Page 47 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes Classification of Sub-systems

There are various ways of classifying sub-systems and one may support any of them. Each of the
organisation unit may be treated as a sub-system. In other words, each functional unit of an
organisation may be regarded as different sub-systems such as production sub-system, personnel
or finance or sales sub-systems, etc. Seiler has classified four components in an organisation, i.e.,
human inputs, technological inputs, organisational inputs and social structure and norms. From
these inputs, he has derived, the concept of socio-technical system, Kast and Rosenzweig have
identified five sub-systems, i.e., goal and values sub-system, technical sub-system, psychological
sub-system structural sub-system, and managerial sub-system. Katz and Kahn have identified
five sub-systems. These are: technical sub-system concerned with the work that gets done;
supportive sub-system concerning with the procurement, disposal and institutional relations;
maintenance sub-system for uniting people into their functional roles; adaptive sub-system
concerned with organisational change; and managerial sub-system for direction, adjudication
and control of the many sub-systems and activities of the whole structure. Carzo and Yunouzas
give three kinds of sub-systems in an organisation as a system, i.e., technical, social and power
sub-systems. We shall here discuss these three sub-systems.
1. Technical Sub-system: The technical sub-system may be referred to as the formal
organisation. It refers to the knowledge required for the performance of tasks including
the techniques used in the transformation of inputs into outputs. Being a formal
organisation, it decides to make use of a particular technology; there is a given layout;
policies, rules and regulations are framed; different hierarchical levels are developed,
authority is given and responsibilities are fixed; and necessary technical engineering and
efficiency consideration are laid down. The behaviour in the organisation cannot be
explained fully by technical sub-system, also because there is a fundamental conflict
between the individual—a part of the system and the system itself resulting from the
expectancies of the organisation and that of the people—regarding the work he has to
perform. It requires certain modifications in the behaviour of the man through the social
and power sub-systems (explained later).

The objective of the technical sub-system is to make necessary imports from the
environment, transform them into products or services and export them back to the
environment. For this purpose, it involves decisions, communications, action and balance
processes. Through the decision process, three main problems of what to produce, for
whom to produce and how to produce are resolved. Decisions are based on information
gathered from various sources. Such information is communicated through the
communication process to action centres to implement them. Through balance process, an
administrative balance is obtained so that all parts may be coordinated and no one part
can dominate all other parts in the organisation. These processes take place on the basis of
roles assigned to people according to the requirements of the job. In order to handle the
job properly one is given authority from the superiors and is assigned a status matching
with the importance of the job and the individual’s ability to do the job. Norms of conduct
are defined in the well-designed policies, norms, rules, procedures and description of the
job. Thus, the arrangement of job in relation to each other, process and authority relations,
etc. provide a structure to the technical sub-system.
2. Social Sub-system: As we have explained earlier, there exists a conflict between an
individual and the system itself because people differ very widely in abilities, capacities,
attitudes and beliefs, likes and dislikes, etc. People find the formal set-up quite inadequate
to satisfy all their needs especially social ones. Gradually they are seen interacting with
each other and at times by cutting across the hierarchical and departmental lines, etc. on
non-formal matters. Thus, they form groups to discuss their informal matters and display
their positive and negative sentiments towards each other. Sometimes, one member gets

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