Human Systems Management

The prevalence and influence of cultural phenomena in organizations coupled with limitations inherent in traditional approaches to organizational inquiry suggest the need to add a cultural perspective to our repertoire of perspectives on organizations. A cultural perspective is proposed to guide inquiry on intersubjective, emergent, context-embedded and/or interpretive phenomena in organizational settings. The cultural perspective represents a social defmition paradigm and contrasts with the social fact paradigm of traditional perspectives. Methodological consequences of a cultural perspective are discussed. Topics of study germane to a cultural perspective are illustrated. Methods of organizational inquiry reflective of a cultural perspective are discussed.

Costs of traditional health services are increasing faster than their productivity and quality in most developed countries. This process is part of a broader trend: increasing costs of services in general, relative to growth of productivity and quality. In some service sectors, these trends are increasingly counterbalanced by perceptible shifts toward self-help, self-service, and voluntarism. Such services as health maintenance are much slower to respond in a similar way because of their ingrained ‘external service’ nature. One reason is that traditional health services only secondarily stress illness prevention and health maintenance, and concentrate on professional delivery of ‘sick-care’ rather than health care. Illness prevention remains the responsibility of each individual to be met through self-help. We argue – using simplified analytic models – that a shift toward more emphasis on self-service and self-help in maintaining health is likely and will increase the average number of disability-free years of life in a community. We discuss the implications of new self-help supporting products and technologies facilitating mutual support and aid in health maintenance.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of dependence, particularly in the context of international scientific and technological interactions. It is argued that dependence is more than mere interaction or transaction, and it consists of a crippling loss of freedom of action on the part of the dependent because of his lack of skill and capacity, because of his feeling of indebtedness, and because of the limited opportunities for independent decision making. It is then pointed out that the actual onset of the feeling of dependence is due primarily to psychological factors. Such feeling of dependence creates frustration and hatred toward the country on which the dependent country depends. Dependence also creates a feeling of lethargy and pessimism. It is finally suggested that efforts to end dependence by legislation are futile, and that the only effective road toward lessening dependence is the evolution of an indigenous infrastructure in the dependent countries.

This study was a laboratory experiment designed to explore some of the individual determinants of the problem conceptualization process. Problem conceptualization is defined as the process which begins after recognition that a problem exists and culminates in a conceptual model of the problem. Subjects were presented with a case situation and asked to define the problem. The initial problem definitions were content analyzed and categorized as technical, behavioral, or integrative. Subjects were also categorized based upon whether desired additional information sources were congruent or incongruent with their initial conceptualizations. Finally, subjects were categorized based upon whether their conceptualizations had changed or stayed the same following the presentation of information which was inconsistent with their initial conceptualization. The data indicated that individuals with very similar backgrounds arrived at drastically different initial conceptualizations of the problem. Individuals who formulated narrow initial conceptualizations tended to seek out additional information sources which were consistent with their conceptualization and were less responsive to contradictory information. The subject's Jungian personality types and attitudes toward problem solving provide some insight into the causes of such behaviors.

The author examines the relationship between an institution's control system and evaluation function in order to suggest information which management may use, in conjunction with other information, to ascertain the propriety of modifying the institution's control system. It is demonstrated that the evaluation information provides a context for considering statements regarding the perceived accuracy of the control system. Two case analyses are presented.

The argument is made that how one looks at – how one chooses to analyze – policy problems determines how the problem is defined and what solutions are eventually reached. To illustrate this point, the implementation of a special education reform in Massachusetts is examined. By changing from a ‘program’ to a ‘fiscal’ point of view, problems with implementation are seen to result logically from implicit fiscal incentives that were built into the law and that actually worked against stated program goals. Finally, some of the organizational and cognitive factors that prevent organizations and their managers from easily changing their analytic perspective are briefly sketched.

Macroscopically, technological innovation is desirable as on average it improves the net present worth of business firms and thus aggregate economic performance. However, at the level of individual firms, technological innovation is merely one of a number of potential strategies for optimal resource deployment. As such, the overriding determinant of the proper role of technological innovation in a firm is the nature of the fit between the organization's competencies and desires on the one hand and the threats and opportunities presented by the firm's environment on the other – all as perceived by the managers of the firm. The paper addresses the issue of how the propensities of firms to invest in innovation are influenced by properties of the firms, their competitors, and their environments. A sufficiency analysis exhibits the characteristics of the preliminary theory. Illustrations of these contentions are derived from firms in four industries: home appliances, homebuilding, food distribution, and prescription drugs. The data are consistent with eight hypotheses relating organizational and industry characteristics with the mode of technological innovation.

A wide gap exists between theory and practice in the field of Human Systems Management, and I propose that applied systems thinking may bridge it. Relatively new disciplines such as cybernetics and systems theory did promise, but actually had little impact of value on management. Managers require not new techniques but applied systems – thinking that re-examines traditional beliefs about bureaucracy and power. The author proposes a model based on systems and control theory which may help close the gap between management theory and practice.

Most people are horrified with the idea that a human being can be ‘modelled’ like a machine and I think this has created a stumbling block to the advance of human systems management. Apart from economists and medical practitioners, people seem to think that human beings are far too complex for analysis.

When our car or our washing machine breaks down we call in a mechanic to look at it and put it right. He can track down the fault because he already has in his mind a mental model or ‘percept’ of how it should work. He compares the behaviour with how it ‘ought’ to behave according to his mental model. The differences between the real behavior and that of the model gives the ‘error signal’ which enables him to track down the fault. The mechanic is armed with a package of past experiences of faults in other machines. It is this ‘data bank’ which tells him what to do to pit it right.

When we turn to social problems the position is not quite so simple. We call in the ‘social mechanics’, i.e. psychologists, life scientists, management consultants, economists and so on. The success rate in repairs in the social case is far lower than that of the machines. Although the ‘social mechanics’ are armed with tremendous data banks of psychology, anthropology, etc. the faults fail to be thrown up in the same explicit way on our mental screens. This I think, is because the social mechanic lacks a model or simple representation of the working of the human machine.

In “The Macroscope” (Harcourt & Row., New York) biologist de Rosnay tries to show us what systems of cells look like from the point of view of just one cell…it looks the other way up and out of the microscope. This is what we do when we apply ‘systems think’ to bring to view models of human systems. Like the cell, we have to jump out of the ordinary everyday mental rut. We no longer divide observer from observed, separate ‘me’, ‘we’, from ‘they’, ‘others’. In ‘systems think’ we accept that ‘we’ are carbon copies of the ‘they’ so that to model the ‘theys’ we look critically at ourselves and examine our own control mechanisms, so finely geared to survival. This entails difficulty for some of us; for it means breaking through our own ego defences to discuss our own faults and limitations.

It is through recent developments in cybernetics and systems analysis that one is now allowed to pick out ideas from current psychology, sociology, biology etc. and boil them down to relatively simple models. Through the stimulus and help of behavioral psychologist, the late Dr. M. Allen (Dr. Allan died 23rd August 1981), the present writer developed the model described herewith. Readers may find in this model a fairly concise and vivid account of social control, bureaucracy and power, a representation of a social ‘mechanism’ to help us track down ‘faults’ in our social machinery.

This article attempts to demonstrate, by using Indian examples, how workable solutions to certain societal problems emerge on their own without any deliberate attempt on the part of those involved. Issues arising in the process of reaching durable but often uneasy equilibrium are discussed and their relevance to human systems management is highlighted.

Studies of brain lateralization and cognitive style have related the hemispheres of the outer brain and occupational choice. EEG analysis of accountants and artists in our study shows sharply different hemisphere activity by the two groups and supports the validity of the Herrmann Learning Profile Survey Form [2] employed in selecting experimental subjects. The most complete model of human information processing appears to require use of MacLean's triune brain concept – cerebral, limbic, and reptilian. The application of a multiple brain level approach holds significant implications for personnel assessment, training, and placement in industry and education.