Modeling the information-processing aspect of organizational functions

Abstract

Information is essential to the performance, control, and coordination of an organization's functions. Yet, although an increasingly broad variety of models is used for the analysis and evaluation of organizational processes and functions, their information-processing aspects are only rarely considered in these models. In this paper I present an approach to the abstraction and description of information-processing aspects of organizational functions. The descriptions so obtained can then be translated into simulation models that, interfaced with suitable models of the organizational functions they support; can be used for the design and analysis of organizational functions as well as for the development of their supporting information systems.