Here’s an interesting article that applies Systems Theory concepts to BI and views it in the context of the organizational environment it operates in. If organizations are viewed as cognitive systems in dialog with their environment, then BI is a ‘technical artifact that encodes a description of the business environment (i.e., the data model).’ In that sense, BI makes the flow of data ‘meaningful’ to its users, and BI design should reflect the changing organizational realities.

Also interesting is the classification of the system environment into Rigid, Deterministic, Purposive, Heyristic, and Purpose Seeking, and the imapct of this classification on BI design.

Click here to read the article ‘A Systems Theory of Business Intelligence’.