The "rational" organization reconsidered: An exploration of some of the organizational implications of self-organizing

This paper argues for an enlargement of our conception of rationality to in clude forms Of reasoning, intelligence, and cognition that are commtrnicati vely, rather than discursively, based. To defend the thesis that understand ing emerges in the collective interactive processes of practically situated conversation, as well as in individual thought, this paper examines the th eoretical literature devoted to self-organizing systems and the empirical l iterature that describes how distributed intelligence is developed bq, grou ps in materially embedded contexts of work. It then explores the phenomenon of emergence of organization as an actor, capable of expressing an intenti on and participating in a dialogue involving other organizations. It explai ns this phenomenon of the emerging organizational self as a logical implica tion of the theory of self-organizing, which predicates "self-ness" as an e ffect of the coupling of an autopoietic system to an observer. Whereas this has tended to be interpreted in intersubjective contexts of communication, it can also be applied to organizational communication. Implications of su ch a revision of perspective are briefly considered, including a critique o f current interpretations of dialogics.