This research details the development of a new model for analysing organisations and will demonstrate its subsequent use in an investigation of the NHS. The objective of the research is as follows: • To develop a model of research based on two existing systems approaches; Beer's Organisational Cybernetics (1979) and Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology (1981) and to use this model within a complementarist frame of reference. In presenting its arguments, this work is organised as follows. Chapter One provides a perspective of the English NHS. This will give the reader an insight of the organisational context in which the research took place. Chapter Two gives an overview of the key philosophical and epistemological positions within the field of organisational analysis. This is an important chapter, since the issues which are raised in it begin to argue the case for complementarism, rather than studying organisations through mutually exclusive theoretical paradigms. Chapter Three argues the case for studying organisations through a systems approach and then using these approaches within a complementarist format, thereby ensuring that more than one approach can be used. Thus, Chapter Three will provide an argument which develops the ideas generated in Chapter Two. Chapter Four will continue to build on the arguments raised in the third chapter by using two specific approaches to promote a complementarist-based systems approach for organisational analysis. Following this. in Chapter Five one case study will be analysed using three different approaches; the Viable Systems Model. Soft Systems Methodology and the integrated approach developed in Chapter Four. Finally. Chapter Six draws together the findings from each of the case studies and endeavours to show how the Viable Systems approach and Soft Systems Methodology compliment each other.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:629352 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Aldridge, Simon |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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