Browsing by Author "Topp, Warren Kent"

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    The organisational change agent as an appreciative system : increasing effectiveness in business process reengineering through the systems approach
    (1995) Topp, Warren Kent; Strumpfer, Johan
    This thesis is concerned with the effectiveness of change agents within organisations. The argument presented is that the effectiveness of change agents depends on their ability to develop an understanding of the complex situations they are faced with. This includes a rich understanding of their own role within the situation. The systems approach described by Churchman (1971, 1979) and further developed by Ulrich (1983) provides methods that aid the development of a rich understanding of, inquiry into, and intervention in complex socio-technical situations. The structure of the paper will take the following form: Part 1: Appreciative systems and the systems approach. Performance criteria for change agents are declared. The key role of appreciation ineffective change management is highlighted. An explanation of appreciative systems and how the systems approach can make them more effective is presented. Finally an appreciative frame for human populated (social) systems is explained. Part 2: Investigating sources of purpose in traditional Business Process Reengineering (BPR).Before developing the complete the appreciative framework in Part 3, our understanding will be consolidated by applying the human populated systems frame to organisational change (business process reengineering) as a system.
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    Towards heuristic systems methods for generating new knowledge in post-industrial business
    (1999) Topp, Warren Kent; Strümpfer, Johan
    The contribution of the current work is to appropriate aspects of post-modern philosophy into systems methods that support new knowledge creation in post-industrial business. The author has developed a three-part model of the organization as a knowledge system: The first component is the formative system, which enables or regulates what can be expressed and thought by individuals within a specific business situation. The second component is the individual subject, who has a set of a priori concepts and systems ideas that guide his or her thoughts, utterances, and actions. The last component of the model is the conversation system, which describes the interface between the formative system and the individual subject. Three heuristic methods, which support interventions aimed at specific areas of the model, are developed...