Purposeful Control

At present both management and biological sciences are faced with a common problem in methodology—how to model systems of organized complexity. In their approach to this problem the management sciences have adopted several concepts from the biological sciences, such as adaptation, goal-seeking, purposefulness, and so on, but have as yet donated little in return.This paper offers a contribution towards redressing the balance. A simple mathematical model of purposeful control is presented, and quantitative examples are then given to illustrate the application of the model to both living and practical systems.