The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments

To link or not to link? Multiple team membership and unit performance.

“…Of course, cost differentials and efficiency considerations are an important part of the debate between lean manufacturing techniques and autonomous teams, which has been occurring for at the least the past 50 years (e.g., Emery & Trist, 1969). The VHA setting, which did not seek to reduce staff count as part of multiple team membership, provided a unique setting that allowed us to examine the effect of multiple team membership holding labor cost constant.…”

Systems approaches to economic development for indigenous people: a case study of the Noongar Aboriginals of Australia

“…The fundamental knowledge on which much of my approach here has been based can be found in the combined works of Checkland [1]; Checkland and Scholes [3]; Emery [11,15]; Emery and Trist [18]. These authors have defined the changing nature of contextual environments for organizations, promoted the use of an active adaptive orientation to planning and ''fostered a collaborative, participative-democratic methodology'' [19, p. 28].…”

Self‐actualisation as a moral concept and the implications for motivation in organisations: a Kantian argument

“…Here we can comment briefly on connections between self-actualisation as moral motivation and the analysis of organisations as systems adapting to their environments. In some of Trist's work we find reference to the need for values (societal, organisational and individual) which would enhance organisational capacity to cope with environmental complexity and turbulence (Emery and Trist 1965). Trist (Emery and Trist 1975, 175-7) asserted that under such conditions organisations require people who can maintain a balance between the development of their distinctive selves and the qualities required as members of collaborative social systems.…”