Beer's Viable System Research Articles

Structural design of a national youth and sports information system using the viable system model

Purpose – Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) offers a powerful and alternative model for both economic and social organizations to structure themselves, especially for those operating in highly turbulent environments. Recent advancements in information technology make feasible the implementation of real‐time information systems. The purpose of this paper is to describe the author's involvement in designing an information system for Libya's Youth and Sports Ministry, using Beer's VSM.Design/methodology/approach – Systemic methodological ways of gathering the necessary data to build and implement the model, such as Checkland's CATWOE and Espejo's VIPLAN, make it far easier for information systems designers to implement the VSM.Findings – An implementation of the model for Libya's Youth and Sports Ministry was undertaken in 2007. Although the full implementation was never completed, the methodological approach used was effective. Another lesson learnt by the analyst was that before attempting to impro...

A new management for enduring company success

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain how the system science and cybernetics in Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) will help management structure and manage their company to achieve on‐going success in a fast‐changing world.Design/methodology/approachThe author worked with Stafford Beer in the 1970s, applying his VSM in the corporation he then worked for and has used the VSM ideas in work with companies in 16 countries, always with success. The VSM instructs in how to structure and how to manage. For what to manage the author used Peter Drucker's key performance areas, and has more than 50 years of experience working in these areas.FindingsThe author has found, during his long career in industry and in consulting, that the VSM is the best available guide for structuring and managing a business enterprise for success in turbulent times.Practical implicationsIn the 1950s, Ralph Cordiner “decentralized” General Electric into 120 businesses, pioneering a new, better way to structure and manage a corporation. After 50 years, we have the next revolutionary advance in management, the system science and cybernetics in Stafford's VSM. The VSM includes information and environments in structure, enabling companies to change as appropriate for achieving on‐going success in a world of huge and fast‐growing variety.Originality/valueThe paper shows how a simple form of the VSM includes all the system science company management needs to structure and manage their company for enduring success in fast‐changing times.

Cybernetics as the science of decision making

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present decision making as the decisive activity of controllers, necessary to correct deviations from a goal value in controlled systems by deciding on goal‐oriented actions.Design/methodology/approach – Using a functional approach it is shown how an increasing complexity of controller structures follows an increasing ability to make more complex decisions. Two applications are used to analyze that in detail: first, the controller structures necessary for Miller's living systems and for Beer's viable systems are presented in one comparable scheme. Second, a complex controller structure illustrates the basic requirements for a brain.Findings – Analyzing necessary decisions in Beer's viable systems it is shown how the elementary decisions found in feedback systems can be used as a first approximation for decision making. Hence, it is shown how principles of decision making determine the development of complex controller structures.Practical implications – The paper ...

Organizational cybernetics: Is Beer's VSM sufficient for organizational regulation?

AbstractIn this article it is argued that Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) needs two types of additional knowledge for guiding regulation of and in organizations: knowledge about designing an organizational infrastructure realizing the functions of the VSM, and knowledge about organizations as a particular kind of system – as social systems.

Designing a viable scientific communication model: VSM approach

PurposeThis paper aims to design a viable model for a scholarly communication system.Design/methodology/approachStafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) is an exceptionally insightful analysis tool which has been applied in different fields. This paper illustrates the usefulness of Beer's model as a tool for anticipating, planning, and implementing large‐scale development in the scientific communication domain. Following the Beer thinking of organisational structure and the usefulness of VSM in knowledge management stated by some researchers, a viable scientific communication model (VSCM) was designed.FindingsThe paper has developed a viable scientific communication model which relates personal knowledge about a scientific communication system with Beer's viability thinking.Research limitations/implicationsThe designed model is fairly conceptual.Originality/valueCompared with the earlier models, it seems that the suggested model is not dependent on context, time, and scale. This model may be used in many contexts because the functions and the operations of scholarly communication are unique. This model is viable and can update itself over a period of years. New elements of scholarly communication and the Web 2.0 platforms have also been incorporated into the model.

How to watch the right butterfly: Some guidelines for the design of emergency response organizations

This paper proposes a methodology for the assessment and redesign of emergency response organizations. The paper takes a multi-methodology approach and discusses a series of well-established theoretical frameworks to provide accessible and easy to understand processes for practicing managers. The paper begins by highlighting the non-linear and catastrophic nature of civil emergencies as the basis for organizational design. The methodology proposed to sequential. The first stage uses Pepper's World Hypotheses as a means for assessing organizational responsiveness. The second stage applies Checkland's CATWOE and stakeholder analysis as a means to applying the wisdom of crowds to organizational design. The third stage involves scenario planning using qualitative System Dynamics and causal loop diagrams. The fourth stage applies elements of Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model to the process of environmental scanning. The fifth and final stage is a discussion of the need to build organizational learning into the adaptive capabilities of the organization.

Programming in the complex: Cybernetic insights into software process and architecture

AbstractThis paper introduces the concept of programming in the complex to designate the development and maintenance of complex software systems in situations where the software process and the software architecture need to change dynamically in order to cope with the impact of unpredicted and frequent environmental changes. The article proposes a systemic‐cybernetic process model, which is a composition of Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) and Barry Boehm's spiral model. The VSM provides adaptability to the software architecture and self‐organizing capability to the software process. As a result of the application of the VSM, four relevant insights are presented. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Organization from a systemic perspective

Purpose – The paper's aim is to provide the reader with an example of the application of Beer's viable system model (VSM), to present the crucial steps of analyzing and improving a complex organization on the basis of Beer's approach, and thereby to demonstrate the value of viewing an organization cybernetically for managerial purposes.Design/methodology/approach – Based on Beer's VSM, as a first step, a diagnosis of the underlying organizational subsystems of the Swiss Youth Hostel Association has been undertaken on the basis of interviews and an analysis of relevant written sources. Based on this evaluation of the organization's viability, suggestions for improvement have been derived in a second step.Findings – Diagnosis shows that the VSM offers a useful, innovative, and effective reference framework for analyzing the organizational structure of an organization from a multidimensional, cybernetic perspective, on the strength of which managers can cope more efficiently and substantially with complexity...

From System Science – A New Way to Structure and Manage the Company for Sustainable Success

This paper proposes a system science restructuring of today's management practices. The paper discusses what we have learned from system science that gives us a new and different understanding of what the company is, and how it works; and a new way of understanding the world outside the company where company success is created. System science restructures management practices at a new level of understanding; structuring the company to achieve its purpose, and changing and very much improving the way the company is managed. Stafford Beer's viable system model is a useful model for this restructuring. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]

The relationship between: Miller's living systems theory and Beer's viable systems theory

AbstractThe paper investigates if a living system according to Miller's living systems theory is a viable system according to Beer's viable systems theory and vice versa. Miller's and Beer's theories are briefly reviewed and translated into one cybernetic approach. The comparison of their functional and structural commonalties and differences shows: Miller's theory allows simple structures, below the scope of Beer's approach, which are nevertheless viable, as examples from biology, anthropology and economy show. Beer's viable systems can be derived form Miller's living systems theory, i.e. Beer deals only with issues of viability that emerge with complex living systems. Short considerations of large social units suggest that their structures are not unequivocally determined and may be viable while deviating from Beer's approach, too. Yet such structures can be derived from Miller's theory. It is concluded that Miller's living systems theory covers viability more completely than Beer's viable systems theory. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Business intelligence systems for Virtual Enterprises: a cybernetic approach

The modern business environment requires fast, efficient and reliable management of vast amounts of information and diverse data. A concrete solution for this problem can be provided by business intelligence systems, which support better and more effective communication among business customers and partners. In this paper, business intelligence systems are examined in the field of Virtual Enterprises, which, by default, require flexible and effective management and sharing of knowledge. The systemic methodology used in this context is Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model (VSM), serving full exploitation of corporate knowledge and concluding to a Viable Virtual Enterprise Intelligence Decision Cycle.

Integrating sustainability practices using the viable system model

AbstractThis paper represents an effort to explore the use of Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) to design human communities that foster adaptation to criteria of sustainability in our natural and social environments. With the projected rise in sea level and other changes that accompany warming temperatures, it seems probable that many communities, even some large cities, will have to be abandoned and their populations relocated. This difficult circumstance could create tens of millions of climate change refugees. It could be met with the failure and incompetence that characterized and still characterizes the response to Hurricane Katrina or it could provide an opportunity to rebuild in a manner that combines a low impact on the environment without sacrificing quality of life. Using the framework of the VSM, three levels of recursion will be explored: the household, the neighbourhood and the city. It will be possible to draw upon lessons learned about building and maintaining cities in different climates and under different conditions over the centuries and from the construction of ‘new towns’ in the past 50 years. It has been characteristic of communities that regularly endured environmental challenges to have fostered means of collaboration and co‐operation to address them and to constrain competition within bounds that did not threaten their common survival. There is no shortage of ideas and designs that could be applied but there is not yet either the political or social infrastructure to integrate and implement them. Steps taken in this direction might help to coalesce the necessary political will. The following are proposed as guidelines for design using the VSM. The community and the city's external relationships with the surrounding natural, social and economic environments should be such that they can support themselves while avoiding endangering their own survival and well being or that of their surrounding environments. Their internal operations should be such that an adequate quality of life is available to everyone from the most dependent members of its society to the most productive. They should pursue these ends with a view to maintaining a balance between collaboration/symbiosis and competition and with the fewest restrictions on the autonomy of members consistent with the other guidelines. The VSM can be both a template for design and a framework for discussion of what sustainable communities in a time of climate change might look like. Such discussions would be facilitated by Beer's Team Syntegrity process that he invented as a companion to the VSM. The process provides a whole system, high variety structure that gives equivalent status to each participant and viewpoint. This high level of communication will help to provide the cohesiveness that is needed when choices must be made and hardship shared in order to achieve a new equilibrium with the environment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Personal Learning Environment and the human condition: from theory to teaching practice

We present the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) as a practical intervention concerning the organization of technology in education. We explain this by proposing a cybernetic model of the “Personal Learner” using Beer's Viable System Model (VSM). Using the VSM, we identify different regulatory mechanisms that maintain viability for learners, and how physical engagement with tools is of fundamental importance in learners being able to manage their learning environment. We explain how the PLE, in exploiting Service Oriented Architecture, attempts to address this issue of the engagement with tools by allowing learners to control their own instrumentation. This, however, is more than a practical issue. In shifting the locus of control over learning to the learner, the ways in which learners exercise that control becomes an important educational issue. Drawing on sources ranging from Bandura's work on self-efficacy, and philosophical work on social ontology, we argue that self-regulation and technological personalization are issues which strike at the heart of current debates about the organization of education and the nature of the relationship between institutions and learners, and more deeply, the human condition in the modern world. Some anecdotal practical implications are reported in the final section of the paper as we describe the response of learners to the challenges of increased personalization.

Assessing the Viable System Model: an empirical test of the viability-hypothesis

This paper attempts to explore whether Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) explains the viability of start-ups. The assumption that the five structural components of the VSM (Systems 1-5) positively influence the viability of start-ups has been tested empirically. Neither each individual hypothesis for every system could be confirmed nor could the total structure of the VSM be falsified. However, the results indicate that strategic management (System 4) has the most positive and significant influence on the viability of start-ups. The present study makes the VSM accessible for quantitative empirical research and contributes substantially to overcome criticism concerning the abstractness of the model.

Observing organisations: the use of identity and structural archetypes

This paper aims at increasing our ability to observe and diagnose shortcomings in the management of complexity in organisations. People by and large manage organisational complexity intuitively and of course in the process they make more or less costly mistakes. These failures tend to be archetypical in the sense that they are relational patterns that recur in many organisations. Their observation facilitates diagnosing organisational identity and structural shortcomings. The danger is the temptation to converge too quickly into diagnostic points, thus stifling necessary appreciative processes. Hence, the paper finishes with a critical reflection about their use. Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) is used as a reference model to observe these archetypes.

Target setting, lean systems and viable systems: a systems perspective on control and performance measurement

The paper starts with a critique of the reductionist approach to control and performance measurement that emphasizes the parts of a system in isolation. The critique provides the basis for a shift in focus to a systems perspective that emphasizes the interactions between the parts of a system. It is argued that this shift is important because the behaviour of a system is a product of the interactions of the parts not the behaviour of the parts in isolation. Two systems approaches to control and performance management are compared and critiqued: Beer's viable system model and Seddon's lean systems. The paper concludes with the advancement of a model for control and performance measurement that not only integrates the work of Beer and Seddon but also compensates for the weaknesses in these approaches through the inclusion of a process of boundary critique.

Symbiosis and the viable system model

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to suggest symbiosis could be a metaphor for finding ways to help countries that are challenged to become economically and socially viable. Beer's viable system model (VSM), which also has biological roots could be applied to look for gaps in the conditions for viability and to seek to fill them through collaborative arrangements.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper suggesting various symbiotic processes in biology could inform actions in the social environment.FindingsConcepts from biological and environmental sciences can be applied to social conditions. The viable system model provides a framework for such applications.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper presents general ideas and some examples of possibilities for symbiotic collaboration. Opportunities for symbiosis to be applied to the social arena would emerge through exploration of local conditions.Practical implicationsMuch could be accomplished at various scales through imaginative collaboration. The natural world provides models and metaphors to stimulate thinking about collaboration.Originality/valueThe author suggests that the phenomenon of symbiosis in the natural world could provide useful concepts to apply to situations where countries and regions that are not viable or viable enough in the global marketplace. The VSM is discussed regarding a framework to integrate opportunities for collaboration.

The RISCOM model: dialogues and requisite organisation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of transparency in policy‐making processes.Design/methodology/approachDevelopment and application of conceptual framework for policy studies.FindingsComplementarity of Habermas's theory of communicative action and Beer's Viable System Model. Relevance of the ideas of requisite organisation in policy‐making and of “orthogonality” in social communications.Practical implicationsTransparency of policy processes is more than making information available to stakeholders; it is enabling the development of an effective organisational system for the policy of concern.Originality/valueThis paper relates Beer's organizational cybernetics and Habermas' political philosophy and produces an original model of transparency in policy‐making.

Delivering effective diversity management through effective structures

AbstractThe premise of this paper is that for effective diversity management, it is essential that an organization has in place factors that create effective structure, including workplace equality processes and programmes. In order to demonstrate this viewpoint, research was undertaken in a communications‐intensive firm by means of the extensive examination of documents and corroborative interviews. The findings were obtained by means of Beer's Viable Systems Model (1985). The research assumption was shown to be the case—the major finding indicates that effective diversity management is dependent on appropriate structures and systems to support the communication and implementation of arrangements to create and sustain workplace equality. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Some problems of liberation

AbstractThe increasing complexification of society has challenged the established practice of government by exposing its deficiency of requisite variety. Governments have responded in two ways to amplify their variety: co-optation of elite actors from the private sector and from civil society on the one hand and devolution of state power to local actors on the other. These breaches in the traditional edifices of state governance have been hailed as real utopias in that they portend even greater possibilities for self-management in society. It is proposed that Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) holds the key not only to comprehending these developments but of dealing with many of the so-called problems of liberation