8: Developing Organizational Pattering

In this chapter we discuss and elaborate on the conceptual framework of OP, particularly with respect to the research results produced from the empirical analyses. Earlier, we related the ability of an organization to change to its fitness, this being defined in terms of organizational coherence and pathology. In this chapter the statistical inferences created in the last chapter are explored in terms of the notions of coherence and pathology.

In the last chapter we set up the data-gathering and analyzing processes, through which one can measure respondents’ values, attitudes, and beliefs about change processes. OP was used, which adopts the same paradigmatic base as OD, but it is potentially more capable than OD of creating more information. The OP approach is able to capture much more data than OD for organizational change situations in the Chinese SOCBs. This is because the propositions that have been introduced to the OP paradigm are more extensive that those of OD. From a systemic perspective, the latter is based on a simple input–output system model, while the former is based on a much more extensive cybernetic model. Logically, then, it should be the case that OP should reveal more inferences than OD, and this suggests that there is an extended possibility of inferring more information about change than is possible for OD.