Da teoria das organizações às instituições

Neste artigo são passadas em revista algumas das principais teorias da organização empresarial à luz da moderna teoria dos grafos. Analisa-se, em primeiro lugar, a teoria clássica da gestão teorizada por H. Fayol, mostrando-se como ela pode ser revista de acordo com a teoria dos grafos hierárquicos. De seguida, analisa-se o conceito de rede dinâmica, o qual leva a abandonar a teoria neoclássica quer da empresa quer do mercado e a caracterizar as empresas evoluindo nos ambientes das tecnologias da informação. São passados em revista os casos da Cisco Systems e da Microsoft Inc., salientando-se o tipo de grafos que lhes correspondem. É finalmente destacado o papel dos standards em tecnologias da informação, concluindo-se serem necessários mecanismos de regulação institucional em dinâmicas empresariais que tendem a favorecer a emergência de monopólios.

Systems thinking: learning or driving?

The ability to foresee how behaviour of a system arises from the interaction of its components over time - i.e. its dynamic complexity – is seen an important ability to take effective decisions in our turbulent world. Dynamic complexity emerges frequently from interrelated simple structures, such as stocks and flows, feedbacks and delays (Forrester, 1961). Common sense assumes an intuitive understanding of their dynamic behaviour. However, recent researches have pointed to a persistent and systematic error in people understanding of those building blocks of complex systems. This paper describes an empirical study concerning the native ability to understand systems thinking concepts. Two different groups - one, academic, the other, professional – submitted to four tasks, proposed by Sweeney and Sterman (2000) and Sterman (2002). The results confirm a poor intuitive understanding of the basic systems concepts, even when subjects have background in mathematics and sciences.

Systems thinking: learning or driving?

The ability to foresee how behaviour of a system arises from the interaction of its components over time - i.e. its dynamic complexity – is seen an important ability to take effective decisions in our turbulent world. Dynamic complexity emerges frequently from interrelated simple structures, such as stocks and flows, feedbacks and delays (Forrester, 1961). Common sense assumes an intuitive understanding of their dynamic behaviour. However, recent researches have pointed to a persistent and systematic error in people understanding of those building blocks of complex systems. This paper describes an empirical study concerning the native ability to understand systems thinking concepts. Two different groups - one, academic, the other, professional – submitted to four tasks, proposed by Sweeney and Sterman (2000) and Sterman (2002). The results confirm a poor intuitive understanding of the basic systems concepts, even when subjects have background in mathematics and sciences.