At the start of this course, we introduced the concept of open systems as a way to better understand the nature of organizations and strategic management. As you remember, an organization, as an open...

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Open System Theory and Organizational Approach
    There have now been numerous hypotheses that attempted to understand the behavior of organizations by attempting to model the different features that characterize an organization. One common school of thought says that organizations are simply structures for processing knowledge (Christina et al, 2010). It is therefore highly essential for a successful organization to recognize and differentiate between relevant information and information that is not so relevant. The focus of other schools of thought is on developing efficiency, distribution of power in the administration as well as on organizational culture to understand the open system. Open system theory is the dominant school of thought amongst all. Both organizational behavior theories view organizations as a closed entity, cut off from the environment, before this theory came into being. In practice, many environmental factors play an important role in influencing the way organizations function and are therefore included in the theory of open systems (Meadows, 2008)
    At first, it is significant to note here that open system theory is based on the concept that every organization has been structured around the unique goals and culture that belongs specifically to the organization only (Meadows, 2008). There are some determining factors to this open system approach; these many include general, specific and environment in which the organization operates. At managerial level, a formal understanding of the open system theory is an essential factor; the managers are like the key drivers at various levels of intervention and...