Introduction to the Identity of Enterprise Staff

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to define, using the hypothetico-deductive method, the nature of people working in an action system, especially an enterprise. The current status of cognitive scientific knowledge in this area, as presented in the literature, is not completely satisfactory. Claims relate mainly to "human resource management" (labour; personnel; employees; human capital - choose as appropriate), without exploring, classifying or explaining their nature. Having reviewed current knowledge, I shall attempt to describe the nature of an action system by examining its various dimensions: a complex structure of aspirations (political, strategic); the core of an action system (founded on operational objectives and the processes serving those objectives); operational doctrines; operational circumstances; and rigid operational constraints. I further argue that the most crucial element of an action system is its acting subject, part of the action system core. In single-subject activities that subject is the human individual, a highly integrated entity. In multi-subject activities we are dealing with various entities and more complex human combinations. I claim that all the people working for an enterprise make up its Staff - entrepreneurs and investors, managers, employees and the self-employed. Each one of them in some way expends energy (i.e. works) for the enterprise and this constitutes, in every way, its success factor. However, the Staff is also a social construct, giving rise to problems relating to its identity and management. These problems can be solved; especially by resorting to the categories of paradox management, chaos management and dialectical management.