Structural Coupling: A Biological Construct for Organizational Development
The concept of structural coupling as presented by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's book, The Tree of Knowledge (1987), is defined as "a history of recurrent interactions leading to the structural congruence between two (or more) systems (p.75)." While their focus was to describe the biological nature of cellular unity (the balance between internal dynamics and boundaries of cellular structures); the model presented in this simple diagram presents a strong framework for the field of organizational behavior. Specifically, when considering system alignments between discrete but interrelated systems.
Systems thinking is a hallmark of the field of organizational behavior; often organizations are understood as living entities (a dialectical culture of work). Thus the application of a biological paradigm can be understood by describing any organization, as an organism with a cellular structure having both internal process (functions) and permeable boundaries (inputs and outputs). This conceptualization is a departure from the traditional concepts of bureaucratic organization charts (pyramids).
The power of this cellular model of organization is the ability to describe system alignments based on the shared and mutual exchanges of inputs and outputs, The extent to which these dialectical exchanges have a heightened degree of "shared meaning" is in direct relationship to each "cell's" ability to meet its "unity." This is to say, the organization(s) become more sustainable and tolerant of environmental shifts.
Systems which can align dialectically into mutual reinforcing relationship will find the nature of their structural coupling to be a highly integrated complex network of perturbations (state changes) that produce beneficial adaptations in response to environmental changes. The opposite is also true, those systems which produce destructive interactions will find their cellular unity to be unsustainable. Thus, structural coupling as a model is descriptive of a sustainability model for system alignments when devising organizational change in response to major environmental shifts.
Source: (Manturana & Varela,1987)
Reminds me of the tax system of "spillins and spillouts". Unfortunately, govt jurisdictions use expenditure limits as defined by their scope of service, so the coupling action requires shared expenditures, a blending....
Jeff--Insightful analysis of systems thinking and how it applies to traditional organizations. When we developed New World of Work,we had the student/workers' interest in mind to teach them how to take agency for their own work. This is very different from more prescriptive workforce training programs, which tailor to specific needs of employers. With the rate of flux in today's economy, employers may not even know what they need. By training workers to anticipate the changes within a system, they can adapt for what the needs of the organization will be. It will be fascinating to see how this applies to a bureaucratic system, such as state government.