Organizations as Brains Organizational Theory

The key teams in Morgan’s Article - Toward Self Organization are, self-organization, learning organization, holographic organization, learning loops, cybernetics and information system. All these terms can be generalized in the title of “key features of future organizations”. The main logic of self-organizations is to make scalar chain more flexible.

One of the principles of Weberian Ideal Bureaucracy says; “The organization of officers follows the principle of hierarchy which means each lower official is under the control and supervision of a higher one.Every subordinate in the administrative and hierarchy is accountable to his superior, not only for his own decisions or actions but also for those of people subordinate to him. In order to be able to bear the responsibility for the work of the latter, he must have authority and power over them and issue orders which the latter must obey. ” According to Weber’s ideal bureaucracy, scalar chain and strong authority have crucial roles on effectiveness of organizations. On the other hand, in his article Morgan is at a completely contrast side from Weber.

Holographic organization is the best example of self-organizations. What the hologram is the method of taking photographs with the help of laser technology, emerged in 1952. It is relative to ordinary people from some labels such as dormitory and university label on student identity cards or the label for transportation. When we look to the hologram, first we see a big complete item, but if we look over it carefully, we can see thousands of smaller items in the big one and these smaller ones are perfectly same with the big one.The substance of holographic organizations comes from here. In holographic organizations, no matter how much employees it contains, no matter how big it is and no matter in which sector it active is, one single employee or one single department reflects the all features of the whole organization.

Holographic organizations are adhocratic organizations; they are not permanent and contain horizontal hierarchy rather than vertical hierarchy as completely contrasting to Weber. Hologram understanding damages the specialization understanding.With the actualization of holographic organizations, “right man in the right place” idea replaces with “any man in any place”. If you are a member of an organization, you should and have to be capable of doing any work or task in your organization. This application is advantageous in some way, because the employee is not concentrated on the same job, do not get bored and alienated in some degree; it removes routine in work place. Moreover, it reduces corruptions and abuse because; it is so hard to talk about corruption in a place with no specialization and hierarchy.

In order to provide such an order as any man would be able to do any job in the organization, technological infrastructure is a very important theme. For example an employee in a bank who does not have enough access about insurance applications of the bank; can easily do the demanded transactions about insurance via the help of software on insurance. Another key term the holographic organization challenges is “one best way” understanding of Frederic W. Taylor.

With the same direction from social Darwinism, holography supports relativity and power of will.Although some circumstances are already defined by environment and nature; humans have the right to choose among different alternatives. These alternatives of course require some threats and according to Darwin, survival is depended on number of weapons; called requisite variety in Morgan’s article. On the other hand I think survival is not only related with requisite variety, it is also highly related with the extent of threats. An organization exposed to less threat has more chance to survive.

Organic organization is another good form of self organization and most probably the closest one to the functioning of a brain. Contingency theorists see “appointing right people to the job” and creating a flexible authority to achieve common organizational goals from the organic framework. However according to my point of view, it is impossible to actualize specialization and flexible authority in an organization at the same time and theory never matches with the practice. On the other hand contingency theory differs from one thinker to another and it is hard to make eneralizations. While Fiedler focuses on individual leadership in theory, Scott emphasizes the environment organization with this manner “The best way to organize depends on the nature of the environment to which the organization must relate.

” It is so important to match the complexity level of organization with the environment’s. Cybernetics is highly related to systems theory and it is also related with the neuropsychology. It is an interdisciplinary science, focuses on the study of communication, information and control.Cybernetics in all positive concrete sciences mainly aims: to create machines with the adaptive capacities of organisms. In organizational science, cybernetics can be interpreted as both advantageous and disadvantageous.

Since, adaptation brings change; change in terms of the environment. So, it may be seen as good. It refers that the organization is not directed by outdated and invalid principles, it has a contemporary and modern characteristic. On the other hand, it may be seen as bad. Change does not give better results under all circumstances. Some changes can destroy the substances.

There may also exist a contrast situation; the change may be always limited and the organization may need a real change, a real revolution. However, such a change as an adaptation hardly results in a revolution. Learning is defined as adaptation; and adaptation is only possible with negative feedback. To learn, you have to experience and understand the results of your experiences in an evolutionary way.

All the self organizations like holographic and organic are explained through the brain metaphor. Since, brain means flexibility, creativity, rationality and efficiency. Moreover it is an information processing system.And most importantly, brain thinks and brain learns...

We cannot learn anything via nothing but our brains. So such questions emerge about the organizational theory: is it really possible to create a learning organization, is it possible to create an organization which can think? Learning process is divided into two according to Morgan, single loop learning and double loop learning. Single loop learning is just learning about the procedure and we cannot talk about any creativity or use or intelligence; but in double loop learning acting according to the situation and crisis management are important.While single loop is defined by “learning”, double loop is defined as “learning to learn”.

Although everything is defined well in theory; in practice single loop learning is not learning exactly and if we look from a critical view point, we can say that it is teaching more than learning. Organizations learn nothing, they just teach... They teach to employees how they can work maximum and to employers how they can exploit employers maximum.

So the postmodern theory and brain metaphor have brought a new breath to organizational theory, yes but it did not done any substantial change.