Ashby's Law Research Articles

Business process flexibility through the exploration of stimuli

For organisations to survive and flourish in a changing environment, their business processes need to be flexible. Ashby's law of requisite variety applied to business processes postulates that a robust process needs to exhibit as much as variety in its responses as there are stimuli in its environment. An essential aspect of the design of a business process is to know to what stimuli it needs to respond to. In this paper, stimuli to the requirements of Business Process Flexibility (BPF) are examined. A classification framework is proposed to characterise the environmental stimuli. Using this framework, business process designers can visualise variations of the stimuli affecting the process. They can then consider if the Business Process Support (BPS) system would adequately manage the variations in the stimuli. The use of the framework is illustrated with the example of a university train ticket purchasing process.

Complexity * Simplicity * Simplexity

the midst of there is chaos; but in the midst of chaos, there is order, John Gribbin wrote in his book Deep Simplicity (p.76). In this dialectical spirit, we discuss the generative tension between complexity and simplicity in the theory and practice of management and organization. Complexity theory suggests that the relationship between complex environments and complex organizations advanced by the well-known Ashby's law, may be reconsidered: only simple organization provides enough space for individual agency to match environmental turbulence in the form of complex organizational responses. We suggest that complex organizing may be paradoxically facilitated by a simple infrastructure, and that the theory of organizations may be viewed as resulting from the interplay between simplicity and complexity.

Complex built‐environment design: four extensions to Ashby

PurposeThis paper sets out to report on research by the authors into the development and application of four extensions to Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (LoRV) that increase its utility in the arena of unplanned changes in hegemonic control of designed complex socio‐technical systems/digital eco‐systems in the built environment that are structurally dynamic or emergent.Design/methodology/approachResearch on which the paper is based focused on exploration of classical systems approaches to the design of complex socio‐technical systems in which ownership, power, control and management of structure and benefit generation and distribution are distributed, dynamic and multi‐constituent. Support for development of these four extensions to Ashby's Law comes from observation of four decades of socio‐technical systems development along with critical thinking that combined systems analysis theories with theories and findings from fields of hegemonic analysis, design research, management, management information systems, behaviour in organisations and sociology.FindingsThe paper outlines application of four new extensions to LoRV in relation to unplanned changes in distributions of power, ownership, control, benefit generation and benefit distribution in complex socio‐technical systems/digital eco‐systems in the built environment that are emergent or have changing structures. Three of these extensions have been outlined earlier in relation to the design of learning object‐based e‐learning systems. The fourth extension builds on these via application of Coasian analysis. The paper also describes a suite of five guidelines to assist with the design of complex socio‐technical systems derived from the four extensions to Ashby.Research limitations/implicationsThe four extensions of Ashby's Law that underpin the design guidelines in this paper are deduced from observation and critical analysis rather than being “proven” empirically. They are derived from observation of the behaviour of real‐world complex systems together with critical analytical thinking that integrated theory and research findings from a range of disciplines where each informs understanding of hegemonic aspects of emergent complex socio‐technical systems involving multiple, changing constituencies, and evolving system structures.Practical implicationsA design method is derived comprising five design guidelines for use in pre‐design and design of complex socio‐technical systems/digital eco‐systems in the built environment.Originality/valueThe paper describes the application of four new extensions to LoRV that extend the analytical role of Ashby's Law in diagnosis of changes in power relations and unintended design outcomes from changes in the generation and control of variety in complex, multi‐layered and hierarchical socio‐technical systems that have multiple stakeholders and constituencies. From these, a suite of five new design guidelines is proposed.

EXTREME EVENTS, POWER LAWS, AND ADAPTATION: TOWARDS AN ECONOPHYSICS OF ORGANIZATION.

The article discusses the efforts of organizational academics to interpret extreme and rare managerial events in terms of averages and variances. Ross Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety is mentione...

Effects of strain rate and density on tensile behavior of polypropylene syntactic foam with polymer microballoons

The objective is to characterize the effects of local strain rate and density on the mechanical properties of the thermoplastic syntactic foams at the intermediate and high strain rates. Tensile tests are conducted at the nominal strain rates from 10 −1 to 10 2 s −1. Finite element analyses are conducted on the microstructural models to estimate the local strain rate. When the local strain rates are considered, the relative elastic moduli are classified into two groups by the nominal strain rates below 10 and above 50 s −1. This is because the matrix material at the cell edge is rubber phase leading to small local bending stiffness at the nominal strain rate below 10 s −1. At the nominal strain rate above 50 s −1, the relative elastic moduli can follow the equation proposed by Gibson and Ashby, while the relative yield stress is plotted in one group, leading to follow Gibson and Ashby law.

Momentum and control: a dynamic of democracy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how the application of cybernetic principles to governance and democracy shows dangerous gaps in control due to a lack of appreciation of momentum, requisite variety and scale.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper with examples drawn from the news. Beer's Viable System Model and Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety underpin the arguments.FindingsThe workings of our democracies depend on nineteenth century concepts and are easily overwhelmed by lags, distortions and problems that interfere with a level of feedback that would enable effective control. The elective process, the regulatory process, the boundaries between public and private spheres of action and the threat to our common viability share similar difficulties balancing changing circumstances with limitations on the means to address them. Although some of these issues have been noted before, there has been little appreciation of their interconnection and the consequences of a political system whose dynamics counteract its ideals.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need for more research into the problems identified here and how they relate for governance to be effective when the pace of events is rapid. A plea is made for sufficient resources to be devoted to the task.Practical implicationsThese are problems we must solve if our societies are to remain viable. Our knowledge in the systems and cybernetics communities could help – but it must be used and it will not be used effectively until it is more widely known and applied.Originality/valueMost current political analysis deals with the problems discussed in piecemeal fashion if it deals with them at all. Drawing a boundary around the situation that is wide enough to include these interconnected issues is needed for effective corrective measures to be applied.

A cybernetic diagnosis of Sri Lanka's 2002‐2003 peace negotiations

PurposeThis paper identifies meta‐level considerations long ignored in Sri Lanka's peace negotiations.Design/methodology/approachVariety absorption being at the heart of manoeuvres by the various parties of the negotiation, Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety informs the diagnosis. Also used are Beer's viable systems model, Maturana's structural coupling and Stokes sociological thinking on identity which encompasses the nature of identity, levels of identity, organisation of identity.FindingsWhilst in Sri Lanka's conflict resolution parlance, identity has been pivotally limited to race, in socio‐cybernetic terms it denotes much more. This leads to the recognition that relationships between structurally coupled entities change as negotiations progress thus calling upon them (and others) to dynamically adapt their identity in their endeavour to retain viability.Practical implicationsThe diagnosis shows the need to design negotiation processes capable of absorbing the variety needed to address the content of negotiations.Originality/valueLinking identity to viability explains why stakeholder relations move through emergent properties/relations and why negotiations between static protagonist, as done in all previous Sri Lankan peace negotiations, are doomed to failure. This work is useful for those who formulate the modalities of Sri Lanka's peace talks and for cyberneticians and people involved in conflict resolution – particularly those bedevilling sovereignty.

Interconnected networks and the governance of risk and trust

Interconnected networks constitute the backbone of our society and bring many advantages to our daily life and activities. At the same time, however, our dependence on these networks and the fact that they are all interconnected makes our society vulnerable. Risks emerge from these interdependencies. How can society deal with these risks? To answer this question we first explore the closely related concepts of risk and trust. These explorations enable us to understand the implications of interconnected networks in terms of governance challenges. On the basis of this insight, we conclude that it is impossible to define risk as a 'general' policy concept. A major policy challenge in the governance of risk is not only the interplay of all kinds of networks and infrastructures, but also the interplay between diverse policy regimes with different governance models. We have discerned a number of specific governance models that can be used to handle the risks resulting from interconnected networks and infrastructures. Following Ashby's law of requisite variety, the variety of risks in the network society asks for a variety of risk governance models, in which different values are attached to the role of government, the private sector and the civil society.

Some thoughts about the hydrogen civilization and the culture development

Civilization is defined as an aggregate achievement of inventions for realizing lofty human ideas, and culture is defined as the intellectual side. The realization of human ideas is the sustainable development (SD), and one of these pillars is the energy system. The main current of the human energy carriers has made the transition from coal to petroleum, and from petroleum to natural gas. This trend means the transition from the fuels with a larger ratio of carbon to those with a larger ratio of hydrogen. Ultimately, the main energy current will be converged to hydrogen. The hydrogen civilization is about to emerge today. The centripetal force acting upon every fuel toward hydrogen has an intellectual analogy to Brownian motion, which is one of the main topics of the concerned complexity science. Moreover, Ashby's requisite variety law indicates that the civilization must wear the cloth of the culture in order to build up the endlessly sustainable civilization.

The nature and role of IC

Current formulations of the concept of intellectual capital (IC) are seen as flawed. They equate IC with intangible assets and intellectual property, or, with knowledge management (KM) activities. They also do not explain its genesis and development. IC is here conceptualised as the holistic and superordinate capability of an enterprise to create value through a creative orchestration of its knowledge resources, under conditions of constant change. It is the result of the dense dynamic nexus of a firm's social capital (SC), human capital (HC), and KM. It is manifested in the form of a firm's sustained profitable growth. It, thus, also represents a firm's overarching capability to meet challenges and exploit opportunities in its continual efforts to generate wealth. The essence of the concept is seen to lie in Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety. Requirements for its development toward sustained value creation and growth of enterprises are outlined briefly.

The measurement of environmental performance: an application of Ashby's law

AbstractAshby's law of requisite variety is a fundamental law of organizations. An implication of the law for business organizations is that they must develop sufficient information management and decision‐making capacity to cope with the complexity in the environment in which they operate.The law has the major limitation that, for all practical purposes, variety cannot be measured; the number of states of anything other than the simplest ‘controller’ is a vast, incomputable value. However, it is possible to carry out relative studies—comparing organizations and, in this case, comparing effectiveness in different contexts. To do this, a questionnaire was used to gauge managers' perceptions of business context complexity and organizational capacity.The paper describes a study of the UK textile industry and, in particular, the response of that industry to environmental (i.e., green) pressures and opportunities. The study was undertaken both at the level of individual companies and of the industry itself. Comparisons of performance are made between the organizations' responsiveness to their natural and commercial environments. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Requisite Variety of Strategic Management Modes: A Cultural Study of Strategic Actions in a Deterministic Environment

AbstractThis article presents the results of a qualitative study that examines the modes by which strategy emanates in a nonprofit human services organization, externally controlled by its funding sources. The strategy‐making process is broached by proposing a taxonomy of strategic modes arranged into the Hrebiniak and Joyce (1985) framework. In light of Ashby's law of requisite variety (1968), this study contends that the subject organization's context of environmental determinism should lead to a culturally based configuration of traditional, spontaneous, and dialectical modes. The results support the proposition for requisite variety. This research presents valuable implications for the study and practice of strategic management‐especially regarding strategic learning and change within externally controlled nonprofit organizations.

Managing for an Uncertain Future

The need to manage strategic change in organizations facing uncertain futures challenges both management theorists and practitioners to develop better models of organizations that can lead to greater insights into processes that motivate and accomplish organizational change. In this paper, we introduce a view of organizations as open systems that leads to identification and clarification of some key issues in the dynamics of organizations as they try to respond to an uncertain and changing environment. The systems properties of organizations attempting adaptive change have been studied by many researchers. Ashby's law of variety (1956), for example, stipulated a basic requirement that a system must be capable of generating the requisite variety of responses to a changing environment in order to maintain its internal stability. Forrester's industrial dynamics approach (1961, 1968) laid important groundwork for the dynamic systems modeling of organizations, industries, and macroeconomics. Simon (1981) also proposed a number of basic properties of systems applicable to organizations. This paper is an updated and revised version of the authors' A System View of the Firm in Competence-Based Competition, in R. Sanchez, A. Heene, and H. Thomas (eds.), Dynamics of Competence-Based Competition: Theory and Practice in the New Strategic Management (Oxford: Pergamon/Elsevier, 1996), pp.

Cybernetic Filters and Management Information Systems

Examines two types of cybernetic filters which can be incorporated in a management information system (MIS). The design of these filters is dependent on the type of uncertainties which an organization experiences in its environment and also on the response time of the organization to environmental disturbances. The response time is in turn determined by Ashby's law of requisite variety. Incorporating these cybernetic filters into an MIS has three effects on the organization. First, it eliminates managerial activity in any organizational level which is not conducive to equilibrium and, consequently, consenes managerial resources Secondly, it blocks the conveyance of noise — in the customary heaps of computer printouts manufactured by the MIS — to management. Thirdly, it ensures that information is conveyed to the level of regulation which can most aptly deal with a particular disturbance.

The Viable System Model: Interpretations and Applications of Stafford Beer's VSM

Part 1 Concepts: the viable system model - its provenance, development, methodology and pathology, Stafford Beer the need for formal development of the VSM, Ron Anderton the VSM and Ashby's law as illuminants of historical management thought, Fred Waelchli the VSM revisited, Raul Espejo. Part 2 Applications of the VSM: P.M.manufacturers - the VSM as a diagnostic tool, Raul Espejo the organization of a fortress factory, R.A.Foss application of the VSM to the trade training network in New Zealand, G.A.Britton and H.McCallion application of the VSM to commercial broadcasting in the United States, Allenna Leonard the evolution of a management cybernetics process, Stafford Beer developing organizational competence in a business, Bengt A.Holmberg strategic planning and management reorganization at an academic medical center - use of the VSM in guiding diagnosis and design, Michael U.Ben-Eli. Part 3 Methodology and epistemology: national government - disseminater regulation in real time or how to run a country, Stafford Beer a cybernetic method to study organizations, Raul Espejo outside and then - an interpretative approach to the VSM, Roger J.Harnden. Part 4 Critical views: evaluation the managerial significance of the VSM, M.C.Jackson the VSM - an ongoing conversation, Raul Espejo and Roger J.Harnden.

Systems practice from the start: Some experiences in a biotechnology company

Many specialist biotechnology companies have been founded to exploit new and fundamental discoveries in biotechnology—recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibodies. Celltech Limited, founded by the author and generally accepted as the UK's leading company in this field, was based from the start on a number of key systems ideas. Four of these are described and discussed in this paper: the use of succinct statements checked by the CATWOE mnemonic from soft systems methodology; the establishment of coherent systems for managing strategic matters, operational matters, and the development of people; a project management system using a matrix approach; and an approach to external relations influenced by Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety. The paper is concluded with two ideas arising out of practice: the relation of compartmentation and systems boundaries and a methodological suggestion derived from Jurgen Habermas' characterization of the basis for excellent communications.

Problem complexity and the formulation process in planning and design

The importance of problem formulation in planning and design is well documented: Errors of the Third Kind (solving the wrong problem or a suboptimal problem) produce underdesign and system failure. This paper explores the role of problem statements in the formulation process. Using Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety as a basis, the quantitative and qualitative features of problem statements are linked to the complexity of a problematic situation. Six propositions are offered for future study.

System design for performance control and deregulation: ‘Steersmanship’ in the new environment

This paper uses the ‘steersmanship’ paradigm to analyze firms ' strategic policy responses to deregulatory forces of the mid-1970s and 1980s. Relevant concepts from a system-design-for-performance-control (SDPC) model are applied to the deregulation phenomenon, using examples drawn primarily from the U.S. airline industry. The SDPC model indicates that a firm facing the move from regulation to deregulation will shorten its planning horizon, trim its management staff, neglect its long-term safety efforts, redirect its short-term marketing focus from service to price, loosen its labor contracts, and expand its diversification strategy. To insure survival, a delicate balance will have to be maintained. As derived from Ashby 's law of requisite variety and Simon's concept of bounded rationality, survival depends upon the environment 's variety being exceeded (or equalled) by the firm's variety, which, in turn, must be exceeded (or equalled) by management's decision-making/information -handling capacity.

Some Aspect of Practice: Control in Logistics

The changing concept of transportation from door to door transport to transportation as value chain forces to changes of control in logistics. The dependence of control on information systems used are pointed out considering Ashby's law of requisite variety.

ASHBY'S LAW OF REQUISITE VARIETY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

This study examines Ashby's law of requisite variety: its theoretical origin and its relevance to organization and management. This leads to a statement of hypotheses which are tested empirically. The empirical work includes the operationalization of variety and entropy and the collection of data in an insurance organization. The data are statistically analyzed to test their correspondence to Ashby's law.