This article is from the same volume as my previous post on Luhmann.  In this section of the book, the chapters address the relation of Luhmann’s ideas–and those of the systems-theoretical (S-T) perspective more generally–on Strategic Management.

Vos covers a number of topics in this chapter, and I’m drawing out only one of them here, toward my interest in thinking about how we might use a systems-theoretic approach (and, I think, other types of constructionist approaches) in practice.  Vos provides two tables of information that are particularly useful.  The first is “Self-reference and levels of observation” (p.377).  The second is “Functional analysis of strategic management” (p.379).

Self-observation is a critical process for understanding organizations from a S-T perspective.  In a first-order observation, we watch something. In a second-order observation, we watch ourselves watching something.  There is a third-order as well, but that’s outside of what Vos describes here.  Vos suggests that when researchers adopt first-order observations, they observe what organizations observe: how organizations “de-tautologize” or “de-paradoxise” themselves to either operate strategically or reflect upon themselves strategically. This element of tautology or paradox comes from the basic assumptions of autopoietic systems set out by Luhmann (which I describe previously, so won’t discuss here).  For example, what do organizations temporarily (and artificially) hold as external or as constant, in order to plan for the future or make sense of past experiences?

More interesting to me what Vos lists as researchers’ second-order observations, which is to observe what organizations cannot observe: the organization’s blind spots in their own operations or what organizations cannot reflect on because of the way they perceive the world and the way they perceive how they reflect upon the world. I love this concept of blind spots. It acknowledges that when an organization does not consider a certain thing in its operations or in its reflections, this is not because they “missed it” or “left it out.”  From an S-T perspective, the organization literally cannot see it or perceive it, because it does not exist within their own worldview.

So, then, the contribution of the researcher can be to use these two orders of observation to describe an organization’s functions (functions are a basic concern of S-T, see previous post).

The functional analysis of strategic management by means of first-order observation aims to explore the way in which members of organizations give meaning to their organization’s strategic content, process and context.  In addition, by means of second-order observation, the functional analysis of strategic management is aimed at observing how organizations may or may not jeopardise their existence because of their strategic manoeuvres. (p. 379)

Researchers can “compare various functional equivalents” in each of these three areas to “find out their functionalities and dysfunctionalities.”  This information, made visible by the researcher, can then be introduced into the organization to explain how, why (and, I think, with what consequence) certain operations are adopted by the organization and others are not.

I think this is relevant not only for research, but also for any project ultimately aimed at transformational organizational change (like ASSETT). In any organization, some elements of strategic management are visible to the organization, and others are not.  It is not a “mere” matter of information or compelling reasoning.  It is a matter of the possibilities and constraints of a worldview.