OBSERVING MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING AND INFORMATION FLOW FROM WITHIN THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AN EMERGING ORGANIZATION: A LIVING SYSTEMS ACTION-RESEARCH PROJECT

Authors

  • Sean William Coutts University of Toronto/OISE - Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Keywords:

decision-making, social entrepreneurship, Living Systems Theory, cybernetics, emergence, action research, Concrete Process Analysis, self-organization

Abstract

The investigation looked at a not-for-profit (NFP) organization referred to as SELF, which consisted of three for-profit, socially involved corporations, each serving on the Board. The problem was conceived of as an information overload situation which impacts the quality of decision-making at the highest organizational level, given the variety of information that must be processed by the Board of Directors, for example, financial, social, technological, and qualitative. The research used Living Systems Theory (LST) to take an organismic point of view in order to capture multiple forms of information as the organization evolves and adapts. The LST frame provided categories to tag and map information flows at a cross-level analysis at the “Decider” level. The research study is based on action-research, which takes place in iterative cycles of action and reflection. The research subjects were active participants in the research design and execution. 

Author Biography

Sean William Coutts, University of Toronto/OISE - Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Sean Coutts is a PhD Candidate in Educational Administration in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education. He is also a practicianer in the area of Social Entreprenership in Toronto, Canada.

Published

2013-03-09

How to Cite

Coutts, S. W. (2013). OBSERVING MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING AND INFORMATION FLOW FROM WITHIN THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AN EMERGING ORGANIZATION: A LIVING SYSTEMS ACTION-RESEARCH PROJECT. Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the ISSS - 2012, San Jose, CA, USA. Retrieved from https://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings56th/article/view/1865

Issue

Section

Living Systems Analysis