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Chapter 4 System Approaches

Chapter 4 System Approaches. Cierra Van Patten Comm 108. After This Chapter, You Should…. Be able to explain systems components, system processes, and systems properties and illustrate these ideas with organizational communication examples

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Chapter 4 System Approaches

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  1. Chapter 4System Approaches Cierra Van Patten Comm 108

  2. After This Chapter, You Should… • Be able to explain systems components, system processes, and systems properties and illustrate these ideas with organizational communication examples • Be familiar with cybernetics as a systems theory that can help explain goal-related communication in organizations • And to appreciate Weick’s Theory of organization as an important way to “make sense” of the workings of organizational communication

  3. System Approaches • Organizations are complex organisms that must interact with their environment to survive • Don’t look at how we should behave in organizations, rather they look at how we should study them • Started in engineering and biological fields

  4. System Components • Hierarchical Order: • System has smaller subsystems within larger systems • Interdependence: • Systems rely on each other • Permeability: • System is open to its environment

  5. System Processes • Input-Throughput-Output: • Process like a machine • Exchange: • System exchanges good for services • Feedback • Both Negative and Positive • Negative- stays the same • Positive-changes

  6. System Properties • Holism: • System is more than the sum of its parts • Equinfinality: • Many ways for final outcome • Negative Entropy: • System can flow and avoid deterioration • Requisite Variety • System should remain fair and not complicated

  7. Cybernetics Systems Theory • System Goal: • Have a goal in mind • Mechanisms: • Use methods to reach goal • Feedback: • Have feedback to stay on track • New Mechanism: • If necessary, may have to tweak to stay on track

  8. Karl Weicks: Theory of Organizing • Karl Weick a scholar • Wrote The Social Psychology of Organizing (1979) • And Sensemaking in Organizations (1995) • Goal=Reduction of Equivocality • For more information visit on Karl Weick

  9. Karl Weicks’ Theory • Ecological Change> Enactment> Selection> Retention • Ecological Change: • Change in Environment • Enactment: • Know what is going on • Selection: • Know what to do • Retention: • Know what not to do

  10. Karl Weick’s Theory Continued.. • Assembly Rules: • Procedures called “recipes” • Follow the book • That can guide organizational members in set pattern of sense making • Communication Cycles: • When equivocality in the environment is high • And there are many possible explanations for an event • Organization members engage in communication cycles • They figure it out by themselves

  11. Summary • In this chapter, we have reviewed the systems approach to the study of organizational communication • We looked at a number of basic system concepts • Including the nature of system components • The nature of system processes • And the properties that emerges from the conceptualization of organizations

  12. Summary Continued.. • We took a closer look at cybernetic system theory which highlighted the importance of feedback and regulation in goal-directed systems • And lastly, Weick’s Theory of organization emphasizes how interaction revolves around making sense of equivocal information environments

  13. Reference • Miller, Katherine (2009). Organizational Communication: Approaches and Practices (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Engage Learning.

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