There is a lack of artifacts to handle the enterprise self, and consequently with its dynamic self-governing system, responsible for continuously assuring its viability and sustainability, in a fast changing environment. We need constructs to better model enterprises as self-observing systems, and not merely as observed systems. We introduce the concept of Enterprise Operating System (EOS), as the emerging enterprise´s control and governing system, which turns enterprises into autonomous, intelligent, viable and sustainable entities. Our assumption is that all organizations, being complex social-technical systems, evolve to higher complex levels, whereby at some point “organizational autonomous life” emerges as a reification, at a macro systemic level, of the social-technical network of its autonomous agents or its network nodes. This reification is precisely realized by the emergence of the EOS, which turns the enterprise into a kind of autopoietic system, with logical closure, characterized by its self-reference, identity assertion, and the emergence of its consciousness. The EOS should be able to compile in near real time its position and trajectory (integrating its functional, ontological and evolutionary views), to assess if is in line with its viable and sustainable states set and trigger/call for correction actions whenever needed. Our research goal is to develop a universal EOS (UEOS) model and a methodology, to design, diagnose and improve the EOS of any organization, supported by sound theory, grounded in Enterprise Engineering knowledge, General System Theory, Viable Systems Theory and other relevant complexity theories.
By Enterprise we mean any kind of social entity with a purposeful endeavor [
The enterprise´s self-organizing and self-controlling capabilities are constantly
being challenged by increasingly complex, changing and uncertain environments. The
pace of change is accelerating, with the rate of technological progress continuously
rising in a hyper connected world, where systems and people, at a local and global
levels, are communicating and exchanging information between themselves. To
address the revolutionary and/or disruptive technological developments, the diffusion of
traditional boundaries and the increased dynamics and extendeness of enterprises,
successful enterprise change is an evident necessity [
Simultaneously, with the dramatic information and communication technologies
(ICT) advances, which enable near-real time transparent and ubiquitous interaction
between people and systems, the borders between humans and artificial systems as
enterprise agents are becoming blurred. The increasingly capacity for enterprises to become
truly sensing (powered by IoT), smarter (powered by AI), and acting systems (power
by robotization), in fully integrated cyber-physical-social systems, make enterprises
reach an higher level of complexity. Has highly-complex systems they emerge as
autonomous, intelligent and adaptative systems or entities. Complexity is the attributed
quality that is deliberately considered by an observer in its perception or conception of
something that exercises unpredictable emergent behavior, i.e., behavior elaborated by
the system itself in an endogenous manner. On other hand, a complex system is
necessarily open to its environment. Therefore, being both, autonomous and open, complex
systems are partially dependent of his environment, thus manifesting adaptive
behavior, which implies intentional responses to what the system perceives as solicitations of
the environment. This description of complex systems may be summarized in the
following hypothesis: a complex system is an autonomous system, which is an intelligent
system and therefore an adaptive system [
We will call such a system, the Enterprise Operating System (EOS). We use the
concept of EOS as a metaphor of a computers´ operating system. A modern computer
consists of one or more processors, some main memory, disks, printers, a keyboard, a
mouse, a display, network interfaces, and various other input/output devices. All in all,
a complex system. If every application programmer had to understand how all these
things work in detail, the code of increasingly powerful applications would be
impossible to be ever written. Furthermore, managing all these components and using them
optimally is an exceedingly challenging job. This is why computers are equipped with
a layer of software called the operating system, whose job is to provide user programs
with a simpler, cleaner and integrated model of the computer and to handle managing
all its resources/devices . Thus, operating systems perform two basically functions: 1)
providing application programmers (and application programs, naturally) a clean
abstract and integrated set of functional resources instead of the messy hardware ones (
the operating system as an extended machine, abstracting its complex structure as a
single coherent and purposeful machine to its users); 2) managing these hardware
resources (the operating system as a resource manager, managing all its internal devices
or components). [
In the same way, any enterprise, as a socio technical system , which integrates a collection of independent and autonomous actors, should have its “operating system” for: 1) enables the enterprise to act as a single coherent and purposeful system, thus being viewed as a single and distinguished entity by its external users or systems, and connecting to them as a whole purposeful system; 2) managing, coordinating and integrating all its internal actors and/or “devices”, in order to enable orchestrated, focused actions, to attain its shared goals and purposes, and preserve its integrity;
Computers, without their own essential operating systems, do not exist compromising its viability, i.e. they are “unable to maintain a separate existence”, loosing entirely their identity and wholeness, being nothing more than a simple collection of devices, unable to respond as a single and coherent computing system. In the same sense, an enterprise, as an organizational entity, without its EOS, is no more than a ad-hoc collection of independent and uncoordinated active actors, unable to assure its collective integrity and identity and pursue a common purpose, hence ceasing to exist as a whole system.
Most of the enterprises are not aware of its essential EOS, being therefore unable to assess if all its components are in place and running correctly, if its EOS is assuring that the enterprise is following a viable and sustainable trajectory.
We want to develop a model and a methodology to design and/or diagnosis and
improve the EOS of any organization. We assume the hypothesis that the EOS emerges,
and materializes exactly when the enterprise becomes “alive” as an autonomous and
intelligent entity. Hence, our assumption is that all organizations, being complex
socialtechnical systems, evolve to higher complexity levels, whereby at some point
“organizational autonomous life” emerges as a reification, at a macro systemic level, of the
social-technical network of the autonomous agents that form the nodes of the enterprise
network. ]This reification is precisely realized by the emergence of the EOS, which
turns the enterprise into a kind of autopoietic system [
The EOS exists, in some form, in any “live” and viable enterprise. But, as mentioned above, the problem is that majority of enterprises are not aware of it, thus being not capable to distinguish its essential EOS, and/or diagnose its state of incompleteness, malfunctioning, or ineffectiveness. Being unaware of its EOS, enterprises put at risk their own existence.
Thus, to be aware if an enterprise has its EOS fully operational, we must answer our main research question: what are the necessary and sufficient topological and functional conditions of an EOS, in order to an enterprise becomes “alive” as an autonomous and intelligent entity, continuously adapting and assuring its viability and sustainability, in an ever changing environment? By autonomous, is meant to refer having a reasonable degree of freedom, as an embedded system, i.e., to act on its own initiative, having agency and purposeful intervention capacity, within and over its environment. By intelligent, is meant to refer having awareness of itself and of its environment, knowing who they are, how they do things, what they (and others) are doing things, and what should be done, at any particular moment. By viability is meant to refer being able to maintain a separate existence, and by sustainability is meant to refer producing a net contribution to the viability of the larger wholes into which they are embedded.
We assume that all enterprises, while being viable and sustainable systems, have their own idiosyncratic and embedded EOS, in some form. We assume too that there is an invariant universal EOS model (UEOS model), isomorphic to any enterprise specific EOS model, and with the necessary and sufficient components, relations and processes, of a well-functioning and fully operational EOS.
Using design science research approach [
Thus, another way to state our previous research questions is dividing it in two:1) what are the necessary and sufficient ontological and functional characterization of an universal enterprise operating system (UEOS) model, to enable its self-governing capabilities, in order to assure its permanent viability and sustainability, in an ever changing and uncertain environment?; 2) Which methodology, allows us to successful apply the UEOS model to any particular enterprise context, in order to design, diagnose and improve its specific EOS, by assuring that its particular EOS includes all of the UEOS´s required mechanisms and properties? 2
Our goal is to design and produce a model of the UEOS, and a methodology to use that
UEOS model, for designing, diagnosing and improving a particular enterprise EOS. To
produce and evaluate such artifacts we will apply the usual adopted methodology of the
Enterprise Engineering and Information Systems research community: a design science
research approach [
We will follow the Design Science Iteration Research Process, as proposed in Figure1
This is an iteration process where we begin by: 1) identifying the problem and its relevance; 2) defining the objectives of a solution (specifying its requirements); 3) do the design and development of the artifact based on solid relevant knowledge (design and development phase); 4) demonstrate by using the produced artifacts to solve a problem in a suitable context (demonstrate the artifact utility); 5) and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the usage of the artifacts (evaluate artifact in respect to the identified requirements) ; 5) iterating back to design whenever is necessary. Along all this process we will communicate intermediary and final results, through scholarly and professional publications.
To conceive, demonstrate and evaluate our artifact (the UEOS model and its
application methodology), we will use Le Moigne´s [
Simulation 1 4 5 2 3 4 3 5 1 4 1 2
tion 5 2 3
For demonstration we will use an observational method, proposing to do a case study to demonstrate the validity of our produced artifacts, by studying in depth its application in a real business environment; For further evaluation we will use descriptive methods, using informed argument based on existing solid knowledge, and constructing/simulating some scenarios to demonstrate and evaluate its utility in different contexts. 3
The concept of EOS it is not new in literature, but the notion of EOS is typically related
to software implementation [
The concept of cybernetics as Norbert Wiener (known as the father of cybernetics)
defined in his seminal book title, is “the study of control and communication in the
animal and the machine”. Cybernetics have then an emphasis on coordination,
regulation, control and communication, not only in engineered artificial systems, but also in
natural systems such as organisms and societies, which set their own goals and have
self-controlling mechanisms, rather being controlled by an external entities or their
own creators [
We can consider the following principles, when using a VSM approach to distinguished and model an enterprise as a viable system: 1. Principle of recursiveness – we should depict an organization as a viable system, that contains a set of viable systems, and that is contained within a set of viable systems; 2. An enterprise is viable if and only if exists a set of functional subsystems with a specific set of interrelationships, which provide the `necessary and sufficient conditions for the viability of any social-technical system as depicted in Figure 3; 3. Any incompleteness, malfunctioning, or ineffectiveness in this necessary and sufficient management functional system, weakens or threatens the viability of the organization. 4. The viability, cohesion and self-organization of an enterprise depend upon these functions being recursively working at all its levels. A recursive structure comprises autonomous wholes within autonomous units. A viable organization is made up of viable wholes and it is itself embedded in more comprehensive viable wholes.
The needed “necessary and sufficient” functional subsystems and interrelation between then, as depicted in Figure 3, are the following:
-S1 (System One) – Operations: it is a logical necessity to identify: a) the operational elements of the viable system (that are themselves viable systems), distinguishing one or more operational units (S1-Operations) that develops the operational/productive activities of the the system; b) a meta-systemic controller (the Management metasystem), which governs the actions of every operational units; c) the viable system environment. But operational units being viable systems themselves, they are characterized too by a particular environment, an operation unit and a management unit.
-S2 (System Two) – Regulation: As a consequence of the existence of more than one (autonomous) operational unit, there is a logical necessity for the existence of a coordinator subsystem for meta-systemic activities / interactions, responsible for damping inter-unit oscillations;
-S3 (System Three) – Control: to being aware of all that is going in on inside the enterprise, now, it is needed a control system with a synoptic systemic viewpoint from which surveys the total activity of the operational units of the enterprise. There is then a logical necessity for the existence of a control management system, which allows to govern, in an integral way, all of the operational and meta-systemic activiies which constitute the “here and now of the organization. This control system is realized by the subsystem S3 (the command system, which ensure the coherence of system-1), and S3* (the audit/inquiry system, that has directly and unfettered access to the operations of system-1);
-S4 (System 4) - Intelligence: the systems S1+S2+S3 enables the viable system capability to handle with its own internal regulation, conducing to stabilization of its inside and now. However, this is not enough. In order to a viable system be able to thrive within its ever changing environment, assuring its adaptability to its larger environment and unknown future, a new system is logically needed, the system 4 (S4). S4 is the system that allows to deal with the “outside and then” of the enterprise, is the intelligent subsystem able to design ways of foreseeing, anticipating and exploring the unknown future environment;
-S5 (system 5) – policy: Finally, there is a need of a system 5, a self-finalizing
system, to supply logical closure to the viable system, and monitor the S3-S4 homeostat,
i.e., monitor the balance it must possess as a whole, when confronting the interests of
“here and now” (carried out by S3), and the interests of “outside and then”, i.e. its future
designs (carried out by S4). Logical closure is “what makes the system complete,
selfsufficient, and turns the system back into itself, to satisfy the criteria of viability at its
own level of recursion. Closure means self-reference: the assertion of its identity” [
VSM theory also considers a set of rules for the viable system [
Although Beers´s organizational cybernetics and its VSM contributes with very interesting concepts to cope with systems viability, it is a black-box approach, lacking of a constructional/ ontological perspective , which is essential to cope with effective enterprise design and purposeful transformation/ evolution.
General Systems Theory appears with Von Bertalanffy´s seminal work [
Le Moigne´s [
Therefore, a perceived phenomenon must be defined due to three poles or
perspectives. First, the functional perspective, the action of a system in its environment.
Secondly, the ontological perspective, the static representation of object and its
composition. Thirdly, the evolutionary or historical perspective, the phenomenon’s
transformations in time toward some goals (also named the morphogenetic or
genetic/teleological perspective). [
Concerning the system functional perspective, Le Moigne developed the Nine Levels Model (NLM), a more elaborated version of the denominated Decision-InformationOperation-System Model (DIOS model). The functional DIOS model, is comprised of: the Decision System (DS), the Information-Memorization System (IS) and the Operation System (OS). In this case, the DS makes decisions for the whole system, the IS memorizes information and acts as a coupling or communication between the DS and the OS, while the OS does the work in the system.
Decision System
Information System
Operations System
In its more elaborate version of the DIOS model, the NLM, Le Moigne expresses all
nine levels of Boulding’s proposition [
Enterprise engineering (EE) is a new holistic approach to address enterprise changes,
of all sizes and in all kinds of enterprises. Because of its holistic, systemic, approach,
it resembles systems engineering. But it differs from it in an important aspect: enterprise
engineering aims to do for enterprises (which are basically conceived as social systems)
what systems engineering aims to do for technical systems [
To model an active object or system (as enterprises), we need always to address two
phenomena: one cinematic, i.e, modeling the form and related processes,, thus the
different states of a stabilized object form; other dynamic , i.e, modeling the temporal
evolution between the different forms of the object [
Moreover, the cinematic process of enterprises is neither fully captured. The predesigned or prescribed organization is well captured, but not the enacted organization (with the apparently lack of concepts and method in Enterprise Engineering, for a continuous and timely update of models of organizational reality).
However, we should note that we found in the EE literature some relevant efforts to
deal with these lack of concepts. In [
Although in [
Other EE concept relevant to our research is the organizational self-awareness
(OSA) concept [
Organizational self-awareness has an individual and an organizational dimension
[
Applying the recursivity hypothesis (as in Viable System Model) we can postulate that: - The enterprise, as a large distributed network of active agents that are continuously interacting and producing behavior, has an organizational dimension of self-awareness, in relation to their individual agent members (its network active nodes); -The enterprise as an autonomous and active intelligent entity or (organizational) agent, has an individual dimension of self-awareness, in relation to its larger wholes or entities where the enterprise are embedded.
Thus, we have self-awareness when the organizational dimension of an enterprise (macro perspective) is aligned with the individual dimension of its lower recursion level agents (micro perspective). But beyond self-awareness, what about the self-alignment between the enterprise´s self-awareness individual dimension, in respect to its higher recursions levels entities, and its self -awareness organizational dimension, in respect to its lower recursive level agents network ? We believe that when this self-alignment happens, the enterprise´s self-consciousness emerges. Thus, consciousness emerges when different higher and lower recursion levels awareness are aligned and integrated in an whole entity. Note that there is not only a problem of integration within the self of an enterprise of the different vertical recursion levels, i.e. the alignment between its members views, the enterprise self, and one specific higher order system view (where the enterprise is embedded). There is too the problem of integration within the self of an enterprise of the different dimensions of recursions, i.e., between the different wholes and respective purposes where the enterprise is embedded (as the integration or coherence of different actor roles, within an actor self-identity).
The OSA concept developed within EE research field is quite relevant to our research, because is what supports the development of the higher concept of enterprise consciousness, which in turns enables its agency, autonomy and intelligible behavior. However coping with the enterprise consciousness concept requires developing tools to capture its logical closure, what makes the enterprise complete, self-sufficient, closing into itself, to satisfy the criteria of viability at its own level of recursion and asserts its identity.
We believe the EOS concept addressed by our research will contribute to better capture in an integrated way, some phenomena which are not well captured with existent EE tools, as the logical closure of enterprise systems and the emergence of its selfconsciousness, the enacted enterprise, and its dynamic or its self-transformation and evolutional process , for continuously assuring its viability and sustainability. 3.4
As a result of strong critiques to the traditional mechanistic paradigm of organizational
theory, and with increasingly pace of change and uncertainty of enterprises
environment demanding for more adaptive structures, applying complexity theories to studying
enterprises as complex systems is becoming relevant. Complexity theories address the
emergence of order in dynamic non-linear systems operating at the edge of chaos [
Although relevant to our research, particularly to address the evolutionary or system
dynamics perspective of enterprises, a more deeper presentation of complexity theories
is out of the scope of this particular paper. In [
Current research is still in a very initial phase. We have been examining different
theories in the research fields of enterprise engineering, organizational cybernetics,
general systems theory, complexity theories and complex adaptive systems, as
highlighted in section 3. This initial review led us to better define our research problem and
its relevance (as highlighted in section 1), and to identify Le Moigne´s General System
Theory and Beer´s VSM, as the most adequate and sound bodies of knowledge to
contribute to a first functional approach for design the UEOS model. Although, inspired in
different theories, (NLM based on the systems complexity levels theory [
In figure 6, we can find the correspondence between NLM´s components and VSM´s
components.
Fig. 6 – Correspondence between the VSM (Cybernetic DOS model) and NLM Systemic Le
Moigne´s DIOS model)
The most relevant difference when comparing NLM with VSM, is the explicit presence
of the memorization and information levels at the NLM logical breaks. Accordingly to
Le Moigne [
From this proposed integrated model of an organizational intelligent entity (OIE), we propose as being part of (or controlled by) the UEOS, the following items: - The SMS – all Steering & Management (meta)System components - The MEMO – the memorization/information system (including its connections to the SMS, to its lower order members´ memo systems, and to its higher order entities´ memo systems. In other words, the MEMO system of the system in focus (the enterprise) is a distributed system: by integrating its agents´ memo systems, and by being itself a component of the memory of its higher order systems (or wholes where the system is embedded). - The connections/channels between the system environment and its Operational/Production system, - The internal main meta-systemic communications channels, namely the control and command channel (CCC), the Coordination Channel (COC), and the auditing channel (AC) - The higher-end mechanisms to balance the “inside and now” activity (S3) and the “outside and future” (S4) of the enterprise, monitored by its finalizing system (S5).
In figure 8 we present a simplified and rudimentary UEOS functional model Fig 8 - A UEOS first rudimentary functional model We should also note that SMS is a meta-systemic component of the organizational intelligent entity, while operational/productive intelligent entities are at a lower recursion level. Thus, the channels between SMS components and production systems (S1) components are channels between the system in focus EOS, and its lower recursion level individual production systems EOSs. In short words, the EOS is a distributed and recursive system.
Another issue addressed in this initial research phase is the role of the EOS assuring
that the enterprise is contained in the “edge of chaos “ to fully enable its adaptation and
evolution capabilities, and the role of EOS responding to a highly changing
environments or disruptive events, by a kind of simultaneous process of stabilization and
overcoming, production and conservation [
We intent to investigate deeper the concepts we reviewed so far, and get additional feedback from the research communities, to progress with our rudimentary functional UEOS model, to a sound, complete and coherent final UEOS model, while trying to address all above mentioned questions. We believe enterprise engineering research community could contribute significantly to help us progressing from a more abstract and functional (black-box) model, underpin by cybernetics and general system theory, to a constructional/white-box model, adequate to capture real social-technical contexts, underpin by EE sounded body of knowledge, .
Following our proposed research methodology, after defining our problem and our objective (see section 1), we are presently in the design and development phase, of our design science iteration research process (see section 2). We need to enhance our first rudimentary functional UEOS model, and after defining the teleological UEOS terms, its functions and purposes (the what), we will need to design and define its ontological / constructional terms (the how). Finally we will need to implement it, put it functioning, and then evolving to also capture its evolutionary/dynamic perspective. For that purpose we intent to: 1) investigate deeper and finalize a first complete and coherent functional and ontological model of UEOS; 2) test the model, while developing a methodology to use it, in a real context, through a case study in a local hotel group enterprise; 3) evaluate the UEOS model and methodology in other contexts, trough complementary case studies, and/or constructing a set of detailed scenarios;
We believe enterprise engineering has not developed yet sufficient and useful artifacts to cope with enterprises self (as self-observing systems and not merely as observed systems), and with its self-organizing and evolution capabilities, in fast changing environments. To contribute to fill this gap we introduce the EOS concept, defined as its essential self-governing system responsible for its viability and sustainability. Our research goal will be to design a universal EOS (UEOS) model and a methodology, to help in designing, diagnosing and improving any specific EOS. Our research is still in its initial phase. Comprehensive review of viable systems, Le Moigne general system theory and his nine level model(NLM), and some enterprise engineering and complexity theories relevant concepts has been done. A first rudimentary functional model of a UEOS is proposed. Although deeper investigation of mentioned concepts is already planned, it will be valuable to get additional feedback from the enterprise engineering community about which areas to focus on in order to deal with the issues that have arisen during our initial research phase, and to help evolving our first functional rudimentary UEOS model, into a complete and coherent one, addressing the functional, ontological and evolutionary perspectives of any EOS.