Organization as a System

• Normally system is defined as a structure where the employees are placed in hierarchial order according to their quality and ability, to achieve the goals of the management.
• A system is an assembly of elements arranged in a logical order to achieve corrective objectives. The organization is also a system of people.
• This is the simplest justification for calling the organization a system.
• The management theorists however have seen organization in different views and perspectives. They have identified more elements in the systems in the system besides the people. The choice of technology and structure as additional three elements of the organization system.
• He says that the task technology and people structure are dependenton each other and their signification cannot be ignored as elements of the system.
• The arrangement of task in terms of process and work design is dependent on the people.The choice of technology of handling the task is dependent on the people. You may choose the best technology and well designed task, but they have to be suited for the people.
• Over and above these are to be arranged in proper structure. Further a fourth Element has been added as culture. According to Leavitt an organization should be viewed as a socio- technical system consisting of people task technology culture and structure. The modifiedLeavitt’s model is shown in Fig.
• In view the nature of the task the organization is supposed to carry out it has to be designed as an open system capable of adjusting itself to the changing environment.
• The organization continuously exchange the information with the environment and is influenced by the changes in it.
• The organization therefore has to be built in such a fashion that it adjusts with the changes in the environment and the goals and the objectives are achieved.
• Hence the organization is a socio-technical system whose sub-systems are task people technology culture and structure each having its own input and output satisfying at first its own objective and eventually the corporate organization goals and objectives.
• If the sub-system's goals and objectives are not congruent with the goals and objectives of the corporate organization poor performance resistance to change and non-attainment of corporate goals will be the consequences.
• The systems and their goals are not stable. The goals change in response to the changes in the business focus the environment and in the people in the organization.
• A significant change calls for change in the organization structure a goals displacement is said to have occurred when the system goals significantly. Another reason for goals change is fue to the Natural process of growth and decline.
• All organizations and their business go through the different phases of growth cycle in stages as Introduction Growth Maturity and Decline.
• Each phase generates new goals to be served if the changed or displaced goals are not reflected in the organization is bound to suffer from decay.