Summary |
F. E. Emery believes that ‘living systems, whether individuals or populations, have to be analysed as “open systems”, i. e. as open to matter—energy exchanges with an environment. Human organizations are living systems, and should be analysed accordingly.’
Parts One and Two deal with the history of the ideas of systems theory and the properties of ‘open’ systems. The extracts in part Three define the properties of environments that are relevant to adaptive behaviour. Papers that extend these ideas to enterprises that must be managed and suggest the potential of systems thinking for management practice are found in Parts Four and Five. Above all, the editor insists, ‘we have tried to select Readings that would excite readers to a new way of looking at mundane realities of human organization’.
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