General systems theory emphasizes the way in which organized systems (human and non-human) respond in an adaptive way to cope with significant changes in their external environments so as to maintain their basic structures intact. Systems theory models of decision-making in human groups and organizations emphasize their interaction with "outside" actors and organizations and concentrate on identifying the particular elements in the environment of the group or organization that significantly affect the outcomes of its decision-making. To understand what an organization did, try to find out what threat or opportunity it was responding to and how its pre-existing response mechanisms worked to do this.

[See also: rational-comprehensive decision-making, incrementalism (incrementalist decision-making), bureaucracy, bureaucratic politics, organizational process models of decision-making]