Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the Viable System Model [Hardcover]

Organizational Systems clarifies the application of cybernetic ideas, particularly those of Beer's Viable System Model, to organizational diagnosis and design. Readers learn to appreciate the relevance of seeing the systemic coherence of the world. The book argues that many of the problems we experience today are routed in our practice of fragmenting that needs to be connected as a whole. It offers a method to study and design organizations and a methodology to deal with implementation problems. It is the outcome of many years of working experience with government offices as well as with all kinds of public and private enterprises. At a more detailed level this book offers an in depth discussion of variety engineering that is not available either in the primary or secondary literature.This book clarifies the application of cybernetic ideas, particularly those of Beer's Viable System Model, to organizational diagnosis and design. It offers a method to study and design organizations and a methodology to deal with implementation problems.Part I Concepts and the Viable System Model. - Part II Viplan Method. - Part III Methodology and Systemic Thinking.

Professor Raul Espejo is Director of Syncho Ltd. and the World Organization for Systems and Cybernetics. The main focus of his research is organisational cybernetics and has published extensively in books and journals; is the author of about 100 academic papers, co-author of two books and co-editor of three. In the 70s he was operations director of the CyberSyn project in Chile under the scientific direction of Professor Stafford Beer. In the mid seventies he was research scholar at the Manchester Business School and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Luxemburg, Austria. He was senior lecturer at the University of Aston UK, from 1977 to 1995 and full professor at the University of Lincoln UK, from 1996 to 2002. He has been visiting professor at several universities worldwide. In 1985 he fl³'