Organisational transformation requires constructional knowledge of business systems

“Organizational transformation” is a term referring collectively to such activities as reengineering, redesigning and redefining business systems. The dominant enabling technology in transforming organizations is information and communication technology. The traditional knowledge regarding business systems, originating from such areas as business administration, management science and logistics, fails to provide the right understanding for the purpose of redesigning them. A promising new kind of understanding is brought forward by modeling approaches in the so-called language/action perspective. One of these approaches is known in the academic world, and for several years now in practice too, by the name DEMO (Dynamic Essential Modelling of Organisations). This paper presents and elaborates on one of the theoretical foundations of the DEMO methodology, namely its particular system concept and corresponding white-box model. These new notions provide a constructional understanding, as opposed to the traditional functional understanding, of business systems. It is shown in detail that such a constructional understanding, that is lacking in current methodologies, is a necessary precondition for successfully carrying out organizational transformation projects