ABSTRACT
Contemporary usage of the concept of organization gives it a formal-functional emphasis and this is more evident than in that branch of social science we call organization theory. In the study of systems, social or otherwise, it is often forgotten that representation is a necessary part of the "knowing" process. To comprehend the full significance of this conceptual shift it would be necessary to retrace the history of "system" as portrayed in the literature of sociology and systems theory where it would not be difficult to show that the concept of boundary has been displaced by the concept of system itself in all its unity. In the modern world, formal organization is the main device for transforming matter-energy but when the latter enters the social world it takes on informational character. Thus organizations, in the processing of raw materials, at the same time produce a communicational order which relates their members to each other.
