 She noted that the use of systems theory was unusual approach to organisational analysis, though it could still be useful to economic history, particularly when you need to understand the details of a very complex operation.The gargantuan task of synthesising the thousands of volumes of records pertaining to the Company over the period indeed required a coherent approach embedded in a structural model of the Company's various operations.“The drawback to systems theory is that it is a static model of the organization and it therefore offers no guidance on how to ask the deeper questions about efficiency or organizational change.