Organizational Subsystem Research Articles

Architecture of business excellence in the public and service sectors

The traditional Business Excellence approach has been increasingly regarded as inward looking, inefficient and unable to drive appropriate actions for improvement in organisations, thus being of limited value for their stakeholders. The architecture of Business Excellence deals with a set of systems, stakeholders, critical success factors and Structural Equation Modelling to create a holistic, reliable and comprehensive measurement model. The main advantage of the Global Excellence Measurement System (GEMS) is in providing integration and alignment among the various organisational subsystems and measures. Such integration comes from two main features: its foundation on the System Architecture, which incorporates critical success factors of all the stakeholders, and the use of a sound Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. In this paper, the author will first demonstrate the System Architecture of GEMS and then, with the help of empirical evidence from public and service sectors, will display the integration and alignment among the various organisational subsystems and measures for the improvement of the organisation.

Applying the TOC five‐step focusing process in the service sector

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the sequential application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) five‐step focusing process in improving the effectiveness of a service process that was limiting the performance of the entire service system.Design/methodology/approachThe five‐step approach is schematically presented with each step being described and evaluated relative to its role in effective constraint management. A detailed example provides additional insights and nuances into its use in managing the constraint within a banking organization's subsystem, namely, the loan application and approval process. This hypothetical, realistic, and comprehensive illustration iterates through several cycles of the five‐step focusing process to demonstrate how managers are able to address different types of constraints.FindingsThe paper provides a detailed description on how each of the five‐steps can be used to improve the organization's performance relative to its stated goal by focusing management's attention on the system's (or an aligned subsystem's) leverage or control point. Major types of constraints include physical or capacity limitations and restrictive policies. Constraints may be located either internal or external to the process or system being managed.Practical implicationsVarious managerial implications are discussed including: the relevance and utility of applying the TOC five‐step focusing process in services; advantages associated with utilizing this structured approach for continuous improvement in services; and some strategic issues associated with the placement of the ubiquitous system constraint.Originality/valueAlthough the successful application of the five‐step focusing process has been well documented in improving manufacturing processes, this paper provides an illustrative tutorial which details its application in effectively managing a service process.

ASPECTS REGARDING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL INITIATIVE AT SDE CLUJ-NAPOCA

The current paper is part of a complex study regarding the role and activity of experimental didactical stations which appertain to the universities, regarding the practical activity and the scientific research of academic faculty and students. The main objectives of the study are to analyze the impact of the entrepreneurial initiative and to exemplify on a case at the Experimental Didactical Station (SDE) Cluj-Napoca. In order to maintain a competitive position on the market, the modern organizations should continuously be in an innovation process, as well as of differentiating the products and services by quality, before the market forces them to do it so. Therefore, the organizations need to have their own strategies. The implementation of an entrepreneurial strategy supposes a previous preparation of this stage, as well as the development of a new management system, by a successive approach of methodological, decisional, informational and organizational subsystem, and the evaluation of the impact of internal and external stakeholders on the implementation of the entrepreneurial strategy. The elaboration of the strategy represents an exercise of obtaining competitiveness, and the incorporation of the stakeholders’ expectations in the strategic management can be very useful for efficiently implementing the strategy. A process of collecting primary data, elaboration, implementation and evaluation, based on a professional approach and on the creation of some links with the stakeholders, creates the premises for an implementation associated with an increasing efficiency that generates supplementary advantages. The entrepreneurial process supposes the application of some actions at the level of SDE in collaboration with the university. For instance, the continuous actualization of managerial knowledge, the dissemination of information, the maintenance of traditional relations with the university, the development of personal initiatives and of the creativity represent key actions in an entrepreneurial initiative.

Integrating living system process analysis and concrete process analysis with balanced scorecard

AbstractLiving Systems Process Analysis and Concrete Process Analysis are practical applications of Living Systems Theory, which emerged soon after the publication of James Grier Miller's Living Systems in 1978. The first application identifies quantifiable variables directly related to critical subsystems of organizations, as defined by Living Systems Theory, while the second application builds on the first by elaborating mathematical equations which can be used to sort measurements of the same critical subsystems, from interpretations of those measurements, in traditional financial information. In 1996, Robert Kaplan and David Norton elaborated an eclectic management process based on four strategic perspectives in their popular book Balanced Scorecard. This paper suggests that these three frameworks would be very compatible if applied together and examines the similarities among them. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving marketing intelligence through learning systems and knowledge communities in not‐for‐profit workplaces

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to illustrate how marketing intelligence might be improved when an organisation's learning capacity is integrated and incorporated in well‐defined organisational subsystems in a not‐for‐profit context.Design/methodology/approachFirst, given that market orientation is primarily concerned with gathering and desseminating marketing intelligence, the paper discusses the theoretical contributions from the learning literature related to interpreting the environment. Second, while many good ideas exist in not‐for‐profit firms, ideas are seldom linked to competencies that must be tracked and developed in the workplace. A more systematic view towards competency creation will increase the unique skills of not‐for‐profits and most likely improve their performance. Third, communities of practice are introduced as a way for not‐for‐profit firms to maximise dramatically the complex relationships that exist between various stakeholders and possible institutional investors. A number of propositions are offered that support the need for communities of practice.FindingsIn relation toP1andP2, the workplace of a not‐for‐profit firm needs to be transformed. Establishing a culture of learning is the first step in making this transformation. Improving and advancing a firm's individual and organisational competencies (P3) suggests that individual and team training – depending on the type of not‐for‐profit activities – is needed. In relation toP4, the authors suggest that a firm's market orientation will be significantly improved by incorporating learning systems that resemble communities of practice.Research limitations/implicationsThe propositions for this paper now need to be developed into a number of research questions. This paper has not provided an empirical validation and is limited by the prepositions related to the model. Subsequent testing of the model will greatly enhance its generalised findings.Practical implicationsActual work practices in not‐for‐profit firms will be substantially improved, if not radically transformed, through a learning organisation culture.Originality/valueThis paper is highly valuable with very little research completed to date on this topic.

Soft Markov chain relations for modeling organizational behavior

Organizations have various neural characteristics in that organizational subsystems interact with each other through communication, influences, and direct actions, each of which can have positive or negative weight, and where architecture and weights can be reconfigured based on subsystem and system output metrics that are compared to overall goals. In a Markov chain model of these interrelations, actions depend on the individual behaviors of particular subsystems, the time at which the subsystem is responding, and the history of occurrences leading up to the response time. Aggregation of effects leading to a result is rarely linear, so a nonlinear weighted sum called “chained soft aggregation” is proposed as an appropriate model. The method is readily combined with any available objective information in a hybrid analysis.

Beyond Mass Production: Strategic Management Models for Competitive Manufacturing Transformation in the US Textile Industry

The US textile industry, like many other sectors, is undergoing significant change. This paper builds on our previously published analysis of the elements of modern manufacturing transformation in the US textile industry. We discuss the development and application of two original tools for strategic planning of systematic organizational change. First, we present a model for manufacturing transformation beyond mass production, tested and validated through a multiple-case study of advanced US textile producers and interviews with selected industry experts. The model provides a tool for understanding the landscape of competitive business transformation and allows for company-specific planning of manufacturing improvement. In addition, we recommend a transition path from mass production to agility that includes successive changes focused on developing internal capabilities adapted to growing market requirements. Finally, we propose a strategic profiling tool focused on the alignment between key external and internal organizational sub-systems, which is considered essential to business effectiveness. The broad applicability of the tool for business-system analysis and redesign is illustrated through real industry examples showing the profiles of several participants in our research. Altogether, our analysis integrates valuable insights from the recent management literature with the practical experience of leading US textile manufacturers. The models we present can be used across industries to facilitate competitive development congruent to changing market conditions.

Quality culture and the management of organization change

Surveys 14 companies, winners of the Australia Quality Award between 1989 and 1993, regarding the dynamics of the change processes which led to their achievement of the awards. Hypothesizes that the organizations which won the award have successfully managed the process of complex organizational change. The survey was designed to test various system models and change guidelines that deal with the dynamics of successful change. The findings strongly supported these guidelines, i.e. that successful change was systemic and occurred simultaneously and complementarily in a number of organizational subsystems.

Improved communications and collaborations among tasks induced by Groupware

The recent developments of Information Technologies are characterized by some new classes of applications that are classified as Groupware. These developments are connected to the need of attaining better communications and new forms of collaborations among tasks or functional departments in modern organizational structures. The new strategic scenarios are fostering organizational structures in attaining increasing varieties of products, capacities of faster responses to market changes, flexibility in modifying strategies, organizational structures, technologies. Together with actual managerial policies looking for Just-in-Time and slack resources reduction, these points compel organization structures to manage tasks that are becoming more and more interdependent. Starting from this point of view, the paper analyzes from an organizational theory perspective the role that Groupware is assuming inside the emergent organizational models. Information Technologies appear as important opportunities in facing the problems of tighter interdependencies: they provide new communications channels and allow the introduction of new organizational forms which meet strategic requirements. Also the cooperation needs, critical in some organizational sub-systems like design departments, project management, cross-functional processes at managerial level as well at operational, can be sustained and improved through Groupware. These perspertives are presented in detail in the paper, together with a proposal of an architecture for GDSS design based on the classification of the organizational needs and of the opportunities offered by IT tools.

Mental health treatment teams and leadership: a systems model.

Mental health treatment teams are living systems at the group level and comprise key productive subsystems of organizations providing mental health care. Effective treatment teams, like effective organizations, are anticipatory systems that contain subsystems that model and predict future system and environmental conditions and enable responses that increase system viability. A systems analysis of treatment teams highlights their potential instability due to their tendencies to regress toward dysfunctional partial systems and their active maintenance in nonequilibrium steady states with their organizational and external environments. Team subsystems are analyzed from the viewpoints of system processes and also with regard to individuals and their roles. Boundary processes are central to effective team functioning, assure constancy of team membership, and regulate the team's interfaces with its parent agency and with the external environment. Various causes and forms of disturbed information processing within hierarchical organizations are examined, and their effects at the treatment team level are discussed. The conclusion of the discussion focuses on team leadership and how leadership expands upon the concept of the decider subsystem to include role and personal factors to the team's leaders, and functions that are anticipatory and integrative in nature. Effective leaders must set appropriate thresholds for feedback regulation processes, and balance several pairs of seemingly opposing forces, including homeostasis and development, role differentiation and role overlap, and personal accountability and empowerment of others.

A Taoist Paradigm of EAP Consultation

Recently, professionals of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have offered consultation services to a diverse clientele, thus necessitating an understanding of the complexity of problems and structures of various organizational systems and subsystems. In this article the authors describe a new Taoist paradigm as an alternative approach to conceptualizing the consultation process and to formulating successful, isomorphic interventions constructed to facilitate four change processes. The paradigm presented stresses the following: the importance of interrelationships between individuals and groups; integrating repulsion and assimilation forces; balancing human and economic factors: cooperation; reinforcing strengths rather than weaknesses; encouraging solutions instead of problems; and respecting the consultee's structure and behavior.

The quadrant theory of project management

This paper introduces the “Quadrant Theory of Project Management” as a systems theory management methodology whereby the workflow within any organizational sub-system is balanced into four “project” development classifications for dynamic strategic analysis and control. The basic theory provides a new thought medium for those involved in the creation, administration and control of work input-transformation-output processes within reactive environments.

Counties in Court: Interorganizational Adaptations to Jail Litigation in California

Criminal justice systems have been described as fragmented and decentralized “nonsystems,” but sudden changes in the environments of criminal justice organizations may affect the loose coupling that normally characterizes such agencies. Court orders against county jails create pressures to tighten the loose coupling among local organizational subsystems: the jail, law enforcement, courts, probation, and county government. Using interviews with key officials, court documents, and other archival data, we examined changes in interorganizational relations in three California counties under court orders to reform local jails. While court orders eventually resulted in tighter coupling of the subsystems and more proactive interagency responses, the more reactive mode of response characteristic of loosely coupled subsystems initially led to increased interagency conflict. Adaptations were influenced by the legal, political, and organizational environments of each jurisdiction.

A framework for assessing program institutionalization

This article presents a framework for assessing the institutionalization of programmatic innovations in nonprofit community agencies and in schools. Institutionalization is the attainment of long-term viability and integration of innovations in organizations. Institutionalization is often characterized as the final stage in an innovation diffusion process. The framework was derived from a qualitative study of ten health promotion programs that were innovations in their host organizations. The framework is a two dimensional matrix: one dimension consists of organizational subsystems; the other consists of levels of institutionalization termed passages, routines, and niche saturation. The cells of the matrix are the basis for assessing program institutionalization.

Role conflict and role ambiguity in information systems design

This paper examines the impact of information systems implementation on the social subsystem of organization. It presents theoretical support for the impact of IS design on role conflict and role ambigulty experienced by users of information systems. Results of an empirical survey are reported which evaluate the impact of information systems on RC/RA. The paper concludes with recommendations for systems design and training and skills required for systems analysts.

Professional women in organizations: New paradigms for research and action

Writings about professional women in organizations often adopt an advocacy approach and look at problems of women in isolation from the rest of the organization. This article suggests a systems perspective for viewing these problems as concerns of an organizational subsystem that can have important ramifications for the other subsystems and for the organization as a whole. Reviewing research on some major issues encountered by professional women at the workplace, this article demonstrates the usefulness of complementary research to integrate these issues into an organizational framework.

The organizational security subsystem: Some potentially catastrophic events

This article describes a catastrophe theory model of a proposed security subsystem of living systems. It addresses the levels of the organism, organization, and the society. A butterfly catastrophe model is used to describe change among three stable system states: the system is unprotected, the system is protected from outside agencies, the system is protected from both outside invaders and internal disruption. Four control variables govern the process: environmental hostility, externally based protection systems, internal system integrity, and a decider function which utilizes protection and internal resources properly. The general model is explicated for organismic, organizational, and national levels of systems.

Organizing project control systems

Improvements in the organization of project control is a major challenge facing project organizations today. In response, management in general is taking stock of approaches in which the improvements can be accomplished. This article describes vital points of such an approach taken recently in a project constructed in the Middle East. Essentially, this approach includes systems-based design and implementation of an organizational subsystem of the project control system, which could contribute to enhancement of productivity in the project organization as a whole. Ultimately, this article deals with project control within a matrix environment.

COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYST'S VIEW OF THE BUSINESS ORGANIZATIO

Abstract The cohesion methods (conceptual methods of identifying subsystems), developed for analyzing computer information systems, are applied lo the analysis of the business organization. Two views of the business organization are given in this article. In one, the functional cohesion method, whose principles are explained in this article, is used to analyze the organization into levels of subsystems nested within subsystems. In the other view, called the view of the computer systems analyst, a combination of the logical, functional, and procedural cohesion methods is used, depending upon the level of subsystem in the hierarchy of nested subsystems. The two views are then cross-referenced to one another, since the good computer analyst has to see the relationships between the two views of the organization's subsystem hierarchy.

Army Occupational Therapy

An understanding of organization subsystems, is necessary to effect change within those subsystems. In describing the complex systems under which Army therapists function, some of the difficulties of a bureaucratic structure are identified and integrating techniques described. Because of the existing organization structure that blends both professional and military identification, Army therapists have been successful in achieving a considerable amount of cohesion and commitment through a self-imposed developmental process. The process resulted in the development of a long range plan which gives direction for the management of Army occupational therapy.