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F I G U R E 1 . 4
The Systems Perspective of Organizations
By viewing organizations as systems, managers can better understand the importance of their environment
and the level of interdependence among their organization’s subsystems. Managers must also understand
how their decisions affect and are affected by the organization’s other subsystems.
system
An interrelated set of
elements functioning
as a whole
Chapter 1:
Understanding the Manager’s Job
1 9
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not-for-profit organizations must operate within their budgets); employee behaviors; and
information. Finally, the environment reacts to these outputs and provides feedback to the
system.
Thinking of organizations as systems provides us with a variety of important view-
points on organizations, such as the concepts of open systems, subsystems, synergy,
and entropy.
Open systems
are systems that interact with their environment, whereas
closed systems
do not interact with their environment. Although organizations are
open systems, some make the mistake of ignoring their environment and behaving as
though it is not important.
The systems perspective also stresses the importance of