Thinking in systems; working on processes... the new business paradigm

The aim of the paper is to help explain why so many `TQM´ and `BPR´ initiatives have failed their sponsors´ expectations and to explain how these failures may be linked to a lack of socio technical (people/process) understanding. The paper stresses the importance of people, differentiates their capabilities from those of processing machines and accordingly identifies a systemically useful role for information processing (`IT´) as a contributor towards superior business performance results. In doing this a knowledge based framework is described that enables managers to devise their own specific solutions based on the powerful principles of organisation found within the natural order