W. Brian Arthur

Sarahina Borgia

Iva Petkova

Organizing Inovation

April 1st, 2017

W. Brian Arthur

William Brian Arthur, born 21 July 1946, is an economist credited with influencing and describing the modern theory of increasing returns. He has lived and worked in Northern California for many years. He is an authority on economics in relation to complexity theory, technology and financial markets. Presently, he is on the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and a Visiting Researcher at the Intelligent Systems Lab at PARC. He is credited with the invention of the El Farol Bar problem.

W. Brian Arthur was born in 1946 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He received his BSc in Electrical Engineering at Queens University Belfast (1966), an M. A. in Operational Research (1967), at Lancaster University, Lancaster, England, and an M. A. in Mathematics at the University of Michigan (1969). Arthur received his PhD in Operations Research (1973) and an M. A. in Economics (1973) from the University of California, Berkeley. At age 37, Dr. Arthur was the youngest endowed chair holder at Stanford University.

Arthur is the former Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies; Professor of Human Biology, Stanford University, 1983–1996. He is the co-founder of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies at Stanford.

Arthur is one of the distinguished External Research Faculty members at the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Arthur's long association with the Institute started in 1987 with the introduction and support of Stanford economist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Kenneth Arrow, and Philip Warren Anderson, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Arthur was named as the first director of the interdisciplinary Economics Program at the Institute beginning in 1988. He was named the Citibank Professor at the Institute in 1994, with the endowment of Citibank and then-Citibank CEO John S. Reed.

He served several terms on the Science Board 1988–2006, and Board of Trustees, 1994–2004, during his association with the Institute. Arthur was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987. Arthur was also awarded the Schumpeter Prize in 1990.

He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Economic Sciences degree from the National University of Ireland (2000). He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree (Honoris Causa) from Lancaster University on 9 December 2009. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, World Economic Forum, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Arthur is noted for his seminal works "studying the impacts of positive feedback or increasing returns in economies, and how these increasing returns magnify small, random occurrences in the market place.

"These principles are especially significant in technology-specific industries.

Complexity theory

Arthur is one of the early economic researchers in the emerging complexity field. Specifically, his complexity studies focused on the "economics of high technology; how business evolves in an era of high technology; cognition in the economy; and financial markets."

Arthur's comments on the evolution of complexity theory as a different way of seeing and conducting scientific inquiry:

Complexity theory is really a movement of the sciences. Standard sciences tend to see the world as mechanistic. That sort of science puts things under a finer and finer microscope. In biology the investigations go from classifying organisms to functions of organisms, then organs themselves, then cells, and then organelles, right down to protein and enzymes, metabolic pathways, and DNA. This is finer and finer reductionist thinking.

The movement that started complexity looks in the other direction. It’s asking, how do things assemble themselves? How do patterns emerge from these interacting elements? Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. It’s important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. They’re open-ended. In standard science this hit some things that most scientists have a negative reaction to. Science doesn’t like perpetual novelty.

"Economist W. Brian Arthur sets out to establish a coherent theory describing fundamentally what technology is, how it evolves, and how it spurs innovation and industry. Technology, he finds, "builds itself organically from itself" in a process that resembles chemistry and in some ways even recalls life itself." - Greg Ross

(http://www.americanscientist.org)

Engineering Culture

Sarahina Borgia

Iva Petkova

Organizing Inovation

February 7th, 2017


           The company's management, Kunda reveals, uses a variety of methods to promulgate what it claims is a non-authoritarian, informal, and flexible work environment that enhances and rewards individual commitment, initiative, and creativity while promoting personal growth. The author demonstrates, however, that these pervasive efforts mask an elaborate and subtle form of normative control in which the members' minds and hearts become the target of corporate influence. Kunda carefully dissects the impact this form of control has on employees' work behavior and on their sense of self.

        "This book remains the classic attempt to come to terms with the reality of work in the new economy, as it emerges to replace the alienation of mass production. Kunda recognizes, even celebrates, the autonomy and engagement of work which has grown up around IT. But he also identifies the ways management quite deliberately limits and controls that autonomy and exploits engagement. And he underscores the price which the new work place exacts from the workers excluded from the realm of autonomy, from those who become overcommitted to it, and from those who, often inadvertently, overstep its boundaries." 

—Michael Joseph Piore, David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy, Mass. Institute of Technology

        An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision are directed toward the achievement of organizational aims. It can also be considered as the viewing glass or perspective through which individuals see their organization and its environment.

Organizations are a variant of clustered entities.

An organization can be structured in many different ways, depending on its objectives. The structure of an organization will determine the modes in which it operates and performs.

Organizational structure allows the expressed allocation of responsibilities for different functions and processes to different entities such as the branch, department, workgroup and individual.

Organizational structure affects organizational action in two big ways:

• First, it provides the foundation on which standard operating procedures and routines rest.
• Second, it determines which individuals get to participate in which decision-making processes, and thus to what extent their views shape the organization’s actions.

Types: 

      

Pre-bureaucratic structures

Pre-bureaucratic (entrepreneurial) structures lack standardization of tasks. This structure is most common in smaller organizations and is best used to solve simple tasks. The structure is totally centralized. The strategic leader makes all key decisions and most communication is done by one on one conversations. It is particularly useful for new (entrepreneurial) business as it enables the founder to control growth and development.

They are usually based on traditional domination or charismatic domination in the sense of Max Weber's tripartite classification of authority.

Bureaucratic structures

Weber (1948, p. 214) gives the analogy that “the fully developed bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine compare with the non-mechanical modes of production. Precision, speed, unambiguity, … strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs- these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.” Bureaucratic structures have a certain degree of standardization. They are better suited for more complex or larger scale organizations, usually adopting a tall structure. The tension between bureaucratic structures and non-bureaucratic is echoed in Burns and Stalker's^[8] distinction between mechanistic and organic structures.

The Weberian characteristics of bureaucracy are:

• Clear defined roles and responsibilities
• A hierarchical structure
• Respect for merit

Post-bureaucratic

The term of post bureaucratic is used in two senses in the organizational literature: one generic and one much more specific. In the generic sense the term post bureaucratic is often used to describe a range of ideas developed since the 1980s that specifically contrast themselves with Weber's ideal type bureaucracy. This may include total quality management, culture management and matrix management, amongst others. None of these however has left behind the core tenets of Bureaucracy. Hierarchies still exist, authority is still Weber's rational, legal type, and the organization is still rule bound. Heckscher, arguing along these lines, describes them as cleaned up bureaucracies, rather than a fundamental shift away from bureaucracy. Gideon Kunda, in his classic study of culture management at 'Tech' argued that 'the essence of bureaucratic control - the formalization, codification and enforcement of rules and regulations - does not change in principle.....it shifts focus from organizational structure to the organization's culture'.

Ect...

Sites: 

Heterarchy: An Idea Finally Ripe for Its Time (review)

Sarahina Borgia

Iva Petkova

Organizing Inovation

February 7th, 2017

The following statements seem to me to be biased. They are not necessarily true:

"Heterarchy increasingly trumps hierarchy as complexity and rate of change increase. A heterarchical network could be used to describe neuron connections or democracy."

Indeed, it depends heavily on the circumstances, whether a heterarchy trumps over a hierarchy or the other way round. One could for instance imagine the task of spreading communication from one person to many other persons. In such a situation a strongly hierarchical system might easily be more efficient than a totally heterarchical one, because the number of possible communication paths is much lower in a hierarchy than in a heterarchy. A good example is the internet: IP-number resolution happens to be hierarchical rather than heterarchical. Peer-to-peer protocols (P2P) on the other hand are very interesting in terms of stability (nobody can ever really shut them down, once they started working), but as speed rates show, they are not very efficient in terms of exchanging data. Thus, many modern P2P-systems indeed use at least to a certain extent a mixture between hierarchical and heterarchical protocols, for instance by upgrading certain nodes to "supernodes".

"Consider the case in which one faction prefers candidate A over B and candidate B over C; a second, equal faction prefers B over C and C over A; and a third faction prefers, you guessed it, C over A and A over B. The choice that eventually gets made will not be a reflection of the real preference of the whole society, but will instead result from "irrational" and arbitrary issues like who voted first and who voted last. And over time and subsequent elections, the decision may cycle from one choice to another with no apparent reason." (Jay Ogilvy) 

Furthermore, modern democratic systems are far away from being heterarchical solely. Again, nearly every society has chosen a mixture between hierarchical and heterarchical elements. The president of the US, for example, has a lot more political power than a common citizen (--> hierarchy), but he has exactly the same amount of votes (namely a single one) in elections as everybody else (--> heterarchy) - (at least in theory... but this is another chapter and does not belong here). As everybody knows, who participates in any kind of "democratic group", a clear disadvantage of heterarchy is the long time it takes to come to a decision. (Which again, on the other hand, might also be an advantage, because everybody could participate in the process of finding the decision. This could, but does not necessarily have to as examples of decision theory show, increase the overall level of satisfaction.)

In common life, it is indeed seldom to encounter purely heterarchical or purely hierarchical systems, because they both have their advantages and disadvantages one over the other.

the concept.

This entry as indicatd as philosophy related isn't heterarchy more of a sociology realted term? Can this be recategorized? Being new to wikipedia I'll wait for someone to comment before I make a change to the categorization. How amusing that someone should be arguing about the hierarchical placement of an article about heterarchy.  I absolutely agree that "A heterarchical network could be used to describe neuron connections or democracy" is rubbish. Neurons have different biological functions. Although the human brain is far from hierarchical, surgeons can cut out some parts with minimal side effects, while cutting away other parts can cause irreversible damage. The same goes for democracy. Certain parts are considered (although temporally) more important than others. Democratic states are more like dynamic (changing every few years) shallow (not many levels, but extremely wide) hierarchies. Obviously each level is in itself a heterarchy, but that can be said about all hierarchies.

I would argue against seeing heterarchical systems as subsytems within hierarchical ones. The exact opposite is far more likely. Time and research will ultimately suggest that all other systems of organization are subsequent to and components of heterarchical organizations.

Also, it is only at the micro scale (and among homogeneous elements) that all elements in the system "share common goals".. at a larger (and perhaps more relevent) scale, the diversity of goals (living organisms) or of constraints or trajectories (inanimate objects, physical systems) is a significant component of the overall actions of the system. Part of the power of heterarchical systems is their capability to fluidly reconcile diverse intentions or "goals".

Furthermore, while heterarchical systems are "horizontal", they are not evenly or equally so, neither are the indivual components within it restricted in their communication to adjacent components. In different systems, under different conditions, an individual component's volume of influence may be quite large, and tends to fade or diminish in potency as opposed to merely being cleanly cut off at a certain point. While it could be argued that every component in a heterarchical system has an equal potential for influencing or being influenced, it can not be simplified to saying "each element shares the same "horizontal" position of power and authority, each having an equal vote"... The truth of the matter is that at any given point in time, there will be elements within the system exercising more or less control than their peers. A simple analogy for this would be a blanket floating on a rolling sea. Though the blanket is "horizontal", it is not flat..

I think that since there is no accepted general definition of heterarchy, that we (whoever is interested in this subject) work towards developing a consentual general definition to lead off the thread. I'm sure that is what the first paragraph is already trying to do, but I don't agree with that particular definition, as I have pointed out above. And the 2nd and 3rd sentences should be separated from the definition itself. In any case, heterarchical systems are not merely a sociological idea, not philosophical/biological/whatever.. it's a condition of organization in reality that impacts every academic discipline and aspect of the universe. Hence the worthiness of striving for a "general" definition. And while perpetually refining and changing the definition on the article page is itself perhaps the most poetic or appropriate definition, it does less to further the discussion of a topic that is immensely important and significant, yet does not even appear in most dictionaries. So in the interest of discussion, I will post the general definition I have developed over the past few years here, and look forward to discussing and comparing it, side by side, to other general definitions. 

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (review)

Sarahina Borgia

Iva Petkova

Organizing Inovation

February 1st, 2017

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, published in 2006 by Penguin Press, is the author's examination of Americans' overall eating habits. Pollan approaches this subject by looking at food as a naturalist does. He points out that all of our food originates as plants, animals, and fungi.The book is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on industrial farming, the second analyzes organic food, and the third discusses hunting and gathering one's own food. Each section ends with a meal, and Pollan's narrative traces the meal back to its origins.Economist Tyler Cowen argued, "The problems with Pollan's 'self-financed' meal reflect the major shortcoming of the book: He focuses on what is before his eyes but neglects the macro perspective of the economist. He wants to make the costs of various foods transparent, but this is an unattainable ideal, given the interconnections of markets."

Pollan argues that to "give up" human consumption of animals would lead to a "food chain [...] even more dependent than it already is on fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers since food would need to travel even farther and fertility – in the form of manures – would be in short supply". Given that, according to Pollan, other than raising ruminants for human consumption, no viable alternatives exist in such grassy areas, for growing any grains or other plant foods for human consumption. Washington State University, situated in an agricultural area of Washington state, chose this book to be part of its freshman reading program in 2009 but soon canceled the program.

"Life is confusing atop the food chain. For most animals, eating is a simple matter of biological imperative: if you're a koala, you seek out eucalyptus leaves; if you're a prairie vole, you munch on bluegrass and clover. But Homo sapiens, encumbered by a big brain and such inventions as agriculture and industry, faces a bewildering array of choices, from scrambled eggs to Chicken McNuggets, from a bowl of fresh strawberries to the petrochemical complex yellow log of sweet, spongy food product known as the Twinkie. "When you can eat just about anything nature has to offer," Michael Pollan writes in his thoughtful, engrossing new book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety." (New York Times)

If I have any caveats about "The Omnivore's Dilemma," it's Pollan's tendency to be too nice. He doesn't write with the propulsive rage that fueled Eric Schlosser's blockbuster "Fast Food Nation," nor does he take a firm stand on figures like the "Big Organic" pioneer Gene Kahn, an ex-hippie farmer from Washington State who decided that the only way to sustain his company, Cascadian Farm, was to sell it to General Mills. Pollan wryly notes that Kahn drives a late-model Lexus with vanity plates that say ORGANIC, but he calls Kahn "a realist, a businessman with a payroll to meet." Does this mean that Kahn is striking the right balance between mammon and the mission, or does Pollan think he's a hypocrite?

Likewise, I wish Pollan would stick his neck out and be more prescriptive about how we might realistically address our national eating disorder. We can't all go off the grid like Salatin, nor can we just wish away 200 years of industrialization. So what to do? Is the ever-growing organic-food industry already on the right path? Or is more radical action needed? Should the Department of Justice break up giant, soil-exhausting factory farms into small, self-sustaining polycultural organic farms? Perhaps it's greedy to demand more from a book already brimming with ideas, 

but what can I say? I'm an American, and I'm still hungry.

The Principles of Scientific Management (review)

Sarahina Borgia

Iva Petkova

Organizing Inovation

January 20th, 2017

Frederick Winslow Taylor published his work, “The Principles of Scientific Management” in 1911, in it, Taylor described the application of the scientific method to the management of workers, and how it could improve productivity. Scientific management methods called for optimizing the way tasks were performed, and for simplifying the jobs so that workers could be trained to perform their specialized sequence of motions in the one “best” way.

After many years of experimentation to determine what the optimal work methods would be, In this section, Taylor explained his principles of scientific management. He starts by describing what he 

considered the best system of management then in use, the system of "initiative and incentive". In this system, management gives incentives for better work, and workers give their best effort. The form of payment is practically the whole system, in contrast to scientific management. Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles:

1. Replace guesswork methods with a scientific study of the tasks.
2. Select, train, and develop each worker rather than leaving them to train themselves.
3. Ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed.
4. Make sure the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks. (Taylor, p. 1)
These principles were implemented in many factories, often increasing productivity by a factor of three or more. Henry Ford applied Taylor’s principles in his automobile factories, and families even began to perform their household tasks based on the results of time and motion studies.

Taylor devotes most of the remainder of the work to providing case studies to support his case, including:

• Moving pig iron at the Bethlehem Steel Company, with the famous story of the "ox"-like worker Schmidt.
• Taylor's work at the Midvale Steel Company
• Shoveling at Bethlehem Steel
• Bricklaying, as studied by Frank B. Gilbreth
• The inspection of small polished steel balls for bicycle bearing machine shop.

Taylor did not view most workers as worthy of dignity or respect in the workplace, rather than (reflecting the time) commodities or resources to be manipulated for profit.^[2]

“

This work is so crude and elementary in its nature that the writer firmly believes that it would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla so as to become a more efficient pig-iron handler than any man can be.

”

Taylor goes on to record a stylized exchange with an immigrant, possibly German, worker whose English he ridicules.

Drawbacks of Scientific Management
Scientific management principles indeed improved productivity and had a substantial impact on industry, BUT they also increased the monotony of work. The core job dimensions of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback all were missing from the picture of scientific management.
The new ways of working were accepted by many of the workers, in some cases they were not. Complaints that Taylorism was dehumanizing led to an investigation by the United States Congress. Despite its controversy, scientific management changed the way that work was done, and forms of it continue to be used today.
The best visual showing Taylorisim, was the Charlie Chaplin movie “Modern Times”, when a machine is brought into the assembly line to feed Charlie Chaplin while he works. Until today, I find this movie one of the best if not the best way to show the dehumanizing of the assembly line worker and his/her creativity by diminishing the person into a small screw in a machine.