Organisations as systems – difficulties in model development and validation

ABSTRACT

The quantitative analysis of organisations as systems can only proceed with confidence if the underlying models are truly representative and have been validated. Without such models, the outcomes of any quantitative analysis can be criticised. This paper contends that organisations are perhaps one of the most confronting systems to model, and validation of any models proposed by researchers is fraught with obstacles. This is not a reflection on the ability of researchers, but rather a commentary on the nature of organisations. It follows that the state-of-the-art of understanding organisations is quite primitive when compared with engineering and technical systems. The difficulties in modelling and validation lie in a number of issues, and these are outlined in the paper. These issues include the hierarchical and multilevel nature of organisations, people involvement, homomorphism, the diversity of organisations, culture, personal and organisational value systems, work division, organisational structures, coordination, and span of management.

KEYWORDS:

• Organisations
• modelling
• model validation
• organisation analysis
• organisation design
• organisation change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

David G. Carmichael http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2941-3488