Domains of interaction between a social

Systems Practice, Vol. 6, No. 5, 1993

Domains of Interaction Between a Social System and
Its Environment
Rdul Espejo I
Received July 2, 1992; revised March 3, 1993

This paper offers insights about the role of complexity in the interaction between a
social system and its environment. For this purpose it clarifies, from the viewpoint
of the individuals constituting these social systems, the complementarity between
their domain of observation, or informational domain, and their domain of action,
or operational domain.
KEY WORDS: Organization; structure; complexity; information; action.
1. I N T R O D U C T I O N
This paper argues for a better account of the moment-to-moment interactions
between social systems and their environments. Today's emphasis is on the
more aggregated view of planners and strategists, whose planning and strategic
activities in effect imply an overcentralization of response capacity. This approach
is inhibiting a truly distributed response in which everyone is involved in creating
their future and in dealing with environmental disturbances to the best of their
abilities. The argument of this paper is developed around the concepts of operational and informational domains in human activities. If the human activity is

an organization, the operational domain relates to all the moment-to-moment
interactions of the people concerned, and the ways they absorb environmental
disturbances. On the other hand, the informational domain relates to the constructs of particular observers about these interactions. It is argued that while
the complexity of human activities is in the operational domain, accounting for
this complexity can take place only in the informational domain of particular
observers and, moreover, that dealing effectively with our Current social problems require that these observers do account for this operational domain.

~Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, U.K.
517
0894-9859/93/1000-0517507.00/0

9 1993 Plenum Publishing Corporation

518

Espejo

2. THE OPERATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL DOMAINS
Organizations are constituted, in the operational domain, by people's
moment-to-moment interactions. It is through these interactions that relationships are formed, and in a given space and time, the organizational structures

supporting people's actions are formed. This constitution is languaged by the
participants. Languaging takes place as people " b u m p " into each other and
make tacit and explicit distinctions about these bumps (i.e., they language them
into existence) in recurrent interactions. It follows that the so-called "organization" has no independent reality from those organizations created and recreated by these participants. However, as interactions are languaged in a common
domain of action, the observers can talk about the "organization."
Meanings for these interactions (i.e., purposes for them) may be given by
observers construing them in their informational domains. For instance, scientists attending the Aegean Seminar in Samos may produce the following name
for the Island: "Samos Island is a community-owned system, aiming to improve
their social and economic welfare, by making education and training accessible
to every one, in order to counter their increasing dependence on Athens."
However, different participants, constituting the island system, even if they
espouse the above name for the organization, are likely to bring forth in their
operational domains different "organizational systems."
It is in their interactions that participants negotiate and renegotiate the
distinctions they make in the operational domain (i.e., their "organizations"),
creating and recreating a shared reality: the organization. In this sense organizations are "multisystems" (Espejo, 1987), that is, ongoing processes in which
people negotiate with each other--not necessarily with the same negotiating
power--their "organizational systems" and thereby constitute the "organization." Indeed all of the participants in their operational domains are generating
distinctions of their own and, through recurrent coordination of coordination of
actions (i.e., language), are creating a consensual domain of action, or shared

reality, that observers call, say, "Samos Island. "The emergent identity, as an
outcome of interactions in the operational domain, has a far deeper meaning
than the name generated as an outcome of conversations about the island system.
This is the process by which epistemology is grounded in ontology (Maturana, 1987, 1988). In the consensual domain there is an "island" as a distinct,
autonomous entity. This reality is the outcome of cultural processes based on
language. The risk is to forget that a "shared reality" depends on this generative
process and that, in the social domain, this generative process is an ongoing
process. Forgetting this simple point may be the source of many conflicts and
naive assumptions about change.
That is why I am arguing the need to make a clear distinction between
people's moment-to-moment interactions in the operational domain and the dis-

Interaction Between a Social System and Its Environment

519

tinctions they make about that operational domain as observers. The complexity
of the operational domain, the domain of autonomy, cognition, and communications-that is, the domain of structural coupling (i.e., "bumpings") among
the participants--is orders of magnitude larger than that of an individual's distinctions in the informational domain. It is the first complexity, that emerging
from the multisystem, that we need to take into account for effective participation

in change processes. Moreover, because we operate in networks, the operational
domain relevant to our actions is not just that of our immediate interactions;
indeed the outcome of our actions depends on a wider operational domain, that
of the organizations in which our actions are embedded.

3. ORGANIZATIONAL CLOSURE
Organizations have closure in the operational domain of the people constituting them, that is, in the domain of the participants constituting the organization as a closed network of interactions. If this were not the case, then the
organization would not have identity in the participants' operational domains.
The implication of "closure" is that organizations are structure-determined.
Change in them is the outcome of a closed network of multiple adjustments
taking place among the participants (i.e., in their operational domain) as they
adjust to each other's position in response to external perturbations. Change is
determined by the internal coherences of the system and not by information
about external events. Change may be triggered by information, but not determined by it. Therefore it is misleading to say that organizations are "responding" to external "information, " as this is construed in common language. That
view may be useful in the informational domain of an observer; however, in
the operational domain participants are adjusting their stability vis-h-vis each
other as a result of environmental perturbations.
This makes apparent that the concept of information belongs to the domain
of observation (i.e., the domain where we talk about interactions; the information domain) and not to the operational domain. Therefore information is not
enough to understand change; what organizations receive from their environment

are perturbations that are absorbed in different ways by different structures. To
a large degree, it is not the content of a message that determines the response
but the structure that absorbs the message (i.e., the cognitive capacity of the
organization). People in organizations are constantly receiving information (i.e.,
messages) about aspects for which there is no structure to be "in-formed."
However valuable these messages might have been for the organization's viability, they are not "heard" (i.e., known). These messages simply are dissipated
in the complexity of the organization. The same message with a different structure would have produced a very different response.

520

Espejo

4. ORGANIZATION AND ENVIRONMENT
A useful distinction is between "an organization in its environment" and
"an organization in its medium." A common meaning attached to "environment" is that of the external circumstances affecting the enterprise. On the other
hand, a connotation for medium is that of the substratum, or surrounding, in
which an organization exists. The first statement, as implied above, is normally
understood as pertaining to the informational domain of observers; it is a strategic concept--its focus is on planning response strategies, based on intelligence
information gathered by the observers. Strategies are in the informational domain
of these observers. The second statement is focused on the autonomy of the

organization and is a relationship concept; its focus is on the instant-by-instant
communications (i.e., structural coupling) between all the viewpoints constituting the organization and its medium.
Relationships take place in the operational domain of the organization. An
emphasis on "environment" rather than on "medium" is an emphasis on symbols and representation (i.e., information), rather than on structural coupling
(i.e., knowledge and communications) and coordination of coordination of
actions (i.e., language). These distinctions are at the core of the epistemology
of second-order cybernetics (Maturana, 1987, 1988; Maturana and Varela, 1987;
Varela, 1979; Von Foerster, 1979).
The idea that only a few individuals are concerned with the environment,
namely, those working out the strategy and producing responses at the corporate
level, is replaced by the idea that everyone is responsible for the organization's
balance with its medium. Every single person should develop an appreciation
of how his/her actions, as members of the organization, affect the medium. In
other words, the idea of a boundary, that is, of a membrane separating the
enterprise (i.e., its people) from the environment is useful only in the informational domain. In the operational domain it is misleading; everyone is receiving perturbations from the medium. How these perturbations are absorbed is
structure-determined.
Dealing with the environment based on the informational domain of a group
of corporate observers, oblivious to the capabilities of the rest of the organizational members, is not enough for an organization to achieve effective stability
with its environment. Everybody needs to learn how to communicate with it,
that is, needs to learn how to manage the "environmental" impact of his/her

actions. This seems to be the intuitive underpinning of movements such as total
quality management, ecological management, and others. A "responsive" organization is one sensitive to its medium rather than one focused on its environment. The "responsive organization" is aware of far more complexity than the
"strategic organization." The latter organization is overcentralized and, on the

Interaction Between a Social System and Its Environment

521

whole, susceptible to mishandling the human resources involved in its constitution.
5. M O D E L I N G T H E OPERATIONAL DOMAIN
The network of interactions in the operational domain producing the organization may be construed differently by different observers. In other words, the
interpretive schema (Giddens, 1984) used by these observers to understand "the
mechanisms" producing an organization will depend on the forms of signification underlying their interactions. Accordingly, if the main emphasis is on
formal authority--that is, on who reports to whom, with little concern for autono m y - t h e n the observer is bringing forth the so-called hierarchical structure.
However, if the emphasis is on the mechanisms used to manage the complexity
of the organizational tasks--that is, on who sees and creates what complexity,
highlighting autonomy--then the parts and relationships are those of a recursive
structure (Espejo, 1990). In any case, we need interpretative schemata to make
sense of the operational domain of the people concerned.
The Viable System Model (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985) is one such interpretative scheme. It provides a language to account for the complexity of the

operational domain based on the assumption of organizational autonomy, that
is, on the assumption of recursive structures.
6. LINKING T H E OPERATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL
DOMAINS
Perhaps one of the key ideas in making possible an appreciation of organizational complexity is the transformation of purpose, in the informational
domain of particular observers, into organizational structure in the operational
domain of all the people constituting this organization. The Viable System Model
shows how to relate purpose, as ascribed by an observer to an organization, to
a set of autonomous parts constituting an autonomous whole. This modeling
helps to establish whether or not there is latent complexity to realize the ascribed
purpose in a given context (Espejo, 1989). It may also help to establish, in a
design mode, the requisite complexity to implement the espoused purposes
ascribed to the organization by a group of observers.
The VSM is a way of thinking about the complexity of the organization
and the complexity seen by the participants in that organization. Since complexity is not an intrinsic property of the organization but an emergent property
of the interactions of its participants, establishing this complexity will depend
on working out the alignment of the operational domain interactions with the
specific purposes ascribed to the organization. An observer may see a university
as being highly complex if its ascribed purpose is the creation of knowledge,

522

Espejo

but not as complex (vis-h-vis the demands of the "market") if its ascribed
purpose is the profitable marketing of this knowledge. However, in relative
terms, even if the distinctions made by individual academics are many--that is,
even if their individual complexities are high--if the structures underlying their
interactions are inadequate (vis4t-vis the demands of the environment), that is,
if the organization's (cognitive) operational domain is weak, then the organizational complexity--that is, the fit of the organization in its medium--as perceived by those participating and managing the organization--is likely to be
inadequate.
The VSM makes apparent that hierarchical structures build up organizational complexity at the expense of maintaining relatively low complexity at the
lower structural levels. This structure is likely to perform well, though--most
likely--not to the satisfaction of those whose complexity is constrained by it, if
the environmental complexity is relatively low. However, if this is not the case,
recursive structures will be necessary, that is, structures which depend on the
cohesion of fully develop individual autonomy at all structural levels.
The VSM is a model to accomplish this kind of social accounting. The
great interest of this model is that it allows us to talk, in the informational
domain of an observer, about the operational domain of an organization and

account for its complexity.
People's perception of task complexity, in their domain of autonomous
operation, relates to their fully fledged experiences and not to particular dimensions, as rationalized by an observer (even if the observing is self-referential).
Complexity is defined in relational terms and not in absolute terms; whether
something is complex or not depends on whether the person or organization
concerned is able to maintain satisfactory stability in the full range of interactions
necessary to maintain the person's or the organization's autonomy. Hence, all
kinds of distinctions--in the technical, social, ethical, political, or any other
sphere--are considered in accounting for complexity. Indeed, this autonomy is
the source of complexity that the communication mechanisms need to accommodate for an effective organization. Studying these mechanisms and their
appropriateness for the purposes ascribed to an organization is studying the

cybernetics of the organization.
7. CULTURALLY AND SYSTEMICALLY FEASIBLE CHANGE
The VSM provides a language in which to appreciate the complexity of
organizational tasks and the communication mechanisms underlying people's
interactions. This model redresses the balance between immediate and distant
interactions as determinants of human action.
Today, with the pendulum of social theory moving away from structural-

Interaction Between a Social System and Its Environment

523

ism/functionalism, action in organizations appears to be overinfluenced by a de
facto concern with the content of the immediate interactions, at the expense of
the wide range of contextual interactions taking place elsewhere, which, in one
form or another, are determining the actions that are unlikely to happen in
particular places and points in time. For instance, a centralized organization
structure, one supporting with its structure the tacit belief that dealing with
ecological issues is the concern of experts alone, is likely to reduce the chances
of people on the shopfloor getting involved in interactions aimed at reducing
the negative ecological effects of their manufacturing operations. This kind of
structure is one in which the informational domain of the experts overshadows
appreciating the organization's "operational domain" capabilities, taking away
from the shopfloor the chances of purposeful ecological action. It is this connectivity, hugely complex, between the actions of people operating in different
places and times (connected by structures of different kinds) that needs to be
understood in order to recognize whether a particular action/change is possible
in a concrete situation. The VSM offers individuals a handle to appreciate this
complexity.
Of course, the VSM can also be used in a design mode to work out the
necessary connectivities to make possible desirable outcomes.
The considerations above have interesting methodological implications for
effective problem solving (i.e., change) in organizations. For this purpose it is
not enough to improve debates and allow people to appreciate better the viewpoints of other participants. It is not enough to make change "culturally feasible"; it is also necessary to make it " systemically feasible." In other words,
effective problem solving necessitates not only an enhanced appreciation but
also an effective operational domain for problem solvers to create issues of
concern and implement the change implied by these issues.
This is in contrast to the focus of well-known " s o f t " methodologies in
wide use today, such as the Soft Systems Methodology (Checkland, 1981;
Checkland and Scholes, 1990). For these methodologies, problem solving is
about the systemic desirability and cultural feasibility of any proposed change,
apparently conflating the informational and operational domains. For the Soft
Systems Methodology systemic aspects are understood only as unconstrained
processes in the mind of the problem solver; there is no reference to systemic
constraints in the operational domain. But these constraints are limiting, to
different degrees, the scope for effective organizational conversations or the
scope for implementing desirable change. To overcome these weaknesses I have
suggested elsewhere the need to underpin problem solving with a different methodology, the Cybernetic Methodology, that recognizes the complementarity
between the informational domain of the problem owners and the operational
domain of their organizational context (Espejo, 1992).

524

Espejo

8. C O M P L E M E N T A R I T Y OF T H E I N F O R M A T I O N A L AND
O P E R A T I O N A L DOMAINS
The argument of this paper has been that the information and operational
domains of human action are complementary: as observing systems we operate
in the informational domain by necessity, we are observing inputs/outputs from
others and thus reducing their autonomy to our observational capabilities; as
observed systems we operate in the operational domain where bumpings take
place as we interact with each other, and for this purpose, concepts such as
identity and autonomy are central. The problem seems to be that we overemphasize the informational domain and conflate it with the operational domain.
We are trapped in the talking about human activities, while our actions talk by
themselves in the interactions we carry out. Methodologically the problem may
be that we do not have adequate language to account for the complexity that
people (in their operational domain) see in these interactions. The moment we
talk for others we are in the informational domain, yet an effective design of
social systems depends on an adequate accounting of complexity in the operational domain. Is there any way to account for the complexity of the operational
domain? This paper has made apparent the relevance of understanding the cybernetics o f the situation, and in particular the Viable System Model, for this
purpose.
Individuals in interactions must be aware not only of the situational content
(which, by definition, is in the informational domain), but also of the situational
context (which relates to the operational domain) and the chances offered by
that context for them to develop their autonomy. Appreciating the operational
domain relevant to the situation does not say what kind of change can happen-this is the concern of organizational culture and politics--but what kind of
change cannot happen, and if the change of interest falls within the space of,
impossibility, then we know that, however strong is the political will to make
it happen, simply it is not going to happen. The systemic context will not allow
it to happen.

REFERENCES

Beer, S. (1979). The Heart of Enterprise, Wiley, Chichester.
Beer, S. (1981). Brain of the Firm, 2nd ed., Wiley, Chichester.
Beer, S. (1985). Diagnosing the System for Organizations, Wiley, Chichester.
Checkland, P. (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, Wiley, Chichester.
Checkland, P., and Sholes, J. (1990). Soft Systems Methodology in Action, Wiley, Chichester.
Espejo, R. (1987). From machines to people and organisations. In Jackson, M., and Keys, P.
(eds.), New Directions in Management Science,, Gower, U.K.
Espejo, R. (1989). A method to study organizations. In Espejo, R., and Hamden, R. (eds.), The
Viable System Model, Wiley, Chichester.

Interaction Between a Social System and Its Environment

525

Espejo, R. (1990). Complexity and change: Reflections upon the cybernetic intervention in Chile,
1970-1973. Syst. Pract.3, 303-313.
Espejo, R. (1992). Management of complexity in problem solving. Trans. Inst. Measure. Control
14, 8-16.

Giddens, R. (1984). The Constitution of Society, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Maturana, H. (1987). Everything is said by an observer. In Thompson, W. I. (ed.), Gaia: A Way
of Knowing, Lindisfarne Press, CA(1988).
Maturana, H. (1988). The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument. Irish J.
Psychol. 9 (1), 25-82.
Maturana, H., and Varela, F. (1987). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human
Understanding, Shambhala., Boston.
Varela, F. (1979). Principles of Biological Autonomy. Elsevier (North-Holland), New York.
Von Foerster, H. (1979). Cybernetics of cybernetics. In Krippendorff, K. (ed.), Communications
and Control in Society, Gordon and Breach, New York.