The Viable System Model Through a Power‐Relations Lens: Towards a Power‐Aware Conceptual Framework

This paper aims to extend Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM), a cybernetically grounded framework widely used for designing and diagnosing adaptive, goal‐seeking organizations. While VSM offers a robust basis for organizational viability, its limited engagement with power relations constrains its capacity to address the socio‐cultural and political dimensions of organizational life. To bridge this gap, the paper proposes integrating the VSM with John Gaventa's power cube framework, which reveals how visible, hidden, and invisible forms of power operate across different levels and spaces of decision‐making. The proposed “power‐aware” VSM enriches organizational diagnosis by combining structural and functional coherence with the relational dynamics of power that shape participation, authority, and adaptability. This integration introduces a power‐sensitive analytical layer that complements the existing VSM functions, strengthening their capacity to reflect on strategic, cultural, and legitimacy‐related dimensions of organizational behavior. Methodologically, this conceptual synthesis advances organizational cybernetics by incorporating critical perspectives on power, thereby offering new insights for organizational design, governance, and systemic transformation.