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The Second “arche”, Organizations as Social Systems: Luhmann

In: Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Achterbergh

    (Radboud University Nijmegen Fac. Management Sciences)

  • Dirk Vriens

    (Radboud University Nijmegen Fac. Management Sciences)

Abstract

In the previous chapters, we explored the first organizational “arche,” i.e., we discussed organizations as conducting risky experiments with meaningful survival. We based this discussion on insights taken from first- and second-order cybernetics. In this chapter, we shift our attention to the second “arche,” to organizations as social systems. As argued in Chap. 1, experiments in organizations are characteristically social. Selecting goals, designing infrastructures, and performing operational regulation are all communicative events belonging to the “system of connected communications” we call the organization. This “addition” of the social character to the experiment changes nothing of what we said about control, design, and operational regulation in earlier chapters. At the same time, it also changes everything. Because organizations are a particular type of social systems, we need to specify the social character of the experiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Achterbergh & Dirk Vriens, 2009. "The Second “arche”, Organizations as Social Systems: Luhmann," Springer Books, in: Organizations, chapter 0, pages 113-163, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-00110-9_4
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-00110-9_4
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