Guiding Processes of Organisational Dynamics
The question of what an organisation is, rests on the assumption that it is an object (with parts), which has characteristics and features. This is one possibility for viewing organisations.
With regard to changes, a theoretical description, which is not based on an object but, rather, on processes, seems to us more favourable. Processes arise, when alternatives must be worked on or when decisions must be made. If one examines organisational theory approaches regarding the question as to which decision alternatives are processed in organisations, and how this happens, one can find surprisingly many similarities. The answers and that which is considered right and wrong, are very different but the topics are similar.
With the guiding distinctions and processes selected and worked on here, we attempt to present a processual concept, which understands organisations as an interaction of decision-making processes within a communication context. This implies that the decisions mutually limit each other, prepare each other, exclude each other, put each other under pressure, support each other, provide each other with resources and define goals for each other. Thus, in organisations, there can be no total overview, no central authority which is informed about everything and joins in the discussion everywhere and which knows the consequences of decisions.
With the aid of nine guiding distinctions, organisations can be observed for their decision-making patterns and examined for (dys)functionality. At the same time, existing theories can be reconstructed with this model and evaluated in respect of their findings about organisational decision-making communication.