Modelling the firm from a system perspective: some methodological insights

This paper aims at exploring some methodological issues which emerge in dealing with the firm as a system. In the first part, it is argued that the firm is actually a ‘complex system’ and a multiple methodology is thus put forward to investigate it consistently: four firm systems are identified on a theoretical basis (the legal system, the organization system, the RCC system and the institutional system) and their corresponding elements, relationships and boundaries are objectified. The second part of the paper further qualifies the firm as a ‘complex adaptive system’ and proposes a methodology to analyse its dynamics consistently: the functioning of the four firm systems is thus objectified and complex adaptation and evolution processes are set at work in each of them. Although still implicit, the methodology presented in the paper appears particularly useful in mapping longitudinal empirical observations of the firm from a complex system perspective. Further applications are expected from its translation in an explicit kind of model which is on the authors’ agenda.