Comments Ref Curt's email:
A couple good questions here; thanks for asking them:
> Is it even possible to demonstrate empirically chaotic behavior in an
> organizational setting, except through computer simulation? . . . .
> Is anyone out there familiar with any empirical work that has applied
> Self Organizing Systems Theory (SOST) models to organizational phenomema?
> especially to innovation?
but can you clarify a little what you mean by innovation? Innovation is
usually associated with product innovation, i.e. the invention or
development of a widget. Other parts of your mail, however, had me
thinking that you were refering to innovation in organizational structures
or systems (i.e. things like matrix organizations, TQM, etc.):
The reason I am harping on the distinction is that I view the two types of
innovation as quite distinct. I think that it is possible for very rigid,
"old fashioned" (for lack of a better term) organizations to innovate with
respect to products while, conversely, companies can produce "old
fashioned" products with very innovative organizations.
IBM, to pick one example, became a textbook example of bureaucracy in a
very high tech industry where IBM continued to innovate technically even
while it failed organizationally.
In contrast, I would cite TQM and Just In Time manufacturing as examples
of tremendous organizational change that were incubated in the
comparatively low tech, low product innovation, environment of post-WWII
Japanese manufacturing and which do not involve any technology unavailable
in the 1930s or so (I think that's about when SPC dates from, but I may be
off).
Regards,
Robert Lucadello
RLucadello@AOL.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>