The viability of using various system theories to describe organisational change
| Date | 01 February 2004 |
| Published date | 01 February 2004 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230410517468 |
| Pages | 43-54 |
| Author | Terence J. Sullivan |
| Subject Matter | Education |
The viability of using various
system theories to describe
organisational change
Terence J. Sullivan
Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei
Keywords Systems theory, Chaos theory, Leadership, Organizational change
Abstract This article discusses the viability of concepts such as complex systems theory,
evolutionary theory and chaos theory as metaphors for being able to give a global perspective of one
particular school described in a previous article entitled “Leading people in a chaotic world”. The
article restates and re-explains this one particular case in question and offers a rationalisation for
using chaos theory as part of a much larger theory of evolution and complexity. The argument
restores the overused and popularised chaos theory to its more useful place as an emergent phase
in the decision-making and subsequent change phase of the evolution of complex systems. In so
doing, the paper points out that the use of chaos theory alone as a set of management rules for any
school was never the intended implication to be derived from this particular case. Instead, the
intention was to create a description of the changes in one particular school organisation stretched
across time and space in which its structures and processes were continuously evolving in
unpredictable, sometimes chaotic, but always complex directions with other structures and
processes inside and outside the school.
Introduction
In the early 1980s, advances in computing and the subsequent development of
new ways of observing and interpreting various interrelated phenomena in the
physical sciences enabled mathematicians and scientists to develop a theory of
change called chaos theory. The concepts of chaos theory were immediately
popularised in the 1980s and early 1990s because of their novelty and apparent
diverse applicability. In so doing, speculation of their applicability to the social
sciences was also highlighted. There were many attempts to outline a theory
for everything, a search for the underlying characteristics in the whole of
nature including the human nature of individuals, groups and organisations
(Briggs and Peat, 1984, 1990; Gleick, 1988).
By the mid-1990s, more was understood about the process of chaotic change
and the various systems in which it had been observed. Eventually, many of
the complex human social systems previously studied were found to be
systems that passed through occasional chaotic phases as part of their
evolutionary development.
According to mathematical modelling and simulation experiments, a system
must reach a certain threshold of change rate before it avalanches into chaos.
Chaotic systems tend to be deterministic systems that evolve through a
particular phase of instability and eventually achieve another threshold where
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Organisational
change
43
Received June 2003
Accepted July 2003
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 42 No. 1, 2004
pp. 43-54
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/09578230410517468
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