Application of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety to Interorganizational Conflicts in Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract

This study examines conflict that can co-determine the effectiveness of nonprofit organization performance. Based on Ashby’s law of requisite variety, interorganizational conflict is defined in terms of a lack of fit between input variety and variety-handling capabilities. The calculated organizational interaction effectiveness (IE) ratio of 2.04 is used to determine the quality of interactions. “Flexibility” is the dominant category for helpful incidents (49.03%). Within non-helpful incidents (45.67%), however, “Unreliability” is the dominant category. This major source of conflict commonly produces an imbalance between flexibility and reliability as manifest by a mismatch between input variety and variety-handling capabilities.