I'm sure there are many things that can be validly said to be "the
sum of its parts". I don't think that statement will fit anything
living very powerfully although it might be useful on occasion.
An organisation isn't "composed of individual belief systems" and
won't be, in this area at least, "the sum of its parts". The belief
system may have emerged from a founder or early group of leaders. It
is more likely to have emerged from the interplay of the individual
beliefs systems and those of the larger culture from which it all
emerged. But it won't be a "sum" of anything.
I also maintain that "belief systems" are rather sloppy ways of
referring to organisational values, practices, structures - even
culture - which leads to trouble because it implies something that
isn't there. Dealing with belief systems is not the same as dealing
with values, models, practices or the many other facets of human
immaterial worlds.
Dealing with most of the above as conversations, dialogues,
statements and language systems will provide more accessibility,
particularly in organisational terms, than dealing with them as
"belief systems" in my experience.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk