THE MAIN PURPOSE OF A LABOR UNION / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM THE MAIN PURPOSE OF A LABOR UNION / TUTORIALOUTLET | Page 11

ORGANIZATIONS, POWER, AND POLITICS There are many
ways to view organizations. In my opinion, one of the most
useful ways is to view them as open socio-technical systems. The idea
that
organizations are "open" is important because they really
are a part of their
external environments and the interaction is continuous and ongoing.
That is,
they impact on their environments and they are impacted upon by
their environments. Organizations are "socio-technical" in
the sense that they contain
both social and technological components, or subsystems, which also
interact
in a continuous and ongoing basis. When the organization is viewed
as a "system,"
the essential role of management is to "fit" the social
system to the technology
and to "fit" the organization to its environment. The focus
is not only on the
components, or parts, but on the relationships and interactions
between them.
Figure I represents an expanded version of the socio-technical
systems model
and may be described as follows:
• The Environment(s): E2, The general environment, consists of those
forces
which are potentially relevant for all organizations, including
technological,
economic, political, and social. El, the specific environment, consists
of those
elements which are immediately relevant for and/or are in direct
contact
with a given organization, such as suppliers, banks, customers,
environmentalists,
unions, and distributors.
• Inputs: are generally raw materials, money, people, ideas,
information, technology, and other factors which the organization