A GENEALOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN SOFT SYSTEMS THINKING, ACTIONRESEARCH, AND MANAGERIAL AUTHORITY

摘要

A genealogical analysis of the attractions of the “democratic-participative” view of the relationship between employee behaviourrnand legitimate managerial authority has been developed. This view of managerial authority; inherent in Soft Systems Methodologyrn(SSM) - however attractive it may be - renders IS modelling impossible. Consequently, because SSM advocates regard employeernbehaviour as entirely free (underdetermined), SSM models cannot be standardly used for generating IS models. It is concludedrnthat systems practitioners need new methods (tools and techniques) to develop appropriate understandings of the relationshiprnbetween management and subordinates in the organisations in which they are seeking to use of systems methodologies to bringrnabout improvements. The person, in SSM, is not a dangerous individual: he or she is a potentially erratic actor. A consequencernof the “free will” philosophical underpinning of SSM being that all manner of informal distractions from the environment, orrnpersonal “bent”, etc., may cause the subject to “attribute meanings” to the organisation and its activities which are potentiallyrndysfunctional. The bona fide SSM practitioner is supposed to be committed to such a view of human behaviour, and therngenealogical history of the contemporary desirability of such a view (from a managerial perspective) has been put forward. Onrnthis view, the subjects may enter a debate to decide, in a democratic-participative manner, which activities are “truly relevant”.rnOnce this has been decided, and the interests of the actors have been “accommodated” the institutionalised repression of thosernwills-to-activity that are “truly erratic” can now “legitimately” take place. However, there is an inevitable price to be paid forrnthis conception of the erratic actor - that price is that organisational process modelling is rendered (philosophically, but quiternliterally) impossible; hence the many arguments propounded by SSM advocates about systems models as being only “relevant”rnto a study. If information systems are to be developed (along traditional lines at any rate) it should be possible to modelrnorganisational processes (existing or desired) at an early stage. It has been argued that this cannot be done using SSM in a bonarnfide manner, and this is the price that must, ultimately but inevitably, be paid if one is to treat employee behaviour as beingrnunderdetermined by managerial directives. Of course, if SSM is utilised in IS analysis and design, the price to be paid by thernorganisational actors will include increasingly intrusive examinations into their “real” (subjective) motives for their behaviours;rnthese motives will be construed as stemming from circumstances and influences both within and outside the organisation.