Exam 4: Organizations As Communication Systems

A system grows as a result of deviation-amplifying feedback.

Open systems exchange information and ______.

Which of the following influenced the development of systems theory/systems thinking in organizations?

Which best characterizes how Weick explains the relationship between rules and equivocality?

Constructing rational accounts after an organizing process that is ambiguous is the role of ______.

With systems theory, we see a shift in the dominant ______ for talking about the natural and social world.

Systems theory shifts our attention from "independent parts" to "______ parts."

Reducing work in organizations into their smallest known components is a key feature - and goal - of systems theory.

Groupthink is a negative effect of ______.

When your world is relatively predictable, you are probably in a high equivocality context.

Organizations can often have multiple and competing ______.

Self-organizing systems are characterized by change that is enacted in accordance with core principles that guide system behavior and ______ due to a large influx of new information.

Two presidential candidates decided to take different approaches to "getting out the vote." One political campaign went the social media route, Tweeting, Facebooking, and mobilizing voters online. The other political campaign went the face-to-face route, knocking on doors and holding rallies. On election day, both campaigns were surprised to see that each had mobilized a great number of voters - voter turnout was unprecedented for both candidates. This best illustrates ______.

Micah tells Fran that he wants the report by 9 A.m. Fran asks if he wants the final report or just a first draft. Micah responds by saying, "Just the first draft." This ______ reduces equivocality.

One of the most important tasks of a system is determining what belongs in the system and what belongs outside of the system.

Sia is pursuing her passion to help formerly-incarcerated women successfully rebuild their lives outside of prison. She and several community partners started a nonprofit organization that works to organize the social, material, legal, occupational, and psychological resources that might best support women's success after incarceration. The thing is, though, Sia is frustrated because everything just seems so messy. Her team is awesome and they have a great idea, but she needs encouragement and also some practical ways to make sense of how her often-improvised "mess" is actually an organization. Which of the following systems theorist might best offer her insight to her processes of organizing?

According to Kenneth Boulding, a system is anything that is not in ______.

The dot-com bust of the late 1990's/early 2000's and the financial meltdown of 2008 are both examples of which process gone "awry" in a system?

For the first time, systems theory provides us with a complex communication model that allows us to ______.

In a system, feedback that corrects a deviation from the norm (error-activated) is called ______.