Requisite Variety
The law of Requisite Variety states that the variety within a system must be at least as great as the environmental variety against which it is attempting to regulate itself (Weick, Social Psychology of Organizing, 1979, pp 189-193).
Putting it simply, organizations need to have the capacity and flexibility to respond to social and market changes and demands.
In the early '70s my father was the CEO of a snack food division of Del Monte, Maple Leaf Potato Chips in Montreal, Canada. He was transfered there from California to take over the recent acquisition and increase the bottom line. At the same time in Quebec a growing social movement was changing the face of communication and language, Quebecois (Canadian French). Most of ML's workforce was French-speaking and my father had to work through an interpreter to manage the company, though he made great effort to learn the language.
Legislation was being passed at the time for all products and marketing to be done bilingually. Up to that point, English was the default language of the Quebecois Province, a language spoken only by the minority of its citizens. As the movement grew, consumers began to boycott English-only packaging and goods and then eventually any commerce that was managed outside the economy of Quebec, a one-two punch for Maple Leaf Potato Chips. After a couple of years and a collapsing economy due to this cultural shift, along with a terrorist coup attempt on Quebec administration, my dad stepped down and we moved back to California.
Requisite variety would have been a response, even an anticipation to the cultural, social and economic demands of the market, realizing the variety of factors this organization was dealing with at the time. The requisite, the demand to treat these factors such as bilingual packaging and managing in a native language, was failed and the company was sold.
Times, they are a changin'.
Requisite variety, though is morphing as organizations evolve culturally and socially. Organizations used to be defined as a social collective that had organizational (and later individual) goals that resulted in some level of coordinated activity. Take GM for example.
This definition is changing, with much influence from abroad, and now considers how the organization is structured and socially integrates. Again, take GM for example.
Definitions are expanding to include service organizations as business becomes sensitive to the influences of humanity on marketing, and virtual organizations that are more organic and dynamic than the real ones. Witness Google.
