SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZATION
Rational, Natural, and Open Systems of Organizations
Maria Franco-Cortes
Liberty University
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SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZATION
Rational, Natural, and Open Systems of Organizations
How people define "organization" demonstrates what they think is essential and
irrelevant about this phenomenon (Scott, 2006). Organizations are important objects of study as
they are vital in pursuing collective goals in modern societies. They are also affecting what they
produce functioning as collective actors that possess rights and powers. Rational, natural, and
open systems are the three perspectives that partially conflict, overlap, and partially complement
one another. To fully comprehend and use the comprehensive literature on organizations as
scholars, it is important to grasp each of these perspectives characteristics, relationships between
the three, theoretical viewpoints, and even its biblical perspective.
Defining Characteristics
Scott (2006) defines a rational system as a relatively high goal-specific and relatively
high formalization that distinguishes an organization from other types of collectivities. From a
rational perspective, organizations are instruments designed to attain specific goals, and the term
rationality refers to the extent to which a series of actions is organized to lead to predetermined
goals with maximum efficiency (Goltz, 2015). Sykes (2020) also discusses proper support,
which refers to support structures implemented by the organization and employee supervisors,
usually called traditional support structures. In rational organization, authority, efficiency, rules,
directives, and control occur and suggest that individuals' cognitive and motivational limitations
and constraints are imposed upon their choices and actions. Therefore, rational systems presume
the importance of a formalized structure to the extent that the rules govern behavior, and
formalization may be viewed as an attempt to make behavior predictable by standardizing and
regulating it (Goltz, 2015; Scott, 2006).
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In other words, organizations tend to operate as closed operational systems by choosing
traditional generic organizational strategies which stress operational efficiency (Gomes & Yasin,
2018). These are generic strategies supported by traditional competitive methods and emphasize
traditional financial and operational measures. Formal support structures within an organization
are those implemented by the organization to help employees cope with changes during the
implementation process. Shrivastava et al. (2017) explain how decision-making is most often
framed in terms of rationality, whereby the processes are rooted in practical ends evaluations.
Therefore, successful sustainable innovation in business depends on how organizations
rationalize and provide intellectual spaces for it to happen.
Although organizations with a natural system have formal role definitions and written
rules, they exhibit little or no influence on members' behavior (Scott, 2006). Goltz (2015) and
Scott (2006) identify natural systems when there is more to organizational structure than the
prescribed rules, job descriptions, and the associated regularities in participants' behavior.
Therefore, individuals enter the organization with new ideas, expectations, and agendas that
bring value, interests, and abilities. Formal structures are seen as less essential than informal and
interpersonal structures. Therefore, the natural system focuses on the common attributes that
organizations share with all social collectives. Sykes (2020) reaffirms that informal support
refers to support structures like advice ties and managed by the employee, referred to as peer
advice ties. Informal support systems are self-organizing social relations that form between
employees in a company. The author also explains that advice networks are often present within
the organization to get individuals involved in exchanging assistance with co-workers and
engaging in joint problem-solving. Employee's networks are linked to job outcomes like
satisfaction, influence, access to information, and promotion.
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SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZATION
An open system sees organizations as open to and dependent on flows of personnel,
resources, and information from outside (Scott, 2006). Goltz (2015) and Scott (2006) present an
open system where organizations can self-maintenance based on their environmental resources.
An open system approach also characterizes these organizations because public safety
organizations receive all of their resources, budgets, and political support from their external
environment. In other words, an open system is also less concerned with distinguishing formal
from informal structures. The upsurge of globalization and the dynamic exogenous environment
has stimulated a growing number of firms to execute an open system and innovation-driven
services (Gomes & Yasin, 2018). For example, service organizations need to move toward the
open system strategic customer orientation to ensure consistency among competitive methods
and strategies. The open system allows a company to implement balanced multidimensional
measures, innovative competitive methods, and mixed strategies.
Standing et al. (2018) justify that open systems offer many benefits to developing an
innovative and sustainable organization. Open systems interact extensively with their
environment and the use of knowledge to bring about purposeful change. The authors argue that
innovation processes require collaborative technologies because they help in the efficient storage
and retrieval of codified knowledge, bring people together, and enable the formation of virtual
teams to carry processes. The basic proposition of open system theory is that open systems have
permeable boundaries and, consequently, open to their environments. An organization learns
from its environment and implement plans to be more efficient and adaptive. The authors also
explain that open systems are seen as a basis for managing organizational complexity, impact
culture, and create adaptability to new environments.
Relationship
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Although all three perspectives present a different perspective and definition, they
continue to guide and influence the ways people think about organizations. These viewpoints
have been revised and combined with open systems methods in a number of ways to provide a
broad range of new hypotheses with differing levels of focus and study. Both rational and natural
perspectives tend to focus on the organization's factors and hold the environment constant, which
means that a closed system approach is used. Organizations, on the other hand, do not exist in a
vacuum, and it is important to acknowledge that they are influenced by their surroundings. Open
systems perspectives explain interrelationships between organizations and their external
environment. Therefore, organizations are seen as interdependent flow from the open systems
perspective and activate a linking shifting coalition of participants in institutional environments
(Standing et al., 2018). More recently, as Scott (2006) mentions, organizational perspectives
combine open systems models with rational and natural perspectives. Open system rational
models include bounded rationality, contingency theory, and transaction cost theory (Otley,
2016). Organizational population ecology, resource dependency, and institutional theory are
examples of open system natural models.
Bounded rationality takes an open system rational approach to organizations. Therefore,
it focuses on the formal rational aspects of organizations while accounting for the external
environment. It is important to recognize that individual understanding is limited and it is related
to environmental contexts. Goltz (2015) and Sykes (2020) explain that the organization and
social environment determine what consequences an organization will anticipate, so these
variables cannot be treated as independent factors. Organizational dynamics shift as informed
choices are taken in response to environmental opportunities.
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Otley (2016) reaffirms that contingency theory supports an open-rational systems
perspective of organizations. Rationality focuses on the social-psychological level of analysis,
while contingency theory focuses on the structural level. The contingency theory accounts for the
effect of the external environment on the national behavior of organizations. Jaakkola and Hallin
(2017) explain that James D. Thompson argues that analysts should be flexible enough to admit
the possibility that all three perspectives are essentially correct and applicable to a single
organization. Thompson's thesis is that organizations strive to be rational, although they are
natural and open systems. However, managers are the ones who have the most significant stake
in and more likely seek to secure the survival of the organization as a system. Scott's layered
model also proposed that organizations' theoretical models underwent a significant shift about
1960 when open systems perspective supplanted closed systems models (Scott, 2006). Therefore,
whether conceived in terms of political, technological, or cultural, the organization's environment
explains the organizational structure and behavior. In other words, the early rational and natural
systems models can be seen to be either closed-rational or closed-natural systems models (Sykes,
2020).
Theoretical Viewpoints
Taylor's scientific management, the administrative theory developed by Fayol, and
Weber's bureaucracy theory are the four distinctive rational approaches. Schiermer (2019)
discusses how Taylor's Society espoused the benefit for disseminating scientific management in
increasing the diversity of those who participated in its meetings by gender and socioeconomic
status. Taylor and his followers insisted that it was possible to scientifically analyze tasks
performed by individual workers to discover those procedures that would produce the maximum
output with the minimum input of resources. Specific duties were evaluated and labor was
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rationalized at the individual worker level, leading to improvements in the overall layout of job
arrangements (Scott, 2006). Hatchuel and Segrestin (2018) explain how Fayol conceptualized the
company as a new and specific form of collective value creation and administration to prepare
the organization to cope with the 'unknown' generated by the close collaboration with science.
Fayol also believes that the purpose of the administration is to pursue the highest scientific
discovery standards and industrial productivity while securing the organization's support and
building social cohesion. Weber's bureaucracy theory uses ideal types, which have essential
theoretical end empirical consequences (Schiermer, 2019). Fixed division of labor among
participants, the hierarchy of office, set of goals, rules that govern performance, and separation
of personal from official property and rights are some of the characteristics of bureaucracy
defined by Weber. It implies a concept of rationality that provides a foundation for permanent
administrative structures.
Under the natural system perceptive, a number of diverse approaches can be gathered.
Mayo’s human relations school, Barnard’s conception of cooperative systems, Selznick’s
institutional approach, and person’s AGIL model are the influential variants of the social
consensus. Muldoon et al. (2020) recognize that Mayo has been called the father of industrial
sociology and organizational behavior. He redefines managerial authority to include fostering
cooperation as a prime function of management. Mayo also adopted a reactionary intellectual
stance as he emphasized the evils of industrialism and nostalgically logged for the stability and
socially cohesive ways of the preindustrial past. Lemaire and Provan (2017) explain Barnard’s
unified system as understanding that organizations are entities of cooperative actions, and the
role of management is to overcome the challenges to cooperation. Barnard’s definition of
securing efforts consists of identifying network participants and tapping the resources those
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participants can bring to the network, mobilizing is about securing commitment, and
synthesizing is working to make favorable conditions to increase and improve the productivity of
interactions among network participants.
Philip Selznick’s work offers a different institutionalist view that considers organizations’
characteristics (Berny, 2018). The institutionalization process gives organizations their
distinctiveness while making it possible to observe common challenges and constraints.
Selznick’s viewpoints explain how organizations acquire distinctive competence and character.
The competence includes the mean and activities undertaken, while the character rests on the
values attached to its mission. On the other hand, Talcott Parsons became one of the most
prominent figures that attempted to revive, build on, and synthesize works by the leading
European sociological theorists (Nichols, 2019). Parsons’s work aims at developing and
perfecting a limited set of abstract concepts that can then be adapted for use in examining the
structure and functioning of diverse social grouping. It can be said that Parsons is more explicit
than other functional theorists in identifying the system needs that must be served for survival
(Scott, 2006).
The contingency theory and Weick’s organizing model help explain the approaches
embodying open systems assumptions and insights. Otley (2016) explains that a contingency
theory must identify specific aspects of an accounting system associated with certain defined
circumstances and demonstrated an appropriate matching. The general orienting hypothesis
guides contingency theory that organizations whose interior features match their environments'
demands will achieve the best adoption (Scott, 2006). Weick presents a comprehensive theory of
the social process through which organizations emerge (Mikkelsen et al., 2020). Weick conceives
the organization as the collective outcome of organizing processes by envisioning organization
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members playing an active role in creating the environment which later imposes on them. He
also argues that people in the organization play active roles as creators of their environment.
Understanding organizations as richly dynamic accomplishments means focusing on three
interrelated processes of organizing enactment, selection, and retention, which occur in ongoing
cycles (Mikkelsen et al., 2020).
Personal Perspectives and Biblical Component
It is essential to understand that when more than one arrangement is used, the differences
in structural characteristics of these arrangements offer various opportunities and create tensions.
Therefore, every firm should analyze which system works best for its goals. Low formalization
structures support the emergence of innovative ideas, but missing documentation and
standardization impair the new ideas' broader usefulness. For these reasons, firms should
simultaneously hos multiple structures to seize the unique advantages arising from the
characteristics of different structures. However, reaping these benefits necessitates that particular
organizational approaches supporting the close connection between different structures are in
place.
On the other hand, the Bible does not mention the rational, natural, and open systems of
an organization; it discusses how people within the structure relate to each other. The Bible does
not provide what kind of structure an organization needs to function effectively. However, the
organizational structure is designed to channel resources to meet the organization's tasks and
mission. Even if it is a rational, natural, or open system, the structure is necessary because it is a
structure that supports and facilitates the purposes and mission of an organization. Exodus 18:
19-21 shows how Moses discovered the importance of organizational structure when he was still
a fledgling leader. King James Bible. (2017). This demonstrates that influential leaders create a
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structure that nurtures the health of those they lead. Moses teaches people that key leaders can
still maintain some control when problems arose.
Word count: 2,245
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