Modern organizations must transform amidst the internal and external complexity and turbulence they face. Transformation processes are not understandable through the equilibrium models we most often use to describe system dynamics. More applicable system models, recently emerging within the physical sciences, incorporate disorder, uncertainty, and complexity and provide insight into the process of transformation, its characteristics and dynamics. One such model put forth by the Belgian physicist, Ilya Prigogine, is offered here as an explanatory theory of organization transformation. The model postulates that “inherent stabilities” make more probable a system's successful transition through highly unstable conditions. These same stabilities offer a point of convergence of current theories of organizational learning, of self-organizing systems, and of high performance teams. Summary propositions and some directions for future research are discussed.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Wiley-Blackwell is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Biogeography.ABSTRACT. Philosophies underlying past classifications of world faunal regions have fostered the view that such units can have little more than heuristic value. Contributing to this feeling is the difficulty attending assessment of rank relationships among the regional elements of a particular system. In the present study, logical constraints upon the meaning of a satisfactorily efficient hierarchical faunal classification are identified and operationalized into a system of world mammal faunal regions via an iterative procedure involving multidimensional scaling. The result is a classification consisting of four regions and ten subregions, each of the latter of which is as unique as it can be with respect to all other subregions while still contributing to logical hierarchical order relationships within the system. The classification is compared to the Sclater-Wallace system and is shown to be both more efficient and more internally consistent. Summary data and statistics pertaining to the new classification are presented and briefly discussed.
Dissipative self-organization, a theoretical framework with roots in physics and biochemistry, has often been proposed as having relevance to change in social systems. Specifically, the processes and design features associated with dissipative self-organization have been used to describe the dynamics of social groups and organizations, especially in cases where highly turbulent and/or near-chaos conditions are present. A study assessing the usefulness of the self-organization paradigm as applied to the small group is described herein. The study took place within the context of a Tavistock-like group intervention, wherein the necessary condition for self-organization, a situation of turbulence, was induced within experimental groups. Based upon an approach suggested by Ackoff (1981), the general self-organization model served as a hypothetical idealized design of a self-organizing task group. A quasi-experimental design provided a test of whether the presence of self-organizing characteristics made any difference in group effectiveness among experimental groups and in a comparison condition where turbulence was not induced. The study provided preliminary support for the usefulness of the paradigm in understanding small group dynamics within the turbulent or non-equilibrium conditions. Specifically, task effectiveness within the experimental condition was found to correlate significantly with the degree to which groups developed the properties or design features specified by the self-organization paradigm. Consistent with the model, fewer significant relationships were found within the comparison condition between effectiveness and the presence of self-organization design features.
In living systems that are experiencing highly turbulent conditions, dissipative self-organization sometimes takes place and results in greater viability. The potential applications of the paradigm of dissipative self-organization to the study of change dynamics in small groups are explored. A certain type of change in groups is likened to change in dissipative structures found in the physical world, and group effectiveness amid complex and turbulent environments is seen to require the key elements of dissipative self-organization: an ongoing tolerance for error and for deviation from an established order, a breaking of existing system relationships so that new ones may emerge, a reflective, self-referencing mode, and a creative process of boundary reparation and movement into new configurations. Lewin's model of change in social systems is extended here through the application of the self-organization paradigm. Instead of utilizing Lewin's formulation of a discrete movement through phases, the emphasis is placed on continual change taking place amid turbulence or near-chaos conditions. The group's ability to be self-organizing, by opening to turbulence and functioning at its boundaries, and by experimenting, self-referencing, and repairing boundaries is discussed as a crucial factor in group effectiveness amid such conditions.
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