A research process developed at The Unicist Research Institute on the use of the unicist functionalist approach has just been completed. The objective was to discover why and when people use a functionalist approach to deal with the real world in the context of the 4^th industrial revolution.

It became evident that to use a functionalist approach it is necessary to enhance energy efficiency to compete in the environment, which begins with the need to improve one’s activities. Therefore, it can be said that the management of the functionality of things is for competitive people and organizations.

Competing is necessary to adapt to the environment, which implies that adaptive processes require using a functionalist approach while non-adaptive processes just require using an operational approach.  

Adaptation begins with competition and continues with cooperation. Functionality is meaningless for people who do not compete for space. That is why all people who are in a comfort zone and do not seek change cannot handle functionality.

In social terms, it is neither for dominants because they are in a comfort zone, nor for marginals because they feel that they cannot have a place in the world. In terms of behavioral roles, functionality is neither for authoritarians nor for anarchists, it is for “democrats” who accept that adaptation is a necessity.

Organizations or people that need to compete to have or to improve their place in the world are the natural users of functionalism to increase their energy efficiency. On the other hand, it must be considered, that functionalism became the standard of the 4^th industrial revolution because of its capacity to manage the unified field of business functions and increase their competitiveness.

Diego Belohlavek