Epistemological considerations of VSM case studies

In this paper I discuss key concepts that explain case studies which use the Viable System Model (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985). I will first explain the idea of organisation, then explore the concept of communications, in particular communications between autonomous systems, and finally I´ll discuss the idea of structural embodiment of policies supported by the distinction between the informational and operational domains. To illustrate these concepts I use a particular case study, Trident Ltd., a British company (Espejo and Bowling, 1996, Espejo, 2011). This was a Company that attempted, unsuccessfully, to transform its hierarchical structure to a cellular non-hierarchical structure over a decade from the mid 1990s.