Fred Nichols wrote:
*BEGIN QUOTE*
I'll side with Jan. Organizations don't do anything; people do. That
said, we can still talk about organizational behavior, organizational
learning, and even organizational thinking -- as long as we are careful to
say what we mean and as long as we don't fall into the trap of attributing
to organizations qualities that only people possess. I do not, for
instance, think of a business organization has having motives, purpose, or
even a mission. People possess those qualities or attributes and then
project them onto organizations.
<snip>
*END QUOTE*
To say that organizations don't do anything is to completely disregard a
level of analysis that seems essential to a "systems approach"; that is,
of the organization as an "entity." To the molecular biologist, bodies
don't do anything of interest, cells do. But to the psychologist, the
reverse is "true". >From what I remember in past posts, I think Mike
McMaster would call these different levels of emergence, with no
fundemental reason for choosing any as the "true" picture. It may,
however, be a mistake as you say to blindly attribute concepts applicable
to individuals to organizations. In order for more appropriate
organizational concepts and laws to emerge in our own thinking, however, I
believe one must accustom themselves to inquiring at proper level of
emergence, in this case the organization-as-entity. This seems to be the
hard part in a culture that has for so long focussed on the primacy of the
individual.
My personal hypothesis is that there *is* a common process underlying all
these levels of emergence (i.e., Peirce's semiotic) that allows one to
apply similar concepts and laws across levels (although not the typical
ones that arise from a psychological framework), and in particular between
individuals and organizations.
-- Fred Reed freed@cc.atinc.com