Intelligent Organizations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Organizational Intelligence in Systemic Terms

   Pages 1-9

3. Complexity and Understanding

   Pages 11-22

4. Management — A Distributed Function

   Pages 23-33

5. Intelligent Organization — A Systemic Framework

   Pages 35-45

6. Activities: What the Organization Does

   Pages 47-81

7. Structure — Preconditions for Effective Action

   Pages 83-108

8. Behaviour — The Control of Cognition and Emotion

   Pages 110-132

9. Ethos and Identity: Basic Parameters of Organizations

   Pages 133-165

10. Time and Organizational Dynamics

    Pages 167-179

11. The Framework Revisited

    Pages 181-202

12. Outlook: The Way Ahead

    Pages 203-206

13. Back Matter

    Pages 207-236

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This is not a book about how to run a company. It is about how to look at the world differently. Ultimately, this will help the reader to deal with complexity more effectively. The market today is flooded with books which claim to show paths to higher organizational effectiveness. Most of these recommendations are given as “recipes for success” and on pragmatic grounds. This book, however, is targeted at all those who want access to the powerful models of systemic manageme nt in order to improve their skills in coping with complexity. The contents are of interest to people who deal with organizations – as leaders and mana gers or specialists, or as advanced students. The purpose is to give them conceptual and methodological guidelines by means of which they can. • Increase the “intelligence” of exis ting organizations by introducing or substituting a better design; • Shape new organizations so that they are “intelligent” from the very start. What are the distinctive features of this book? The book is the result of a long term research effort in to the deep seated, invariant features of organizations, ba sed on the Systems Approach, namely, Organizational Cybernetics and System Dynamics. These sciences have specialized in uncovering such basi c properties. They convey a fresh, sophisticated and unorthodox perspective. It is therefore worthwhile acq uiring the capability of looking at the social world in this different way.

• Intelligent Organizations
• Management of Complexity
• Model of Systemic Control
• Organization Design
• Organization Theory
• Organizational Effectiveness
• Organizational Learning
• Systemic Management
• Systems Approach
• Viable System Model
• development
• management
• organizations

• Institute of Management (IfB), University of St. Gallen Dufourstr. 40a, St. Gallen, Switzerland

  Markus Schwaninger

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