Question

How does systems theory relate to strategizing?

Provide examples from your own experience in the healthcare industry.

Answer 1

Strategizing is consistent with and presumes a systems theory perspective. Morgan provides the image of the “organization as organism,” building on the concept that organizations, like organisms, are open to and interact with their environment and must achieve an appropriate relation with that environment if they are to survive.

The organization seen as an open system continuously interacts with various forces and entities within its environment while these environmental factors are themselves dynamically interrelated. The management model presented illustrates this for organizations.

Systems theory is built on a set of core concepts. These are listed and briefly described in the text as follows:

•input–conversion–output: the system dynamic in which resources are imported into theorganization from its environment to sustain its core technologies, which convert inputs into desired outputs

•Feedback loops: channels of information that allow the system to monitor its outputs, mea-sure against standards, and adjust inputs and throughput as needed

•Homeostasis: self-regulation using negative feedback

•Entropy: the tendency of systems to lose energy and become disorganised.

example involving accreditation surveyors is developed that provides a systematic search for improving the impact of accreditation on quality of care and hence on the accreditation/performance correlation.