ORGANIZATION (General Theory of)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2417 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
According to K. BOULDING: “The general theory of organization begins with the concept of homeostasis; that is of a mechanism for stabilizing a variable or a group of variables within certain limits of tolerance. Every organism or organization is characterized by a group of such variables, and the organization consist mainly in more or less elaborate apparatus to maintain these variables between an upper and lower limit. Should any of the essential variables rise above the upper limit, machinery must be brought into play to reduce it; should it fall below the lower limit, machinery must be brought into play to raise it. An organization in this view consist of an aggregate of such governing mechanisms sometimes called control mechanism or feedback” (1952, p.36).
A feedback is not really per se a control mechanism, but only an essential part of it.
Moreover this formulation (dated 1952) does not escape from the critique of “mechanistic reductionism” that has been frequently directed at WIENER's cybernetics. Nearly all the important contributions of ASHBY, von FOERSTER, MATURANA, MARUYAMA, and many others did appear after 1952.
According to Rafael RODRIGUEZ DELGADO (1997, p.25) a General Theory of Organization should cover the following subjects: “Wholeness, growth, differentiation, hierarchical order, dominance, control, competition and teleology, whose parameters are not easily measured… Moreover, organization implies a configuration of interrelations (communication, information), ordered and coherent, of the inside of the systems and of groups of systems”
The growing use of networks to explain intelligent structures or to construct them (see “connection machine”) brings now a still newer dimension to our concept of organisation.