A view or perspective on the world
When the term “platform” is used, today, what does that mean?
Source: Platforms, an emerging appreciation – Coevolving Innovations
Platforms have had only a short history, so much of the research is still definitional, with proposed frameworks.
Source: The impacts of platforms – Coevolving Innovations
Source: A philosophy of “becoming with” as “becoming alongside” – Coevolving Innovations
In foundational research, I went through a philosophical shift from “being” (in the sense of Hubert Dreyfus’ reading of Heidegger) towards “becoming” — as I was writing a finalization of Open Innovation Learning in Chapter 9. As I reflect more, my view of systems as living can be expressed as “becoming with“, and more precisely “becoming alongside“.
This is influenced not so much directly from philosophy, but from the ecological anthropology of Tim Ingold, as indicated in “Anthropology Beyond Humanity” in 2013.
I conclude with just two proposals.
First, every animate being is fundamentally a going on in the world. Or more to point, to be animate — to be alive — is to become. And as Haraway (2008: 244) stresses, ‘becoming is always becoming with—in a contact zone where the outcome, where who is in the world, is at stake’.
Thus whether we are speaking of human or other animals, they are at any moment what they have become, and what they have become depends on whom they are with. If the Saami have reindeer on the brain, it is because they have grown up with them, just as the reindeer, for their part, have grown up with the sounds and smells of the camp. [….]
My preference […] would be to think of animate beings in the grammatical form of the verb. Thus ‘to human’ is a verb, as is ‘to baboon’ and ‘to reindeer’. Wherever and whenever we encounter them, humans are humaning, baboons are babooning, reindeer reindeering. Humans, baboons and reindeer do not exist, but humaning, babooning and reindeering occur — they are ways of carrying on (Ingold 2011: 174–175).
Secondly, my ‘anthropology beyond the human’ would be just that: it would be anthropology, not ethnography, and it would be beyond the human, not multispecies.
We have already seen that a relational approach to human and animal becoming refutes the logic of the multispecies. But it also tells us that in our inquiries we join with, and learn from, the human and animal becomings (Ingold 2013a: 6–9) alongside which we carry on our own lives. [….]
Thus in anthropology we do not make studies of people, or indeed of animals. We study with them (Ingold 2013b: 2–4). The aim of such study is not to seek a retrospective account, looking back on what has come to pass. It is rather to move forward, in real time, along with the multiple and heterogeneous becomings with which we share our world, in an active and ongoing exploration of the possibilities that our common life can open up. And just as in life, becoming continually overtakes being, so in scholarship the scope of anthropology must forever exceed the threshold of humanity. [Ingold 2013-05, pp. 20-21, editorial paragraphing added]
- Haraway, D. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
- Ingold, T. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Ingold, T. 2013a. Prospect. In T. Ingold and G. Pálsson (eds), Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social
and Biological Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.- Ingold, T. 2013b. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. Abingdon: Routledge.
Thinking of relations between beings as verbs, rather than beings as nouns, gives more a feeling of time, if not motion.
This publication was officially presented as the Edward Westermarck Memorial Lecture at the Finnish Anthropological Society in May 2013. A less formal reading of the paper was recorded at Macquarie University in October 2013.
Becoming-with doesn’t derive as cleanly from the metaphysics of being and becomingextending back to the ancient Greeks. It relates alongside ecological anthropology, which can be placed alongside a more general context of ecological epistemology, for which a citable definition in philosophy is relatively recent.
Ecological epistemology (EE) demarcates an area of convergence between contemporary theories whose common core is the recognition of the agency of natural processes, objects, and materials. EE encompasses the knowledge emerging from the assumption of symmetry between things and thought, human and nonhuman beings, and historical and natural processes. The claim of a symmetrical ontology developed in the framework of the new philosophy of materialism has demanded intense work in order to overcome philosophical constructivism that takes knowledge as a mental construct, regardless of its material base. The idealist perspective in this approach takes knowledge as a representation of reality, which is processed through the logical operation of abstraction and detachment from its empirical object. The assumption of symmetry leads to a knowledge no longer “about” but “with” the other human and nonhuman beings. From this perspective, EE avoids diluting culture into nature or assimilating nature into culture but seeks to merge the human and natural histories considering all, nonhumans and humans, coresidents, and “co-citizens” of the same world. [Carvalho, 2016]
Ecological epistemology relates alongside ecological anthropology, that relates alongside the ecological psychology that introduced a theory of affordances. Here’s footnote 310, from Open Innovation Learning section 9.2, that places Ingold alongside J.J. Gibson, alongside Gregory Bateson and an Ecology of Mind.
Ecological anthropology, as practiced by Tim Ingold, builds on the ecological psychology of J.J. Gibson.
Gibson wanted to know how people come to perceive the environment around them. The majority of psychologists, at least at the time when Gibson was writing, assumed that they did so by constructing representations of the world inside their heads….. The mind, then, was conceived as a kind of data-processing device, akin to a digital computer, and the problem for the psychologist was to figure out how it worked. But Gibson’s approach was quite different. It was to throw out the idea, that has been with us since the time of Descartes, of the mind as a distinct organ that is capable of operating upon the bodily data of sense. Perception, Gibson argued, is not the achievement of a mind in a body, but of the organism as a whole in its environment, and is tantamount to the organism’s own exploratory movement through the world. If mind is anywhere, then, it is not ‘inside the head’ rather than ‘out there’ in the world. To the contrary, it is immanent in the network of sensory pathways that are set up by virtue of the perceiver’s immersion in his or her environment. Reading Gibson, I was reminded of the teaching of that notorious maverick of anthropology, Gregory Bateson. The mind, Bateson had always insisted, is not limited by the skin (Bateson 1973: 429) (Ingold, 2000b, pp. 2–3).
These are background contexts for a paradigm of co-responsive movement, in Open Innovation Learning section 9.2.
Co-responsive movement is a joining with, in an ongoing sympathy of living things going along together. Joining with is an “interpenetration of lifelines in the mesh of social life … in a world where things are continually coming into being through processes of growth and movement” in a generative form when contrary forces of tension and friction are pulled tightly into a knot. This is in contrast with “joining up” as assemblies that can “be a readily decomposed as composed”. “Untying the knot … is not a disarticulation or decomposition. It does not break things into pieces. It is rather a casting off, whence lines once bound together go their separate ways”.320
320 Joining up can more formally be called interstitial differentiation. Joining with is exterior articulation, as in agencement traced to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, assemblage used by Manuel DeLanda, or compositionism advanced by Bruno Latour (Ingold, 2017, pp. 13–15).
The fine distinction between “becoming-with” and “becoming-alongside” shows up in a reference to Ingold (2017) in footnote 322 of Open Innovation Learning section 9.2. While “with” is not exclusively restricted to beings and/or things at a single point in time, “alongside” better suggests parallel sequentiality of those beings with a passage of time.
Co-responding “is the process by which beings or things literally answer to one another over time, for example in the exchange of letters or words in conversation, or of gifts, or indeed in holding hands”321. Members co-responding with each other carry on alongside one another over time, answering contrapuntally.322 A theory of co-responding was foreshadowed in John Dewey’s social view of communication, meaning “the attainment of a certain ‘like-mindedness’, enabling those with different experiences of life, both young and old, to carry on together”.323 This sense of communication is “not about the exchange of information, as communication is often understood today; it is rather about forging a concordance”.
321I prefer the more active labels of co-responsive and co-responding, for which Ingold builds a theory of human correspondence. “I propose the term correspondence to connote their affiliation. Social life, then, is not the articulation but the correspondence of its constituents. [….] The sense in which I do intend the term differs from this precisely as filiation differs from alliance. It is not transverse, cutting across the duration of social life, but longitudinal, going along with it” (Ingold, 2017, p. 14).
322 Whereas articulation associates with “and“, co-responding associates with “with“. “The distinction between the kinds of work done here with these little words ‘and’ and ‘with’ is all-important. The logic of the conjunction is articulatory; that of the preposition differential. The limbs and muscles of the body, the stones and timbers of the cathedral, the voices of choral polyphony or the members of the family: these are not added to but carry on alongside one another. Limbs move, stones settle, timbers bind, voices harmonize, and family members get along through the balance of friction and tension in their affects. They are not ‘and . . . and . . . and’ but ‘with . . . with . . . with’, not additive but contrapuntal. In answering – or responding – to one another, they co-respond” (Ingold, 2017, p. 14).
323 Dewey saw life as coproduced with others, socially. “Since no living being can perpetuate itself indefinitely, or in isolation, every particular life is tasked with bringing other lives into being and with sustaining them for however long it takes for the latter, in turn, to engender further life. The continuity of the life process is therefore not individual but social” (Ingold, 2017, p. 14).
[Open Innovation Learning] can be seen as opening up communications, sharing artifacts in common and learning in a larger community.324 This takes up “an approach that understood how time, movement, and growth were together generative of the forms of living things rather than merely ancillary to their expression”.325
324 Ingold’s proposal of a theory of human correspondence is cited as concordant with pragmatic philosophy and theory of education. “Dewey was particularly struck by the affinity between the words ‘communication’, ‘community’, and ‘common’. This, he insisted, is not just an accident of etymology. It rather points to a fundamental condition for the possibility of social life. ‘Men live in a community’, he wrote, ‘in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common’ (Dewey 1966: 4) (Ingold, 2017, p. 14)
325 Tim Ingold cites Henri Bergson’s Creative Evolution (1911) as turning point in his research.
“The year was 1983, and I was in the throes of writing a book on the idea of evolution, and on how it had figured in theories of biology, history, and anthropology from the nineteenth century to the present. [….] It turned into a Bergson-inspired critique of the entire legacy of Darwinian historicism in the human sciences” (Ingold, 2014, p. 157).
Little words make a difference. My philosophy focused on being; then becoming; then becoming-with; and has refined to becoming-alongside. These are rather fine distinctions. Scholarly writing drives precision.
Carvalho, Isabel. 2016. “Ecological Epistemology (EE).” In Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions, edited by Henri Gooren, 1–3. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_19-1
Ingold, Tim. 2000b. “General Introduction.” In The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, 1–7. Routledge.
Ingold, Timothy. 2013-05. “Anthropology beyond Humanity.” Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 38 (3): 5–23.
Ingold, Tim. 2013-10. Anthropology beyond Humanity. Web Video. Sydney, Australia: Macquarie University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqMCytCAqUQ
Ingold, Tim. 2014. “A Life in Books.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 20 (1): 157–159. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12088.
Ingold, Tim. 2017. “On Human Correspondence.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23 (1): 9–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12541.
daviding October 17th, 2018
Posted In: philosophy
Tags: becoming, becoming alongside, becoming-with, being, philosophy
Source: Complexity leadership theory – Emergence: Complexity and Organization
An interactive perspective on leading in complex adaptive systems
Traditional, hierarchical views of leadership are less and less useful given the complexities of our modern world. Leadership theory must transition to new perspectives that account for the complex adaptive needs of organizations. In this paper, we propose that leadership (as opposed to leaders) can be seen as a complex dynamic process that emerges in the interactive “spaces between” people and ideas. That is, leadership is a dynamic that transcends the capabilities of individuals alone; it is the product of interaction, tension, and exchange rules governing changes in perceptions and understanding. We label this a dynamic of adaptive leadership, and we show how this dynamic provides important insights about the nature of leadership and its outcomes in organizational fields. We define a leadership event as a perceived segment of action whose meaning is created by the interactions of actors involved in producing it, and we present a set of innovative methods for capturing and analyzing these contextually driven processes. We provide theoretical and practical implications of these ideas for organizational behavior and organization and management theory.
Also
8-2009
The leadership of emergence: A complex systems
leadership theory of emergence at successive
organizational levels
Benyamin B. Lichtenstein
University of Massachusetts, Boston, b.lichtenstein@umb.edu
Donde Ashmos Plowman
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, dplowman2@unl.edu
pdf – https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=managementfacpub
Published in The Leadership Quarterly 20:4 (August 2009), pp. 617–630; doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.04.006
Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Inc. Used by permission.
Published online May 29, 2009.1
The leadership of emergence: A complex systems leadership
theory of emergence at successive organizational levels
Benyamin B. Lichtenstein
Department of Management/Marketing, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd. M-5/214,
Boston, MA 02215-3393, USA (Corresponding author: tel 617 287-7887, email B.Lichtenstein@umb.edu
Donde Ashmos Plowman
Department of Management, The University of Tennessee, 414 Stokely Management Center,
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0545, USA
Abstract
Complexity science reframes leadership by focusing on the dynamic interactions between all individuals, explaining
how those interactions can, under certain conditions, produce emergent outcomes. We develop a Leadership of
Emergence using this approach, through an analysis of three empirical studies which document emergence in distinct
contexts. Each of these studies identifies the same four “conditions” for emergence: the presence of a Dis-equilibrium
state, Amplifying actions, Recombination/“Self-organization”, and Stabilizing feedback. From these studies
we also show how these conditions can be generated through nine specific behaviors which leaders can enact, including:
Disrupt existing patterns through embracing uncertainty and creating controversy, Encourage novelty by
allowing experiments and supporting collective action, Provide sensemaking and sensegiving through the artful use
of language and symbols, and Stabilize the system by Integrating local constraints. Finally, we suggest ways for advancing
a meso-model of leadership, and show how our findings can improve complexity science applications in
management.
Keywords: complexity, self-organization, non-linear interactions, case study research, leadership behaviors
A massive presentation on the topic
pdf: https://www3.nd.edu/~gmadey/Activities/CAS-Briefing.pdf
Also at:
Complex Adaptive Systems: Emergence and Self-Organization Tutorial Presented at HICSS-42 Big Island, HI January 5, 2009 Stephen H. Kaisler, D.Sc. And Gregory Madey, Ph.D. Who we are Steve Kaisler Laurel,
Massive resource for patterns and ‘the public sphere’.
Source: Patterns | Public Sphere Project
ABOUT THE PUBLIC SPHERE PROJECT
Without a thriving public sphere the people’s ability to manage public affairs equitably and effectively is impossible. Although new digital networked technologies are only part of this picture, they obviously represent a major source of opportunities — as well as challenges — for those interested in the public sphere.
The Public Sphere Project (PSP) is an initiative that is intended to help promote more effective and equitable public spheres all over the world. With this site we hope to ultimately support a community of researchers and activists and provide a broad framework for a variety of interrelated activities and goals.
Our activities will focus on the following objectives:
Of the admittedly ambitious objectives listed above, we are currently putting our attention in the projects listed below.
Civic Intelligence
We are exploring and promoting the concept of civic intelligence as part of our research and action agenda. Civic intelligence is the type of collective intelligence that is focused on the effective, sustainable, and just resolution of collective problems. Civic intelligence is what makes society “smart”; it’s a form of distributed and principled innovation that is concerned with the well-being of the planet and the life on it. It is our contention that the concept of “civic intelligence” is a good candidate for a central paradigm and we’re inviting individuals and communities to help determine the usefulness of that paradigm in terms of research and action.
To further that work we have developed an online survey that will help us understand civic intelligence and help promote a research agenda but, perhaps more importantly, will help provide inspiration for activists who are working for positive social change in their communities.
Liberating Voices
The Liberating Voices pattern language project is a multi-year project to develop pattern languages for social change. We’re working together to develop one or more “pattern languages” which can help people think about, design, develop, manage and use information and communication systems that more fully meet human needs now — and in the future.
Our “pattern language” is a holistic collection of “patterns” that can be used together to address an information or communication problem. Each “pattern” in this pattern language, when complete, will represent an important insight that will help contribute to a communication revolution. The concepts of patterns and pattern languages were developed by architect Christopher Alexander and his colleagues to present collections of findings and insights that were intended to be used together to develop living spaces that were life-affirming and beautiful.
In late 2008, MIT Press published Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution. The book contains the first version of the Liberating Voices pattern language including several “context” chapters and 136 patterns, developed by 85 authors. These patterns are also available on this site, some in slightly different form, along with several hundred others, many still in draft form.
We are currently developing a set of cards based on the patterns in the book. We’ve been using these in a variety of in-person workshops that can be adapted to an online environment as well.
There are other important developmental efforts in work. The first is allowing people to comment on the patterns. These comments will include questions and suggestions about using the patterns, examples of patterns in use, and relevant references. Also, because each situation is different we are developing new online workspaces so that people and groups can develop their own pattern languages composed of patterns that already exist — possibly annotated — and new ones that are not to be found in the currently existing set. A final thought, though basically a gleam in our eyes is a general software effort to support all of the patterns. For example, an online platform based on the Public Domain Characters by John Thomas would enable people to upload their character descriptions onto the site which other people could freely use in their work.
e-Liberate
Since its inception the Internet has been touted as a medium with revolutionary potential for democratic communication. Although other media have not lived up to their democratic potential, it’s too early to dismiss the Internet as being just a tool for the powerful. Certainly civil society has been extraordinarily creative thus far in using the Internet for positive social change!
Although a very large number of communication venues exist in cyberspace, one critical function — deliberation — seems to have been largely ignored. The need for computer support for online deliberation can be shown by the fact that many online discussions seem to have satisfactory resolution. Motivated by a desire to help make online discussions more productive — particularly among civil society groups who are striving to create more “civic intelligence” in our society — Douglas Schuler proposed in his 1996 book New Community Networks that Roberts Rules of Order could be used as a basis for online deliberation. One of the most important criterion was that although every attendee would have opportunities to make his or her ideas heard the minority could not prevent the majority from making decisions.
Work on an online version began in 1999 at The Evergreen State College developed the first prototype of an online version of Roberts Rules of Order. After years of intermittent development and several iterations, there are now two basic versions: (1) e-Liberate, a online deliberative tool using Roberts Rules of Order; and (2) openDCN, a broad, evolving civic network framework that incorporated much of e-Liberate. OpenDCN includes a modularized version of Roberts Rules in which certain motions can be turned on or off. OpenDCN was developed by the Milan Civic Network within the openDCN e-participation environment.
We are now beginning to work with groups who are interested in trying the system to support actual meetings. We believe that face-to-face meetings are still very important but appropriate use of e-Liberate can help organizations with limited resources. Our hope is that non-profit groups will use e-Liberate to save time and money on travel and use the resources they save on other activities that promote their core objectives. We are enthusiastic about the system but we are well aware that the system as it stands may have problems that need fixing. It is for that reason that we plan to host a small number of meetings over the next few months and gather feedback from attendees. Please let us know if your organization would like to try our openDCN system.
We believe that the next few years will be critical and that the Obama administration in the U.S. is raising a variety of interesting points and we’re hoping that we will be able to demonstrate our work to them.
Miscellaneous
Finally, there are a few other areas in which we are working. One of which involved the 1996 book, New Community Networks by Douglas Schuler, which is now outdated in many areas. But many of the points are still just as valid as they were over a decade ago. We’re in the process of making the text of the book available as a Wiki so that people can update it as necessary. Secondly, we are engaged in developing a repository for relevant papers and other useful points of reference. Thirdly, we’re still interested in participating in events. Working with CPSR we developed the “Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing” conference that started in 1987. In the summer of 2010, the Public Sphere Project is co-sponsoring a conference on Online Deliberation in Leeds, UK.
The Public Sphere Project is a 501.c.3 non-profit organization incorporated in the United States. Donations to the Public Sphere Project are tax-deductible.
Tiny sample of content:
| Title | Pattern Text |
|---|---|
| Civic Intelligence Douglas Schuler
|
Civic Intelligence describes how well groups of people address civic ends through civic means. It asks the critical question: Is society smart enough to meet the challenges it faces? Civic intelligence requires learning and teaching. It also requires meta-cognition — thinking about and actually improving how we think and work together. |
| The Commons David Bollier
|
The human genome, seeds, and groundwater should belong to everybody —not corporations. The public library, community garden, farmer’s market, and land trust are familiar and highly effective local Commons. The emerging commons sector provides benefits that corporations can’t provide such as healthy ecosystems, economic security, stronger communities and a participatory culture. |
| The Good Life Gary Chapman
|
People who hope for a better world feel the need for a shared vision of The Good Life. The environmental crises of the planet require a broad vision of a good life that harmonizes human aspirations and natural limits. A framework for the modern good life should be based on some form of humanism with room for a spiritual dimension that does not seek domin |
Click to access 9788763003049.pdf
Niklas Luhmann and
Organization Studies
Edited by
David Seidl and
Kai Helge Becker
contents included in sample:
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………. 7
Introduction: Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies
David Seidl and Kai Helge Becker ……………………………………………. 8
PART I: THE THEORY OF AUTOPOIETIC SOCIAL SYSTEMS
1. The Basic Concepts of Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems
David Seidl ……………………………………………………………………… 21
2. The Concept of Autopoiesis
Niklas Luhmann ………………………………………………………………. 54
3. The Autopoiesis of Social Systems
Niklas Luhmann ………………………………………………………………. 64
Researchgate (only contents page): (12) (PDF) Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies
source (pdf): http://www.washi.cs.waseda.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Takashi-Iba.pdf
Policy Language
A Pattern Language for Designing Public Policy
Takashi Iba *1 and Heizo Takenaka *2*3
*1 Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University
*2 School of Regional Development Studies, Toyo University
*3 Professor Emeritus of Keio University
Abstract
In this paper, we apply a pattern language to share practical knowledge of
designing public policy, which we call “Policy Language.” By sharing wisdom in
defining problems and solving them, described in the Policy Language, we aim to
make them into common tools in shaping public policies. The patterns we present
in this paper have been formed by reviewing Heizo Takenaka’s experience as a
Minister in Jun’ichiro Koizumi’s Cabinet, and Takashi Iba selected key elements
and described them. We present 18 patterns of policy language, which consists of 3
groups: society, public policy, and policy formation.
Source: (10) (PDF) An Autopoietic Systems Theory for Creativity
[I was looking for dynamic stability, but I love these diagrams and this perspective – has perhaps informed some of the work I’ve reviewed in #systemchange? Don’t know of Geels otherwise yet, and can’t find accessible copies of these papers yet]
from: https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fars.els-cdn.com%2Fcontent%2Fimage%2F1-s2.0-S0166497205001276-gr4.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fpii%2FS0166497205001276&docid=JOWShlW4UXyzpM&tbnid=PaFJzHS-gYWAVM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjB8bz1hOTeAhWHKsAKHVMgDqkQMwhKKA8wDw..i&w=574&h=480&bih=746&biw=1332&q=%22invented%20here%22%20%22dynamic%20stability%22&ved=0ahUKEwjB8bz1hOTeAhWHKsAKHVMgDqkQMwhKKA8wDw&iact=mrc&uact=8#h=480&imgdii=PaFJzHS-gYWAVM:&vet=10ahUKEwjB8bz1hOTeAhWHKsAKHVMgDqkQMwhKKA8wDw..i&w=574
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311676253_Sustainable_Energy_Transitions_in_Maritime_Transport_The_Case_of_Biofuels/figures?lo=1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281206005_OECD_case_study_Governance_for_system_innovation_sustainable_housing_and_building_in_Flanders/figures?lo=1
This article deals with system innovation in Freeman and Perez’s innovation typology (incremental, radical, system, techno-economic paradigm). This article conceptualises these changes as transitions from one socio-technical system to another. These transitions are co-evolution processes that are not only about technological discontinuities, but also about markets, user practices, regulation, culture, infrastructure and science. In a critical discussion of co-evolution literatures, the article distinguishes three levels of co-evolutionary processes. To understand transitions, these insights are combined in a multi-level perspective, consisting of niche, regime and landscape levels. Transitions come about when co-evolutionary dynamics at these three levels link up and reinforce each other. The perspective is illustrated with a historical case study: the transition from aviation systems based on propeller-aircraft to aviation systems based on turbojet aircraft (1930–1970). The case study provides not just an evolutionary economic analysis of technological change, but also deals with the long-run evolution of technology and the socio-economic system.
Dr. Frank Geels is Assistant Professor at the Department of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. Using insights from sociology of technology, innovation studies, history of technology and evolutionary economics, his main research topic is the dynamics of technological transitions and system innovations. His conceptual work is grounded with case studies of historical transitions.
Paper:
In recent years numerous articles have been published which advocate a multi-level perspective (MLP) for the analysis of long-term technological transitions. This paper reviews current transitions research and considers the limitations of the MLP which need to be addressed to enhance understanding of processes of innovation affecting the transformation of technology and society. The paper suggests ways in which the MLP may be effectively rethought, based on more thoroughgoing application of a co-evolutionary concept of technological transitions.
from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733308001169
A great exchange on twitter that largely revealed that all the people who replied to Jeff have been using the same ‘triangle’ exercise (including me) – and some variants, and some other comments…
Here is a link to the abstracts of the individual chapters of C. West Churchman’s ‘The systems approach and its enemies’, which was Churchman’s last book of his great trilogy. Churchman’s work is the focal point of CSL4D. I used the abstracts to produce a concept map (see below), which I will describe in this post. I believe it could serve as a useful introduction to Churchman’s work.
Systems Social systems are all systems with humans in them. The human environment is full of systems: organizations, business, projects, governments, nations, the world, shopping systems, transport systems, security systems, financial systems etc. All of these systems have been designed. The systems idea implies that systems have components (subsystems) and boundaries. Systems are not closed, they are mostly conceived as semi-open, which implies that their boundaries are subject to debate. In soft systems lingo we speak of the “boundary critique.”
View original post 951 more words
(A conventional paper covering all three parts and offering more detail and examples is at sdl.re/SESDpaper).
Since SD’s foundations lie in engineering control theory, the method has naturally been applied to a very wide range of physical-system challenges. Project management SD models are mostly built around stocks of work-to-be-done (as shown in the small part-1 model) and work-completed (Lyneis and Ford 2007). However, such models usually include changes that occur to quantities of relevant physical items or materials themselves – units produced, tons of material consumed and so on.
Other application domains are more centred on the dynamic behaviour of physical factors themselves. Supply chains are of course made up of interconnected stocks of items and materials, between which goods and materials flow. SD models of supply chains capture their high-level dynamics – how aggregate quantities rather than individual entities move and change over time – but can add connections to non-physical factors, such as workloads and the financial value of those materials.
Models can also account for often-powerful intangible factors and their impact on the management of supply chains. Fear of stock-outs, for example, may cause over-ordering, with potentially damaging and costly implications for inventory levels and flows (Sterman, 2000: chapter 17). Figure 1 shows a business holding inventory in order to meet customer-orders and replenishing that inventory with orders placed on a supplier and received after a delivery delay. The figure shows changes occurring to orders and inventory in response to a change in customers’ order-rate, given a particular policy for setting the order quantity to place on a supplier. The model at sdl.re/SEsupplychain demonstrates the complexities of designing an ordering policy that best-meets changing customer orders while minimising the costs incurred by holding inventory.
Figure 1: Changing orders and inventory levels in a simple supply chain
Asset management is another domain in which SD models of physical factors have been applied. Such models can track populations of different types of equipment through a typical life-cycle – after a short bedding-in period, units have a long reliable life, before degenerating and becoming quite unreliable. The commitment of staffing and expenditure to maintenance, refurbishment and replacement of assets is a complex challenge that must balance system-performance aims (notably reliability) against the considerable costs of sustaining the network of physical assets. (See a demonstration model of such a challenge at sdl.re/assetpipeline).
Physical factors feature in many SD models of environmental challenges, such as the management of water resources, natural resources (crops, fish, livestock …), and climate-change impacts (Ford, 2011). The special contribution of such models is the ability to capture interactions between physical and non-physical factors in a faithful simulation of an entire situation or episode – the asset-management model includes financial factors for example.
A much larger model requiring integration of physical, non-physical and financial factors concerns a large-scale engineering project to rejuvenate water quality and wild-life in a moribund lake, explained at sdl.re/LakeModel *. The project required integrated modeling of the hydraulics and water quality, power-generation, physical construction, and the financial business case. Achieving this integrated simulation depended on capturing the knowledge of experts from several disciplines in a shared mental model, enabling all parties to see the relationships between their own part of the system and the whole. The resulting model enabled all parties to see, clearly and immediately, the impact of alternative assumptions and options for the project.
Continue to the part-3 article at sdl.re/LIPSESD3, to see how the simple model from the part-1 article can be built into a model of a larger business initiative. Part 3 also explains the wider opportunities for SEs to exploit SD business models.
* This case is courtesy of Copernicos Groep.
Ford, A., 2011. System dynamics models of environment, energy and climate change. In Extreme Environmental Events. Springer, New York, NY.
Lyneis, J.M. and Ford, D.N., 2007. System dynamics applied to project management: a survey, assessment, and directions for future research. System Dynamics Review, 23, pp. 157-189.
Sterman, J., 2000. Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. McGraw-Hill, New York.
A nice overview of the contribution of Lillian Gilbreth.
Just barely, perhaps, systems, but worth considering.See also:
Lillian Gilbreth: The Forgotten Mother of Modern Management
https://www.sixsigmadaily.com/lillian-gilbreth-mother-modern-management/The Tale of Taylor and Gilbreth
https://www.allaboutlean.com/taylor-gilbreth/
Today (May 8, 2016) is Mother’s day. In today’s post I will be writing about somebody who has been called “the mother of modern management”, and “America’s First Lady of Engineering”, in addition to several additional similar titles.
She was known as “Mother” for several things – “Mother of the Year” (1957), “Mother of Industrial Psychology” (1954), “Mother of Modern Management” and “the greatest woman engineer in the world” (1954). (Source: Digging History)
Many of her concepts and ideas lend really well to the Toyota Production System. I will be looking at Lillian Moller Gilbreth, the wife of Frank Gilbreth. The Gilbreths were famous for the time and motion studies, and were most likely the first successful management consultant couple. Lillian did not study Engineering at school. She had a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Literature, and a Doctoral degree in Psychology. Frank Gilbreth did not attend college, although…
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Source: Forum for the Future | Systems change field building convening
In the context of growing use of the term “systems change” and increasing interest in systemic approaches to address some of the world’s most complex challenges, we co-convened a retreat in June 2018 bringing together practitioners, academics, funders to explore together how we might work together to build the field of systems change.
Pathways to building the field
In the run-up to the retreat, we asked people attending and unable to attend to offer their definitions of systems change, and of field-building. In June we spent three days on Wasan Island, Canada, with a group of 25 people exploring pathways to building the field. These pathways are interlocking, mutually supportive routes from where we are today to a desired future. They form a nested hierarchy, with the “Stewardship” pathway supporting the other four, which together contribute to cultivating systems change practice in service of our collective purpose.
Download our full write-up of the retreat here:
Source: Improvisation Blog: Stafford Beer’s Critical Holism in Education
The problems – the reasons why the VSM or Syntegration isn’t the answer – or indeed, any other cybernetic theory cannot provide a full answer – are that fundamental problems of time, meaning, emergence, non-ergodicity and coherence haven’t been resolved in any of the systems sciences. This is why, for example, the question of agency in cybernetic descriptions is such a problematic question: “where’s the person? They’re in the recursions”, which leads to a slight air of dissatisfaction. We can work to improve this situation – but this will only happen with a critical engagement with cybernetics.
This is not to take anything away from Beer. He nailed what he was doing and what cybernetics is really about: “Cybernetics is about holism”. Yes. There are of course many many definitions of cybernetics, which describe it as “ways of thinking”, or “ways of thinking about ways of thinking”, “the art and science of defensible metaphors” (!), or “the science of effective organisation” – it all gets rather philosophical, giving a newcomer the feeling that they’ve arrived in some kind of cult. But, in the end, what unite them all is that they all deal with wholes. They all run counter to reductionism.
Holism has a bad name. It is rather closely associated with cults, with theories of everything. But this isn’t what Beer meant. He was after (and indeed possessed) a science of holism (notwithstanding the problems raised above). If it is wholes we have to grapple with, and not parts, then we need to know how wholes work – and they are not simple things, but once opened out, they reveal a structure. It is this structure which can be studied and experimented with.
The structure unfolds because whatever whole is considered contains things which cannot be decided. Beer calls these “undecidables”. I have recently preferred simply to talk about uncertainty. The point is that this uncertainty has to be dealt with, and by definition, it cannot be dealt with within the “whole”. So any whole requires a metasystem – something which sits outside the whole and mops up the uncertainty. It does it, often, by imposing categories for dealing with the uncertainty. It’s the metasystem where the reductionism goes on!
Beer knew that there were good and bad ways in which the relationship between a whole and a metasystem could work. If education is seen to be a “whole”, then the metasystem has to mop up things like uncertainties over teacher and student “performance”: it invents categories and metrics to measure teaching and learning. It even ties some of these metrics to the pay or job security of teachers. More recently it deploys technologies to reinforce these metrics. What happens? “explosive complexification”.
Why do these uncertainties arise in the first place? What is it about the whole which invites pathological metasystemic regulation? There’s a simple answer to this. It is the hierarchical structures of organisation which education adopts. These structures themselves are very poor at mopping up their own uncertainty: hierarchies attenuate complexity from their bottom to their top, and from the environment to each individual. The only mechanism they have for managing uncertainty is authoritarianism, and this eventually leads to collapse.
What is required are forms of organisation which manage their uncertainty effectively. In education, the most effective way any individual – whether teacher or learner – can manage their uncertainty is to talk to others: “What do you think?” The best form of educational organisation is one which creates the conditions for conversation. Here, Beer’s holism suggests that the way to do this is to disrupt the metasystems of each individual. This is really what he attempted with his Syntegration technique. It’s what Von Foerster articulated when he spoke about education’s role in learning to ask “legitimate questions”, or questions to which nobody knows the answer:
A society who has made these two discoveries will ultimately be able to discover the third and most utopian one:
Understanding how Von Foerster gets from 2 to 3 is core to appreciating the power of Beer’s Critical Holism.
Takashi Iba
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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