I haven’t read any Ackoff but I’ve read a decent bit that is clearly in the intellectual orbit (e.g. Weick) and you would win that bet.

The entire basis of their analysis is that these arbitrary distinctions people propagate in common parlance are not real.

The basis of systems thinking is considering the relation of parts to the whole, and the relation of the whole to the parts. Classically it was simply referred to as 'geometry'. The author distinguishes 'corporation' from 'employees and customers' in following sentence. This implies that corporate managers, employees, and customers are separate parts of a larger system and that use of term manager likely referred to the employers which employ the employees and not also to the employees which metaphorically employ the equipment.