There exist two generic system views, that are both well-known and widely applied: the functional view and the constructional view. It is of paramount importance to recognize that they serve different purposes, and they are not interchangeable. The functional view is the prevailing view in the natural and social sciences. It consists of conceiving a system as a black-box with input and output variables. Understanding a system in this functional view comes down to knowing the relationship between the input and output variables. What one observes as the sequence in time of output values, is commonly called the behavior of the system.
The constructional view is the prevailing view in all engineering sciences. It consists of conceiving a system as a white-box, i.e. a collection of elements that influence each other by means of interaction (i.e. directly activating each other) and interstriction (i.e. constraining each others "freedom of movement"). What one observes as the sequence in time of actions exerted by the elements, is commonly called the operation of the system.
If one only uses a system, with a given functionality and performance, it suffices to have a functional understanding of the system. However, if the functionality or the performance has to be changed, one needs to "open" the black-box and change the "internals" of the system. This requires a constructional understanding of the system. Obvious, trivial, one is inclined to say. Surely, these remarks ought to be obvious and trivial, but unfortunately they are not. Just look at how people, both organisation experts and information systems professionals, currently proceed when redesigning and re-engineering business processes! Do they have an appropriate understanding? Do they know how an organisation really works, how it is "constructed"? The answers to these questions are straight no's.
What I will present is a new constructional view on organisations, i.c. business processes, that is rooted in the Speech Act Theory (Searle) and the Theory of Social Action (Habermas), and that has evolved now into a successful methodology for the redesign and re-engineering of business processes.