Rethinking the Organizational Weapon: The Soviet System in a Systems Age

Abstract

There is growing realization in the U.S.S.R. that the “contemporary scientific and technological revolution” is as much a managerial and cultural revolution as a scientific and industrial revolution. The key task is to develop not only modern technical hardware, but also an effective and distinctive software appropriate for the times. Accordingly, Soviet authorities have begun to think seriously, really for the first time, about organization and the structural requirements of progress. As organizations become more complex, the area of organizational design gains importance. Because it focuses attention on interrelationships, interdependencies, and integration, the “systems approach” has emerged as a way of coping with advancing complexity. The real significance of the U.S.S.R.'s belated awakening to the modern systems age is the discovery that the Soviet system is, in fact, not a “system.” Lacking both the power and the technique to deal with contemporary issues, Soviet leaders are busy forging new organizational weapons. Despite their increasing efforts to use modern systems terminology and technology to enhance integrative capabilities, conditions militate against any radical systems engineering.