On Organizational Adaptation via Dynamic Process Selection

Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, 1982

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Organization adaptation requires determining the consequences of applying changes not only in terms of the benefits provided but also measuring the adaptation costs as well as the impact that these changes have on all of the components of the organization. In this paper, we provide an approach for adaptation in multiagent systems based on a multidimensional transition deliberation mechanism (MTDM). This approach considers transitions in multiple dimensions and is aimed at obtaining the adaptation with the highest potential for improvement in utility based on the costs of adaptation. The approach provides an accurate measurement of the impact of the adaptation since it determines the organization that is to be transitioned to as well as the changes required to carry out this transition. We show an example of adaptation in a service provider network environment in order to demonstrate that the measurement of the adaptation consequences taken by the MTDM improves the organization performance more than the other approaches.

W hen considering the adaptive dynamics of organizations, it is important to account for the full set of adaptive mechanisms, including not only the possibility of learning and adaptation of a given behavior but also the internal selection over some population of routines and behaviors. In developing such a conceptual framework, it is necessary to distinguish between the underlying stable roots of behavior and the possibly adaptive expression of those underlying templates. Selection occurs over expressed behavior. As a result, plasticity, the capacity to adapt behavior, poses a trade-off as it offers the possibility of adaptive learning but at the same time mitigates the effectiveness of selection processes to identify more or less superior underlying roots of behavior. In addition, plasticity may mitigate the reliability with which practices are enacted. These issues are explored in the context of a computational model, which examines the interrelationship among processes of variation, selection, and plasticity.

1982

An effectiveness measure for comparing alternative organizational structures is derived and then applied to the evaluation of two three-person organizations. The modeling and analysis of the organizations is carried out using an information theoretic framework in which decisionmakers are described by a two-stage model consisting of a situation assessment and a response selection stage. The total rate of internal processing of each decisionmaker is constrained by bounded rationality, while the performance of the organization must satisfy specified goals. The interrelationship between performance and bounded rationality is expressed in a generalized strategy space that forms the basis for the effectiveness analysis.

Springer eBooks, 2012

2016

This article focuses on the impact of information technologies on the upstream and downstream flows of information. The authors distinguish between two types of decisions and two types of decision-making criteria and propose a four-part framework in which the essential messages of systematic management and scientific management are depicted. Two cases, concerning the introduction of a new information technology (punched-cardmachines) in twoDutch banks, are analyzed within the framework. It is demonstrated how the chances of success are increased by employing the new technology to enable employees at lower levels of the organization to be more, instead of less, concerned with and aware of the performance objectives of the firm as a whole. The success of the introduction of new information technology generally depends on the compatibility between, on one hand, the characteristics of the organization, including the characteristics of the decision-making process within the organization ...

Organizational Behavior and Human …, 1990

The present experiment tested level of organizational performance as a function of perceived self-efficacy, task complexity, assigned and self-set goals, and analytic strategies in managerial decision-making in a stimulated organization. Organizational performance and analytic strategies were assessed across 16 trials and self-reactive influences operating through perceived selfefficacy, self-set goals, and acceptance of assigned goals were assessed at several points in the simulation. Assigned challenging goals had a positive effect on level of performance in the low complexity condition but not in the condition of high organizational complexity. The latter finding was explained in terms of the temporal and social complexity of the linkages between managerial effort and collective accomplishment and the multifaceted nature of goal-setting in complex social environments. The self-reactive infhtences had comparable effects on managerial performance across the differing levels of goal assignment and organizational complexity. In path analyses, perceived self-efficacy was positively related to effective use of analytic strategies for discovering optimal managerial rules and level of personal goals. Both perceived self-efficacy and analytic strategies contributed to managerial success in raising organizational performance. Self-set goals also contributed to performance in the earlier trials of the simulation but not in the later trials, following a change in task demands which reduced the generalizability of prior standards.

Futures, 1991

Old, mechanistic firms need to change their technology and organizational forms to adapt to new market conditions. However, contingency theories of organization link the capacity for this kind of innovation with organic organizational forms, hence the firms seemingly have to change before they can start changing.

397 pp. $59.95. The study of organizational behavior has witnessed a dramatic shift toward a more cognitive perspective. Inspired by the early work of the Carnegie school (Simon, 1957; March and Simon, 1958; Cyert and March, 1963), a cognitive approach to organizations has been dominant in the 1990s. Micro organizational behavior researchers have been closely connected to the psychological area of behavioral decision research that is rooted in the bounded rationality concept of Herbert Simon. Macro organizational behavior researchers have developed the area of organizational decision making, which builds on the writing of Simon's colleague, James March. Shapira's edited volume provides a critical integration of the contemporary area of organizational decision making, with a clear focus on whether organizational decision making differs from individual decision making as studied in the behavioral decision research area.

2010

The features of complexity are ever more present in modern organizations and in environments in which they operate, trying to survive and be as competitive as possible.) In the processes of, the so-called emergence, the formal organizational structure, designed purposefully and with a plan, is going through a change due to complexity and the need for adaptation. As a result,