Information evolution and organisations

Abstract

In a changing digital world, organisations need to be effective information processing entities, in which people, processes, and technology together gather, process, and deliver the information that the organisation needs. However, like other information processing entities, organisations are subject to the limitations of information evolution. These limitations are caused by the combinatorial challenges associated with information processing, and by the trade-offs and shortcuts driven by selection pressures. This paper applies the principles of information evolution to organisations and uses them to derive principles about organisation design and organisation change. This analysis shows that information evolution can illuminate some of the seemingly intractable difficulties of organisations, including the effects of organisational silos and the difficulty of organisational change. The derived principles align with and connect different strands of current organisational thinking. In addition, they provide a framework for creating analytical tools to create more detailed organisational insights.