B200 TUTORIAL WEEK FIVE

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B200TUTORIAL WEEK FIVE
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By the end of the Environments module you should
be able to

• recognise key phenomena in business environments
• use appropriate models and concepts to analyse
  them
• recognise and interpret the values underlying
  different analyses of business environments
• understand the complex relationship between the
  behaviour of businesses and their environments
• identify some of the methods businesses adopt for
  dealing with their environment.

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The System? Technology, Ecology and Globalisation

• This area of environments is covered by your
  study of Chapters 22, 23, 24, 26 and 27.
• The word system can be used as an overarching
  phrase to describe the world of business
  encompassing the three previously examined
  environments.

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Chapter 22 Creating the Corporate Future by
Ackoff

• Ackoff asserts that the starting point for
  systems thinking or synthesis is the
  identification of a containing whole (system) of
  which the thing to be explained is a part.

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Analysis

• Analysis is a three stage process
• Taking apart the thing to be understood
• Trying to understand the behavior of the parts
  taken separately
• Trying to assemble this understanding into an
  understanding of the whole.

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Reductionism

• Given the commitment to the analytical method,
  unless there are ultimate parts, elements, a
  complete understanding of the universe would be
  impossible.
• If there are such indivisible parts and we come
  to understand them and their behaviour, then a
  complete understanding of the world is possible,
  at least in principle. Therefore, the belief in
  elements is a fundamental underpinning of the
  Machine-Age view of the world. The doctrine that
  asserts this belief is called Reductionism, all
  reality and our experience of it can be reduced
  to ultimate indivisible elements.

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Determinism

• Is everything in the universe the effect of a
  cause? The answer to this question was dictated
  by the prevailing belief in the possibility of
  understanding the universe completely. Everything
  had to be taken as the effect of some cause
  (doctrine of determinism).
• The first cause was postulated and taken to be
  GOD.
• How can we explain free will, choice and purpose
  in a determining universe? Free will or choice
  does not need to be explained because it is a
  natural phenomenon.
• A cause was taken to explain its effect
  completely. Nothing else was required to explain
  it, not even the environment. Therefore, Machine
  Age thinking was, to a large extent environment
  free. The orientation of the Machine-Age science
  is the nature of the place in which its inquiry
  was usually conducted, the laboratory.

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Mechanism

• The concept of the universe that derives from the
  exclusive use of analysis and the doctrines of
  reductionism and determinism is mechanism.

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Industrial revolution

• The replacement of man by man-made machine as a
  source of work. Its two central concepts were
  work machine.
• The mechanization of work was greatly facilitated
  by reducing it to a set of simple tasks.
  Therefore work was analyzed to reduce it to its
  elements.
• There were many benefits from the industrial
  revolution however there is one cost Small
  tasks have become repetitive as if we are reduced
  to behaving like machines.
• Mechanization of work took the work process and
  reduced it to its elements (tasks), eg.
  Taylorism.

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The System Age

• The emergence of dilemmas took the scientists out
  of their laboratories into the real world.
  Scientists discovered that interactions of the
  solutions of disassembled parts were of greater
  importance than the solutions considered
  separately.
• This led to the formation of interdisciplinary
  efforts. By the mid 1950's it was generally
  recognized that the source of similarities of the
  interdisciplines was their shared preoccupation
  with the behavior of Systems.

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A System

• A system is a set of two or more elements that
  satisfies the following conditions
• The behaviour of each effect has an effect on the
  behavior of the whole
• The behaviour of the elements and their effects
  on the whole are interdependent
• However subgroups of the element are formed, each
  has an effect on the behaviour of the whole and
  none has an independent effect on it. A system,
  therefore, is a whole that cannot be divided into
  independent parts. And thus cannot be understood
  by analysis.
• A system, therefore, is a whole that cannot be
  divided into independent parts and so cannot be
  understood by analysis. Realizing this fact is
  the primary source of intellectual revolution
  that is bringing about a change of age.

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Systems Thinking

• Synthesis is the key to systems thinking just as
  analysis was the key to Machine Age thinking.
  Synthesis and analysis are complementary
  processes. Systems thinking combine the two
  together.
• In the systems approach there are three steps
• Identify a containing whole (system) of which the
  thing to be explained is a part
• Explain the behaviour or properties of the
  containing whole
• Then explain the behaviour or properties of the
  thing to be explained in terms of its role or
  function within its containing whole.
• Synthesis precedes analysis.
• Analysis focuses on Structure, it reveals how
  things work. Synthesis focuses on function it
  reveals why things operate as they do. Therefore,
  analysis yields knowledge and synthesis yields
  understanding.

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Systems Thinking

• If each part of a system, considered separately,
  is made to operate as efficiently as possible,
  the system as a whole will not operate as
  effectively as possible.
• This is because the performance of a system
  depends more on how parts interact than on how
  they act independently of each other.

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Expansionism

• In system thinking, increases in understanding
  are believed to be obtainable by expanding the
  systems to be understood, not by reducing them to
  their elements.

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Producer-Product

• Singer asked what the universe would look like if
  producer-product is applied to it rather than
  cause-effect.
• The use of the producer-product relationship
  requires the environment to explain everything
  whereas use of cause-effect requires the
  environment to explain nothing.

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Teleology

• Meaning the study of evidence of design in
  nature.
• An approach that explains a phenomena by final
  results.
• A system's ends goals, objectives, and ideals
  could be established as objectively as the number
  of elements it contained. This made it possible
  to look at systems teleologically, in an
  output-oriented way, rather than
  deterministically, in an input-oriented way.

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Postindustrial Revolution

• Automation (techniques of making a system
  operate) has to do with replacement of mind
• Automation is to Postindustrial revolution what
  mechanization was to the industrial revolution.

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Chapter 23 Daniel Bell and the Information
Society by Mackay, Heap and Thomas.

• Daniel Bell identified 3 stages of economic
  progress
• The pre-industrial (agricultural)
• The industrial (manufacturing)
• The post industrial (service sector)
• In his work on the 'information society', Bell
  refers to knowledge having replaced labour as the
  source of value information has become more than
  merely a source, it s a commodity which can be
  bought and sold and the information-processing
  occupations are becoming increasingly central.

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Criticism of the Information Society

• IT as central to contemporary society as is
  suggested? No since preceding technologies (TV
  and radio) were seen as media which will expose
  everyone to the spoken word
• The criticism that it is not a march of progress
  from the primary, through the secondary to the
  tertiary sector. Rather, much of the service
  (tertiary) sector has grown because of a growth
  in manufacturing, rather than as a replacement
  for it.

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Criticism Ctd

• The empirical evidence about us moving towards a
  leisure society with automated manufacturing,
  political participation and an emphasis on the
  quality of life. While automation of work has
  made a few jobs more skilled, many routine,
  semi-skilled and unskilled, jobs remain- in deed,
  they are found in abundance in the burgeoning
  service sector.
• The IT managers have little chance to achieve
  boards of corporations
• Dealing with information does not itself infer
  power. However the information society is here,
  in advanced industrial societies-whether we like
  it or not, or agree with it or not in that it
  is undoubtedly pervasive and important in our
  daily lives.

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Chapter 24 Global Information Infrastructure
Eliminating the Distance Barrier by Hudson.

• Hudson examines the role of information and
  communication technologies in globalisation.

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Hudsons views

• She says that States need to establish links both
  internationally and between different information
  and communication media.
• She calls on Governments to harmonise their
  regulatory frameworks on telecommunications and
  allow private business providers to invest in the
  technology development.
• She recommends education as a way of developing a
  common understanding of the system and its
  objectives.

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Chapter 26 A road map for Natural Capitalism
by Lovins, Lovins and Hawken.

• This article puts forward a new approach not only
  for protecting biosphere but also for improving
  profits and competitiveness. This approach is
  called natural capitalism because it's what
  capitalism might become if its largest category
  of capital the "natural capital" of ecosystem
  services- were properly valued.
• The journey to natural capitalism involves four
  major shifts in business practices, all virtually
  interlinked
• Dramatically increase the productivity of natural
  resources
• Shifts to biologically inspired production
  modules
• Move to solutions based model
• Reinvest in natural capital

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Discussion

• How persuasive do you find the case in this
  chapter for the development of natural
  capitalism?
• Your tutor will lead the discussion.

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Chapter 27 Reflections on the politics linking
science, environment and innovation by
Boehmer-Christiansen.

• Boehmer-Christiansen asserts that technology and
  its development is a political process.
• She identifies a number of stakeholders, all
  exerting their power and influence to shape
  technology and public perceptions of it for their
  own ends.

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Summary

• She argues that businesses and Governments have
  adopted environmental sustainability.
• They are now using it to develop technologies
  which protect their own interests against the the
  competitive incursions of developing economies.
• They are aided in this by a scientific community
  anxious to invigorate its influence in political
  circles after some decades of waning.

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Activities

• Activity 11 (page 44 of the Study Guide)
• Activity 12 (page 45 of the Study Guide)

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READING TO BE COMPLETED BY NEXT WEEK

• Please read pages 43 - 51 of the study guide to
  refresh your study of Chapters (dont read
  Chapter 25 as it is optional).
• Please read Chapters 3 and 4 of the Markets Text
  book (the red one) before the next tutorial (NB
  you do not need to read Chapters 1 and 2 as this
  is optional reading).