations calling for regulation.” In this case, given a certain “number of situations calling for regulation,” a “controllability-value” of 1 expresses maximum effectiveness. However, it might be that this number can still be reduced. To achieve an optimal value of controllability, then, it is needed to decrease the number of “situations calling for regulation” and, next, add (or remove) enough regulatory potential to attain the value to 1. This, one may recall, is exactly how (according to Ashby) any design-process should proceed. Only if “the number of situations calling for action” can not be lowered, one may say that 1 is the optimal value for controllability. The function should bring this Peffect about.
- 7.
At this point the “recursive use” of the parameter-concept as introduced in the chapter on Ashby should be noted. A parameter was described as something having an influence on the behavior of a system – or more specifically, as variable which values can influence the essential variables. With parameters, it became possible to describe the influence of “disturbances” and “regulatory actions” on essential variables. In the present context of organizational design, two “sets” of parameters and essential variables are identified. The first set has as essential variables the three “quality-variables” and to make sure that adequate values of these variables are attained, parameters such as “the organizational structure,” “human resources” and “technology” may be identified. In this chapter on designing organizational structures, we focus on one of these parameters – the “organizational structure.” The second set has this parameter, the “organizational structure” as its point of departure. The question becomes: how can we design an adequate organizational structure, and, hence, new essential variables (related to the adequacy of organizational structures – in terms of its capacity to attenuate disturbances and amplify regulatory potential) are defined and new parameters are identified. These parameters (we discuss them below) are called design-parameters and giving them specific values has the purpose of reaching an adequate organizational structure – or put differently – of meeting the essential variables expressing the adequacy of the organizational structure.
- 8.
The figure should actually be drawn as a decomposition into parts, i.e. the departments should be “separate” sub-transformations producing output that is the input for the next department – see also section 7.2.1.1.
- 9.
It should be noted that many criteria can be used to distinguish “types” of orders, e.g. their physical similarity (tables, chairs), type of customer (e.g. industry, or retail), etc., see also section 7.2.1.1.
- 10.
To hold that these parameters can be given “exact values” on some linear scale would be stretching things. In the text we defined the dimensions on which they can be “scored” and gave their end points. Given these dimensions and end points, a relative (qualitative) valuation may be possible: relative to the end points (e.g. “the value for this parameter lies closer to a maximum value than to a minimum one”) and to other parameter-values (e.g. “the value for this parameter seems to be higher than others, given a particular problem in the organizational structure”). A more adequate description of the value of a parameter might be “too high, too low or ok regarding the attenuation or amplification of organizational disturbances”. Moreover, the dimensions are not entirely independent. Nevertheless, designers should somehow refer to an (implicit) version of such a parameter-value graph in their design efforts.
- 11.
In the text, production organizations are taken as examples. However, as de Sitter stresses, the same reasoning holds for organizations providing services (e.g. governmental organizations; consultancy, etc.)
- 12.
At any moment, a specific product (table, type 1; table, type 2; table, type 3; chair type 1; chair type 2; chair type 3) can either be ordered or not. This results in 26 possible combinations of orders because 6 specific products can be ordered or not. However, the combination in which no products are ordered does not count as an order-combination, so the total number of possible order-combination is 26–1. This number is even an underestimation, because it does not yet include e.g. possibly differing order quantities.
- 13.
This is all too often observed in situations where “ICT-departments” offer (impose) “ICT-solutions” that do not support the process they are supposed to improve.
- 14.
See also Christis 1998, for a more elaborate explanation of the concept of stress based on de Sitter’s theory.
- 15.
De Sitter shows (p.28) how results of a study by Karasek (1979) empirically support his conception of stress.
- 16.
These points can be made, based on a more-or-less common sense view of the concept of learning. De Sitter, however, even unfolds his own (functional) model of learning in organizations (1994, chapter 10), in which learning is tied to regulation. He then uses this model to explore the (structural) requirements for learning. In the context of our book, however, it suffices to discuss structural impairments for learning in general.
- 17.
In fact, segments should be defined in such a way that they may contain highly interdependent activities, but the dependence between segments should be as low as possible.
- 18.
In this case the “orders,” relative to which functional concentration is defined is an “internal” concept; they comprise the requested product-components by the production-process.
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Achterbergh, J., Vriens, D. (2010). Specific Design Principles: de Sitter’s Organizational Structures. In: Organizations. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14316-8_7
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