Journal article
Three Scales of Acephalous Organization
Systems, Vol.4(2), 19
2016
Abstract
Dominance-based hierarchies have been taken for granted as the way we structure our organizations, but they are a part of a paradigm that has put our whole existence in peril. There is an urgent need to explore alternative paradigms that take us away from dystopic futures towards preferred, life enhancing paradigms based on wellbeing. One of the alternative ways of organizing ourselves that avoids much of the structural violence of existing organizations is the acephalous group (operating without any structured, ongoing leadership). Decision making becomes distributed, transitory and self-selecting. Such groups are not always appropriate and have their strengths and weaknesses, but they can be a more effective, humane way of organizing ourselves and can open windows to new ways of being. Acephalous groups operate at many different scales and adapt their structure accordingly. For this reason, a comparison of small, medium and large-scale acephalous groups reveals some of the dynamics involved in acephalous functioning and provides a useful overview of these emergent forms of organization and foreshadows the role they may play in future.
Details
- Title
- Three Scales of Acephalous Organization
- Authors
- Victor MacGill (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts, Business and Law
- Publication details
- Systems, Vol.4(2), 19; 9
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Date published
- 2016
- DOI
- 10.3390/systems4020019
- ISSN
- 2079-8954
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2016 The Author. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Social Sciences - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99449145902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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