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Samenvatting System Theory
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This is a summary of the System Theory course.
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System TheoryLecture 1
Regulating systems
Regulation making sure that a system shows desired behavior despite disturbances.
System a system is a concrete unity which consist of elements and relations between
those elements. This concrete unity shows behavior. You could think of behavior as a set of
activities, when regulating behavior, you are also interested in the effect of the behavior. You
can measure the effect of the activities of the system in terms of variables and their values.
The set of variables used to describe this behavior is called the abstract system.
Example: a factory producing furniture, one department is sawing planks. This department is
a system. The behavior consists of the activity of sawing logs (transformation process of
input into output).
The effect of the behavior relates to the output of the activity. There is direct output in the
form of neatly stacked planks. There is also indirect output, like the satisfaction of the
employees.
The variables that describe the effect of the system behavior is for instance in quantity the
number of sawn planks per week, or in quality the percentage of good sawn planks.
A variable for the indirect output is the employee satisfaction.
Some elements of this department are HR and technology, the relation between these
elements is a structure which consists of tasks which relate HR to technology.
Behavior is the sequence of values from a system. The relation between the elements of a
unity consists of a structure of tasks, which are interconnected.
If the sequence of values is within the norm, the behavior is desired behavior. You should
not produce below of above the norm, then it would be undesired behavior. Whenever there
is undesired behavior, a disturbance has occurred. A disturbance is a cause/reason for
undesired behavior.
Regulation is about making sure that a system shows desired behavior despite disturbances.
Actions should be defined, and actions should be performed.
Recipe for regulation
To regulate, there are some steps you need to follow:
1. Define the system, there are two types of systems: concrete and abstract. You need
to define them both.
2. Define desired behavior, you have to think of norm values for the variables that
describe the desired behavior.
3. Determine disturbances.
4. Think of regulatory actions, define them, and carry them out if necessary.
These steps imply some overall, general goal, serving as a background for all the steps.
Determining this general goal could be said to be step 0.
A concrete system has a kind of script, you know exactly what to do.
Example: there is a bathtub and someone in the bath. You want to enjoy this bath. The
behavior of the system is having a bath. The concrete unity here is the relation between the
,person having the bath and the bathtub, tap and water. The relation is the task that you have
develop in your life to fill up the bath and go in the water. This is the concrete system.
Variables here are the water level, the temperature, and your enjoyment.
Idea of complexity
If a system is complex, it has a wide variety and a high number of items per set of
disturbances. When there are more events that trigger undesired behavior, the system is
more complex. This is negative complexity. There is also a set of regulatory actions, when this
set has a lot of variety, it is easier to get desired behavior. This is positive complexity. This is
the law of requisite variety. There should be a balance between “the complexity of the (set
of) regulatory actions” and the complexity of the (set of) disturbances.”
Variety describes the number of DIFFERENT items in a set.
2 types of system theory
General system theory (GST), also called cybernetics basically system theory that holds
for any type of system. We use ideas from the GST to look at organization, this produces
organizational system theory (OST). You apply this theory to understand the organization,
because the organization is a social system conducting experimentations (= there is some
problem that is not possible to come up with a solution that solves it once and for all. This
solution is a hypothesis. You implement the solution, and you monitor it). You also want to
design the infrastructure of the organization.
You first make the model of the organization. An organization always conducts the same 4
activities: primary transformation process, operational regulation (dealing with disturbances
of the primary process), setting goals (these goals determine what is expected of these
processes: the desired behavior), and design which is making sure that conditions (three
basic conditions: HR, ICT/technology, and structure) are in place in the organization that help
to carry out these 4 basic activities. You want to set goals that help the organization to
survive.
, The class of conditions “human resources” (without knowledgeable, motivated
personnel, nothing will happen in organizations)
The class of conditions Technology (all resources except the human resources –
machines, ICT, buildings, etc.).
The class of conditions the structure / division of work (the way tasks are defined and
related into a network of tasks). In organizations, one needs to know what to do and
relate tasks, otherwise, nothing can happen.
After this you want to design the infrastructure of the organization. Based on this
infrastructure the 4 basic activities can be carried out.
Moreover, based on this model, it can already be explained:
1) What it means to understand an organization as a particular type of system – in
particular, as “a social system that continuously conducts experiments”.
a. The experiment means that every goal that is set, every infrastructural condition that
is formulated, and every operational regulatory action one selects, is an uncertain
selection! One can never know with certainty that it will succeed – they are all
hypotheses about what will work and need to be monitored and adjusted. This
setting of hypotheses, monitoring and adjustment resembles experimentation.
b. For the time being, “Social” means that the above activities (setting goals, designing
the infrastructure, operational regulation and performing transformation processes
are carried out in (social) interaction (or: communication as Luhmann has it).
2) What it means to design organizations. Designing organizations means designing the
infrastructure. Based on systems theory two kind of principles for design can be
formulated:
a. Functional design principles – stating what an infrastructure should be able to do for
organizations to survive.
b. Specific design principles – stating how HR, structure and Technology should be
designed in order to realize the desired functional principles.
Lecture 2
Introduction
Cybernetics (in particular Ashby’s cybernetic regulatory theory) offers concepts and ideas to
understand these two requirements. Moreover, if you have an understanding of these
cybernetic concepts, you are in a position to reflect on its limits and usefulness. In lecture 2
and 3, therefore we will go into:
1. Describing the behavior of concrete systems according to cybernetics;
2. Cybernetic notions about regulating systems;
3. Reflection on cybernetics.
General system theory, part 1:
Describing behavior
You need to select variables, and record values of these variables, to describe the effect of
the actions of the behavior. The selection of particular values of variables at a time is called a
state. Multiple following states are called a sequence of states. You record this as the
following in a table:
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