organization

Summary
• Based on the work of Karl Weick.
• OIT is essentially a macro theory with the organization as
the unit of analysis.
• The main activity of organizations is making sense of
“equivocal” information.

Overview of the Info. Mgt. Process
• Focus of theory is on the process to collect and manage
and make sense of information.
• Sense-making is accomplished through:
• Enactment
• Interpretation of diverse sources of information inputs
• Selection
• Choose method to gain further information
• Retention of information
• Collective memory of most valued information

The Only Constant Is Change
• Dynamic Equilibrium: traditionalism,
fundamentalism
• Learning Organizations:
• Lots of people have useful information (even at the
bottom)
• Process improvements shouldn’t threaten people
• Organizations and people should be positioned to
improve over time (not stay the course)

Theoretical Foundations
Theoretical perspectives that influenced OIT:
• Von Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory (1968)
• Systems are composed of parts
• The “whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
• All complex systems (including human organizations)
share similar characteristics and behaviors:
• Complexity – many interlocking parts
• Feedback and control – keeps system on-track
• Adaptation – changing environment can change system
• Equifinality – system seeks to return to equilibrium.

Organizational Information
• General Systems Theory
• Systems (whether mechanical or social) consist of lots of
variables and their relationships
• Lots of variables: as opposed to the something, anything
approach to social problems, or to unanticipatedconsequences
• Lots of relationships: multiple links, interactions, time
delays, feedback loops, periodicity

Applying GST to Org. Info. Processing
• Organizations are made up of interrelated and
interacting parts, i.e., they are systems.
• Information coordinates the action of the parts of the
system (Cybernetics)
• Controls on information processing occur via
information and control loops:
• Feedback – responding to stimulus
• Projection – looking at future trends, etc.
• Validation – making sure inputs and outputs are
appropriate

Problems in Implementing Systems
Models
• Very complex to analyze
• Hard to manage as a development tool
• Seem too intellectual for some people
• Easy to identify for cuts

Another Theoretical Base
• Campbell’s Theory of Sociocultural Evolution (1968)
• An expansion on Darwin's Theory of Evolution (1948)
• Organizations adapt or die.
• Organizations whose systems are self-modified to make
the most sense of equivocal information inputs are
successful and survive.
• Implication is that systems need to be capable of selfmodification…
have it “built in.”
• Successful adaptations are retained and persist.

Assumptions of OIT
1. Human organizations exist in an information
environment:
• Organizations depend on information to function and accomplish
its goals
• Information environments include many channels
• Complexity increases as the number of channels increases
2. The information an organization receives differs in terms
of its equivocality:
• Information equivocality is the presence of several
interpretations of the same event.
• Organizations need a process to make sense out of equivocal
information.
Continued…

Assumptions of OIT
3. Human organizations engage in information processing
to reduce the equivocality of information.
• Members of organizations must work together to reduce ambiguity
of information.

The Process of OIT
• Tasks in managing multiple sources of information:
• Interpreting
• Coordinating
• Rules are the guidelines established by an
organization for analyzing the equivocality of
messages and for guiding responses to information.
• In the presence of new forms of equivocal messages, the
rules should be able to adapt.

Types of Rules
• Duration
• Make decision in the shortest amount of time
• Personnel
• Most knowledgeable make the decisions
• Success
• Past successful adaptation will be used to reduce
equivocality
• Effort
• Make decisions with least amount of expense

Another Key Concept
• Cycles are the series of communication behaviors that
serve to reduce equivocality.
• Stages of a cycle:
• Act
• Something happens that establishes ambiguity
• Respond
• Choice of behavior to situation of ambiguity
• Adjust
• Equivocality is reduced; if not, triggers another cycle

The Relationships of Equivocality, Rules and
Cycles
• Organizational system element analyzes the relationship
among the equivocality of input information and existing
rules for removing equivocality.
• If only a few rules to reduce equivocality exist, more cycles
will be needed.
• The more cycles, the lower the ultimate equivocality.
• This results in (or should result in) successful adaptation to
an uncertain information environment via the
establishment of new rules.

Key Critiques
• Theory holds up quite well, but at first blush seems
hard to apply.
• Using a “systems approach” is difficult, as seen earlier,
but can be very informative.
• Utility
• By looking at the process of communication, OIT lets us
look at how organizations function dynamically.
• By applying Information Processing, OIT is on a more
solid theoretical foundation.

Key Critiques
• Heurism
• Has led to many studies and produced practical advice
for how organizations should function in complex and
dynamic environments.
• Logical Consistency
• Weick claims people in organizations follow established
rules, when in many cases they clearly don’t.
• Some organizations are static (or even “broken”) in the
sense that they don’t have the mechanisms in place for
doing OIT that Weick claims.
• Ignores effects of mergers, downsizing, offshoring, etc.