Business Studies
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ANSWER
Compare and Contrast Rational, Natural and Open Systems of Organizations
The three theoretical perspectives of organizations are rational natural and open systems. One must understand each of these perspectives as they are key in organizations. The three are also an important part of the science of organizations. In layman’s tears, organizations can be described as entities with a collective of participants. However, the drive of an organization and the association amid the motivations of the contributors in the organization to accomplish goals brings in varying perspectives. The rational perspective emphasizes on the organizational structure (Lindebaum et al., 2020). The belief of the organization and the participants is they have joined the organization since they are dedicated to helping them achieve their goals. The naturalist standpoint is vital to the rationalist perspective as it believes that the rationalist omits two essential components of the organization: human behaviour and motivation. The open system believes that the rational and the natural systems do not consider the environmental impacts surrounding the organization. These three different perspectives are relevant and seek to expound on the nature of organizations.
The Rational system
The rational system views organizations as collectives that display a comparatively great extent of formalization. This means in this system, the sole interest of all participants in the organization is to reach common goals. Considerably, all organizations are collections that are designed to purse comparatively certain goals and displaying in relation, positively formalized social structure. The rational system of organization is organized in a way that one would say is formal or rather rational. The rational system pays attention to the formal structure and views the organization as a group of individuals that are working together towards pursuing specific goals. The partial view of rationality in the organization fails to consider the ethical or moral position of the organization. The rational system aims on the structure of the organization and its goals. The rational system draws its participants through its purpose and the distinct structure. In the rational system, the decisions made by the individuals are determined by their formal hierarchy. For example, in a car dealership shop, if the manager asks the salespeople to sell the less popular car, they will concentrate on selling the less popular model despite paying the same commission (Lindebaum et al., 2020). In reality, people work harder to make more and not to make the same amount.
The idea of ration in the organization’s system context associates with functional or technical rationality. This means that rational systems are a series of actions that allow the achievement of certain goals with great efficiency. Taking an organization as a rational system means viewing them as mechanistic means of attaining certain goals. Rational organization systems organize organizations as well-designed machines that always require maintenance and tuning in order to achieve greater (Scott and Davis, 2015). The two major features of the rational systems are formalization and specificity. The organization that relies on rational system have detailed job descriptions, formal organizational structure and industrial specialization.
Rational systems can be the strongest as long as the operating characteristics, and the components surrounding the system of the organization are controllable. One of the essential parts of the rational system model is goal specificity. In the rational system, the participants aim for the same goals to benefit the organization. This means that the goals need to be specific for the organization to be designed. The specificity of goals helps to clearly define their purpose and how they will achieve the purpose. Goals can, however, have a different function in a rational system depending on the hierarchy. For instance, the top manager can emphasize motivational goals to enable build obligation, but the middle manager could change these goals to be more precise. In this system of organization, management is an important factor as it helps shape the direction of the organization.
Formalization is the extent at which the organization’s policies, procedures, rules and job descriptions are articulated. These structures are used to control the behavior of all employees using the written rules in order for the employees to have less autonomy. This is important for an organization since the employee actions are predictable. Formalization is based on procedures, rules, and division of work in a standardized manner. Relying on this method allows an organization to respond to any issue sin a similar way which creates consistency in behavior.
The Natural System
As earlier stated, the natural system critics the rational system for not considering important factors such as motivation. The rational system is centered on the formality and shared goals of the participants. The natural system has issues with the rational system because it does consider the social interests of the participants in the organization. The rational system is more goal-oriented and barely pays attention to the people in the organization or their needs. The first problem that the natural system has with the rational system is the assumption that all the participants join the organization to achieve common goals (Thompson et al., 2017). According to the naturalists, this is a problem because there are differences in goals when it comes to individuals (Argyris, 2017). The natural system perspective insists that informal ad interpersonal structures are more essential in any organization than formal structures. This is because people in organizations have different ideas, some that tend to conflict. These ideas and conflict are the drivers of any organization. Ideally, stakeholders within an organization have varying interests, conflicting and consensus building processes that drive actions within an organization. The natural system of organization is one of the most common as it is applied in many areas. The natural system is applied in schools. In a university, there are formal curriculums that need to be followed, but the instructors’ ideas and their perspectives play a role in forming the curriculum. The instructors are also not controlled or guided on their own they should teach them to apply their own teaching methods.
The natural system model considers an organization as a not only strict in achieving their goals but also other essential things. According to the natural system, an organization seeks to hold the balance between its various goals and needs which may restrict the way it achieves other goals. The natural system considers the modification of an organization as adaptive and unplanned reactions to unstable situations that impact the balance of an organization and the entire system. The approach to which an organization gives to issues is considered as a defense mechanisms and is impacted by the common values entrenched in the organizational members. Therefore, this model pays attention to the threats of an organization’s equilibrium which entails the activities and events with the potential of influence the balance of an organization.
Additionally, this model is based on the ideas that all parts of an organization are interdependent and interconnected. The changes of one part within the organization are thought to influence all other parts which makes it challenging to plan modifications for the organization. The natural system view change as effective for all parts of an organization, not just individual units. Therefore, managers cannot change a small part of the organization but need a systematic and comprehensive plan for change that will involve the entire organization. Practically, the natural system leads organizations to reach a balance in the needs of all members of the organization as well as the key stakeholders such as suppliers, shareholders and customers. This model argues that organizations work best when the stakeholders belong to a single effective workgroup where they can contribute to the achievement of goals.
The natural system model in any organization can be initiated through teams. This model believes in interpersonal relationships, and this involves people interacting, sharing their ideas and putting them together. Any organization that embraces the natural system is thus required to have teams working towards the organization’s goals through the different interpretations of those goals. From my point of view, the natural system is more effective than the rational system. Human interaction and sharing of ideas can help organizations move forward and further compared to the formality that is involved in the rational system (Lant, 2017). The formality in the rational system also prevents the participants from expressing their ideas compared to the interpersonal relationships cultivated in the natural system.
The Open System
The open system theoretical perspective argues that organizations are intertwined with the environment and that one cannot look at an organization individually. The organization’s environment affects what happens inside the organization, and this is realized in the open systems perspective (Chick, 2020). The open system perspective further states there are no distinct boundaries between the organization and environment. The environment consists of other organizations, the people in the communities, customers and suppliers. The open organization system can be utilized by all modern organizations. The open system perspective involves considering the environment of the organization before formulating the goals and purpose (Schneider et al., 2017). An organization is directly affected by its surrounding environment. Organizations are, therefore, supposed to find ways in which they best fit within the changing environments.
An open system regularly allows feedback and exchange with the external environment. Therefore, an effective open organization system is one which interacts with the environment and actively controls the outflows and inflows of resources. An open system focuses on how the economy, the environment, the law and customer’s needs affects the system that make up the organization. In an open system, an organization can allows the dynamics of other systems to create more variables. This creates a complex and dynamic system. An open system focuses on patterns and influence rather than the organizational control (Filatotchev, Ireland and Stahl, 2021). The open system has limits that allow critiques from outside and inside the organization. The open system tends to devise more than one technique to achieve comparative results and finish objectives with various operations and conditions (Jung and Vakharia, 2019). Open systems organizational structure have allowed successful critical thinking which illuminates the bigger view through stable reaction and input that brings together understanding through better communication and feedback.
An example of an open systems perspective is the changing markets due to technology. Organizations should be ready to change with the changing times. Due to the changing environment, marketing strategies have changed over time, and organizations have had to change their marketing strategies. Organizations now have to hire a social media manager to ensure that they are up to date with the changing patterns and consumer patterns to keep up (Weber & Waeger, 2017). Organizations that do not embrace the open system perspective and change with the environment are more likely to fail because the organization and environment are intertwined. Organizations today are supposed to embrace environmentally friendly products because they are intertwined with the needs of the environment, and failure to adapt accordingly is likely to lead to their failure. According to the Bible in Ezekiel 34:18, people should take care of the environment given to them by God. “Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture, and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the water with your feet?”
Relationship between the Three Systems
Organizations tend to rely on three major theoretical perspectives that form the basis of the organizational systems. These include the rational, natural and open systems. The three organizational systems are a representation of the development and functioning of organizations. These perspectives suggest the interactional behavior among work groups, individuals and organizations. They direct groups and participants in their informal and formal interactional behavior towards achieving their goals. The rational system considers organization as instruments that are created to achieve specific goals while the natural system sees an organization not only as striving to achieve specific goals but also other essential goals. The open system allows an organization to be responsive to changes while achieving their goals. The rational systems perspective is concerned with goals and the formality of the organization. The rational system thus views organizations as a collective with participants who are aiming at the same goals. The natural systems theory refutes this theory and insists on the importance of interpersonal relationships and motivations. The perspective focuses more on the interests of the people involved in the organization, what they have to gain from it, and what they have to give. It critics the rational theory for overlooking this side of the organization. The open systems perspective is more interested in the factor that the first two perspectives have overlooked the relationship between the external environment and the internal environment. It focuses on the importance of the environment to any organization and how organizations have to change with their environments (Jung & Vakharia, 2019). These three perspectives are all important as they all discuss different parts of organizations that are essential. The three are most productive if they are applied together. This means that organizations can focus on a similar goal while still paying attention to the needs of the participants. The same organizations should also be aware of their effect on the environment and the effect of the environment on them.
Personal Perspective
The three systems of organizations are interesting to study, especially when one has had any experience with at least one of the three perspectives. However, I believe that these three perspectives have a way of complimenting each other and working best together. The Bible in Ecclesiastes 4:9 says that when individuals work together, they can double their strength and get much more done as a team. Therefore, these three theories are better working in unison than working alone. The rational theory on its own does not form an efficient organization as there are no relationships and motivations in the company. The natural theory on kits own is inefficient as it lacks informality and in the realization of the impact of the environment on the organization. The open system perspective is also not efficient alone as it lacks the first two characteristics. Therefore, the three systems are more efficient if managers and leaders can use them simultaneously, applying each in its appropriate position.
Conclusion
In summation, the three systems of organizations vary in perspective. Each is efficient in its own way, depending on the purpose and goals of the organization. They are, however, best suited and work best together. A college, for example, will only work best if there is a formal curriculum, the instructors are allowed to use the modes of instruction that favour them while also making suggestions on the changes that need to be made. The college also needs to understand that it impacts the surrounding environment, and therefore changes should be made depending on the environment. This, therefore, means despite the three systems being different, they can work well together. The rational, natural and open systems are based on the evolution of organization with each system offering a different organizational logic. The open system is the most recent logic and assumes an environment-oriented, agile and network system. Each system has different attributes and functions that govern employees, work groups and organizational interactional behavior and their significance in achievement of organizational change and goals.
References
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Bible, K. J. (1996). King James Bible. Proquest LLC.
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