“ …organisations are not systems at all -not living systems, not emergent systems, not soft systems or any other kind of system. This is because systems thinking has been developed for the natural world but does not apply to the social world. Unlike the parts of systems, humans have consciousness and will, and they do not act like the parts of systems because of that consciousness and free will. That’s why I say that complexity science offers little apart from some limited analogies when it comes to understanding social phenomena like organisations. We find ourselves talking about systems because much of the thinking about complexity in organisations simply adds complexity on top of systems thinking. I am arguing…that it makes sense to stop thinking of organisations as systems, because they do not behave like systems. People in organisations use systems and other tools to help them do their work. But the organisations themselves are not systems.
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Stephen Billing said, on August 27, 2009 at 13:34
Self-organization defined « Bas Reus’ quest on self-organization and online collaborative spaces
