Developing a Method to Evaluate Entropy in Organizational Systems

Entropy is an abstract concept. It refers to a measure of disorder or uncertainty in a system. Since its origin from the study of thermodynamics, various scientific disciplines have applied this property in their respective fields of knowledge, which represents a major challenge, since entropy is difficult to interpret, understand or visualize, as it lacks of a direct interpretation or physical measurement. This article discusses the origins of this concept, its implementation in different knowledge areas, and describes the research currently conducted by the authors of this work to evaluate entropy as a measure of disorder in organizational systems, which are conceived of as dissipative systems, i.e., systems that are able to remain in a state of imbalance, challenging the inherent tendency towards an equilibrium state, which acts as an attractor of the system. While this paper focuses mainly on the case of private enterprises, the concepts addressed in this work may be applied to any type of organizational system.