ABSTRACT
Systems thinking has become more prominent in the West in succession to the traditional and human relations models. It is profoundly different to the reductionist thinking on which much of the, somewhat piecemeal, quality approaches rest. Thinking about organisations as ‘systems’ builds upon the early work of Bogdanov, Barnard, Selznick and von Bertalanffy and is of increasing significance for management thinkers and practitioners. Systemic thinking considers the organisation as arising from a complex but, often quite arbitrarily, bounded network of elements and relationships in interaction with its environment. Contingency theory initially arose from the body of work concerning leadership and motivation. The principal proponent of this psychology-based approach is Fiedler who suggests that the best leadership style depends on the circumstances of the organisation. The goal sub-system is concerned with the survival of the organisation in both the long and the short terms, with normative, strategic and operational objectives.
