Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

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t h e i n c e st u o u s wo r k p lac e
In organizations with low boundary permeability, gatekeepers aggressively
restrict the flow of ideas and people into the organization, and
restrict the ability of members to develop and sustain professional and
social relationships and activities outside of the organization. Closed organizational
systems are inherently conservative. In their drive to maintain
system balance, they are defensive, reactive, and instinctively
resistant to change. They seek maximum homogeneity in the system and
tend to expel that which is different. The energy exchanges between the
organization and the outside environment are reduced to the point that
most organizational family member needs must be met inside the system.
In summary:
CLOSED ORGANIZATIONAL FAMILY SYSTEMS are organizations
characterized by low boundary permeability, aggressive gatekeeping,
a rigid definition of values and behavioral etiquette,
and a high degree of intimacy among members.
In contrast, open systems have much less restrictive gatekeeping
functions, which allows for easy interaction between organizational
family members and the outside professional and social environment. At
their extreme, open systems become porous, allowing untold numbers
of ideas and people access to the organization. Such organizations can,
however, be so porous that their own ideas and values leak out, leaving
the system, if it can still be called that, virtually void of definition and
defense. While there is nothing in the porous, open system that could be
said to imprison workers, neither is there anything that could protect
workers from internal or external threats. At their most positive, open
systems struggle not for maintenance of the status quo, but for growth
and the ongoing evolution of the organization.
OPEN ORGANIZATIONAL FAMILY SYSTEMS are organizations
characterized by high boundary permeability, lax to nonexistent
gatekeeping, minimal definition of values and behavioral
etiquette, and a low degree of intimacy between members.
Examining the variations between organizational families in
boundary permeability and gatekeeping functions, one could construct
a continuum of organizational family types based on their degree
of closure. The following illustration borrows a couple of terms
from family therapy literature to describe three types of organizations
along this continuum.