The AGIL system is considered a cybernetic hierarchy. It is a ‘general analytic model suitable for analyzing all types of collectivities’. It represents the four basic functions that all social systems must perform if they are to persist. It was one of the first open systems theories of organizations.

• A: from adaptation or the capacity of society to interact with the environment. This includes, among other things, gathering resources and producing commodities to social redistribution. cognitive symbolization
• G: from goal attainment or the capability to set goals for the future and make decisions accordingly. Political resolutions and societal objectives are part of this necessity. expressive symbolization
• I: from integration, or the harmonization of the entire society is a demand that the values and norms of society are solid and sufficiently convergent. This requires, for example, the religious system to be fairly consistent, and even in a more basic level, a common language. moral evaluative symbolization
• L: from latency, or latent pattern maintenance, challenges society to maintain the integrative elements of the integration requirement above. This means institutions like family and school, which mediate belief systems and values between an older generation and its successor. constitutive symbolization

References

AGIL paradigm and Parson’s Social System

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