Clayton Parks
Facilitation Paper
2/12/2008
Our group discussed the importance of an organization’s environment and how it affects the organization as exemplified in the organism metaphor. The organism metaphor exemplifies an open-system that recognizes the importance of how an organization reacts and interacts with its surroundings. Our group brought forth the idea that there is an interdependence between an organization’s choices and how they affect the environment. These particular choices reciprocates affection on future choices of the organization and the whole industry that the organizations belongs to.
This type of reciprocating relationship is exemplified in the “Tit for Tat” article.
This reading discussed how dilemmas can have different outcomes depending upon the actions of one or more of the players. The scenario of nuclear disarmament was a situation that all group members could relate to and so we thoroughly discussed how the idea of having reciprocating relationship was witnessed in this imaginable arms race . The scenario depicted two countries both with possession of nuclear weapons faced with the choice of using or not using those weapons.
The reciprocating relationship can be seen in the scenario by both countries having choices of how their personal actions will affect their environment. If one country chooses to use nuclear weapons, that action affects the environment in that it may cause mass destruction if the other country decides to reciprocate a nuclear attack. Both countries could choose not to use their nuclear weapons causing a temporary standstill in the environment.
Another option is if one of the countries choose to completely rid itself of its nuclear weapons promoting itself as a non-threat in the arms race. This action would be an example of negative entropy in that it would be preventive in controlling future repercussions of a possible nuclear war. This action would go against predictable reciprocity which changes the environment completely. This action could affect the environment by possibly becoming contagious and spreading this idea of disarmament, which could bring forth homeostasis, a somewhat controlled environment of peace amongst the two countries’ environment.
Along the same lines of organizations being part of action-based responsive environments, our group applied the organism attribute of being open to an environment to the cellular telephone companies of Cingular and AT&T. For a long time, our group concluded, both companies had been prominent in the cellular telephone industry and competed against each other for customers. Both companies had to evolve within their systems to respond to the changing environment of cell-phone services becoming in great demand when households began switching their land-line phone usage to cell-phones.
We discussed that not only did the companies have to respond and react to the constantly changing environment outside the industry, they also had to respond to competition within the industry’s environment. Whenever one company would introduce a new product or service plan, the other company (as well as other cell-phone companies) would have to reciprocate actions so that they were able to survive within the cell-phone industry. Eventually, the two companies utilized equilfinality and decided that instead of participating in constant competition against each other, they could remedy the problem by merging their two companies.
Our group also examined the Scholar Educational Products article to see whether we could apply the organism metaphor to the organization that was described. Upon examination we concluded that the organization described in the article held more attributes that could be exemplified in the machine metaphor based solely on their desire to not take risks in evolving to their technologically changing environment .
The organization showed a constant hierarchy when Bilkowski determined and decided that Cindy’s idea, which was geared toward the future, was too risky. The machine metaphor also hinges on lack of communication among the hierarchal system. This attribute was easily noticeable among the Scholar organization by Cindy not communicating with her higher-ups about the company’s ideologies. We also discussed that among the Scholar organization there was tension among different types of organization ideologies. Scholar could easily be identified as a defender type of organization because they concentrated on spearheading their encyclopedias to create a stable, consistent, money-making product. They also showed glimpses of being an analyzer type organization by establishing a New Products Development department to prepare for distribution of future products and also by approving one of Cindy’s new product ideas (the supplemental tape cassette). Our group concluded that Cindy, part of the New Products Development, had characteristics that would be found among prospector organizations; her ability to explore new opportunities within the technology’s environment.
Our group concluded our discussion be stating that the Scholar organization may likely have been more successful if they would have adopted more attributes that could be associated with an open-system organization. The Scholar article written in the 1980’s, set the organization on the brink of a technological revolution, especially in the field of education and computers. If the Scholar organization took on the attribute of systems evolution they might be able to examine the changing technological/education environment and successfully evolve with the technological revolution instead of having to fear taking risks and falling behind its competitors. Even though they did partially exemplify equilfinality in the establishment of the New Products Development department all the while sticking to their main product of book encyclopedias, they could have branched out slightly with more varied products to answer the call to provide more products geared toward the onslaught of technological advancement.