Organizations: Social Systems Conducting Experiments

What are organizations? What is their point? How should one design successful organizations? Although these questions have been treated by many authors in many different ways, this book offers a new perspective. In a nutshell, the book combines cybernetics, social systems theory and Aristotle’s ethics to describe organizations as "social systems conducting experiments with their survival" and to formulate principles for their design. In Part I, the authors argue that ‘experimenting’ and ‘social interaction’ are key features of organizations. In order to survive, organizations continuously have to experiment with goals, infrastructures and transformation processes and this experiment is an inherently social activity. In Part II principles are given guiding the design of organizational infrastructures. In Part III Aristotle’s ethics, cybernetics and social systems theory are instrumental to describe and derive design principles required for social responsibility.