Brain of the firm : the managerial cybernetics of organization : companion volume to the Heart of enterprise

This is a fresh and significantly expanded edition of a book which has already become a management ‘standard’ both in universities and on the bookshelves of managers and their advisers. In it the author, who was a pioneer of managerial cybernetics, develops an account of the firm based upon insights derived from the study of the human nervous system. Such understanding of neurophysiology as the reader needs is explained. Brain and management structures are elucidated and continuously compared, and a theory of effective organization is thereby evolved. This process should not be thought of as ‘analogy’, but as the pursuit of fundamental principles whereby self-regulatory systems are necessarily constructed. The resulting model has already been applied to many kinds of enterprise, and has proved its value both as a diagnostic tool and as a guide to the design of new, and the extension of old, businesses. Outstandingly, when the author was invited by President Salvador Allende to apply cybernetic thinking to the whole social economy of Chile, he took with him the manuscript for the first edition of Brain. It became the project’s ‘bible’. Now, in the addition of a whole new section entitled ‘The Course of History’, Stafford Beer gives for the first time a full account of his involvement, in narrative form. It has been eagerly awaited by many who have previously read the technical side of the story. The companion volume to this book is The Heart of Enterprise, which is intended to support and complement this text.Size: 47 MB, Pages: 412, Commentary: New updated cleaned OCRd scan with PDF table of contents and correct page numbers. Some figures pages are rotated to landscape. DPI: 600, Cleaned: Yes, Bookmarks: Yes, OCR: Y. Front cover Front flap: blurb Halftitle Title Fulltitle Colophon Dedication Contents Preface to first edition Preface to second edition Acknowledgements Part One: Conceptual Components Sumary of Part One Chapter One: Let's think again Let's Think Again — Again Chapter Two: Concepts and terms NOTE Chapter Three: The dimensions of the problem Chapter Four: The organization of unthinkable systems Chapter Five: Hierarchies of control Part Two: The Form of the Model Summary of Part Two Chapter Six: The anatomy of management Chapter Seven: Control physiology Chapter Eight: Autonomy Chapter Nine: Autonomic management Chapter Ten: The biggest switch Part Three: The Use of the Model Summary of Part Three Chapter Eleven: Corporate structure and its quantification Notes on the Divisional Role in Corporate Organization (i) Operate within the Intention of the Whole Organism (ii) Operate within the Co-ordinating Framework of System Two (iii) Submit to the Automatic Control of System Three Itself Notes on the Measures of Achievement Chapter Twelve: Autonomics — systems one, two, three Notes on the Operation of System One Notes on the Operation of System Two Notes on the Operation of System Three Notes on the Problems of Systemic Interfaces Chapter Thirteen: Environments of decision — system four Notes on the Context of System Four Notes on the Corporate Model in System Four Notes on the Operation of the Development Directorate Notes on the Development of System Four Note in the Second Edition Chapter Fourteen: The multinode—system five The Paradigm of Logical Search The Metric of Uncertainty An Example Chapter Fifteen: The higher management Part Four: The Course of History Summary of Part Four Chapter Sixteen: A flying start Chapter Seventeen: Into its stride The Cyberstride Program Suite The Checo Programs The Operations Room Project Cybersyn The People Project The Management of Variety in the Political Context The Notion of the Algedonic Loop Algedonic Participation Vox Populi... 'The Manual' 5 Principles for the People: Towards Good Government First Principle: Government is the people's help Second Principle: To help means helping now Third Principle: The road to help has signposts Fourth Principle: Help is a name & face Fifth Principle: The future starts today Externalities Chapter Eighteen: The October watershed The Gremio Strike The Problem of Cybernetic Training in Industry The October Perspective A New Recursion Chapter Nineteen: The end of the beginning The Cybernetics of Public Accountability Healthy and Pathological Autopoiesis Criteria for Proposals for Organizational Change in Chile (dated 27th April 1973) The End of 'The Peaceful Road' Chapter Twenty: Prospectus The Cybernetics of Crisis (i) The System is Obedient to Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (ii) Information Channels Maintain Variety Entrusted to Them (iii) Transducers neither Attenuate nor Amplify Variety (iv) The time cycle is synchronous for all subsystems The Cybernetics of Progress A Tentative and Final Methodology towards Entelechy On Technological Method The Cybernetics of Prospectus Note to Part Four: References explicit to these five chapters Part Five: Appendix Glossary of cybernetic terms used in this book Select bibliography A. Source Books in Neurophysiology B. Selections in Neurocybernetics C. General Introductions to Cybernetics Itself D. Explicit References Index Back flap: author information Back cover: The Heart of Enterprise "This is the second edition of a book which has already become a management standard both in universities and on the bookshelves of managers and their advisers. Brain of the Firm develops an account of the firm based upon insights derived from the study of the human nervous system, and is a basic text from the author's theory of viable systems. Despite the neurophysiology, the book is written for managers to understand. The companion volume to this book is The Heart of Enterprise, which is intended to support and complement this text."--Jacket