New Developments of Organizational Cybernetics

after Stafford Beer

5th Metaphorum Conference, St Gallen, Switzerland

March 9th, 10th, 2007

Extended abstracts and papers

1. S.J. Brewis K.N. Papamichail, V. Rajaram.

Business restructuring: A management cybernetic intervention.

2. Alfredo Moscardini. Identity and Recursion

3. Robert Woog. Complexity-Based Imprecision and Improvisation as Methodology.

4. Czesław Mesjasz . Do We Know What We Do Not Know? Main Weaknesses of the Discourse on "Complex Learning Organization"

5. Clive Holtham. Radical Change in Management Education –

6. Inga Krattli. Globalization and Participation - The Challenge of the Future. The Role of Systems Sciences in the Construction of Social Values.

7. Stig C Holmberg. WIKITEGRITY: Team Syntegrity in the Wiki World

8. Jan Achterbergh and Dirk Vriens. Organizations as social systems, conducting ongoing risky experiments with their viability: a modified perspective on organizational cybernetics.

9. Viveca Asproth. The Viable Systems Model and Inter-Organizations.

10. A. Leonard. A. Espinosa Biological metaphors for social progress.

11. Jan Jacobs.

12. Lucely Vargas. Ethic rating to evaluate company’s performance: A cybernetic perspective.

13. Leonid Ototsky. The Stafford Beer heritage in the 21st Century

14. Peter Ototsky and Leonid Ototsky. National Innovation System and the VSM

15. David Beattie. Crossover Cybernetics.

Business restructuring: A management cybernetic intervention

S.J. Brewis^1	K.N. Papamichail^2	V. Rajaram^2
^1BT Wholesale, BT Centre, Newgate Street, London, UK ^2Manchester Business School, Booth Street West, University of Manchester, Manchester, M15 6PB, UK
steve.brewis@bt.com	nadia.papamichail@mbs.ac.uk	vidya.rajaram@mbs.ac.uk

Businesses are highly complex dynamic systems. The role of senior management is to direct and steer these systems through a highly competitive and volatile market place by seeking out trajectories through commercial space that minimising risk and maximising returns on stakeholder’s investments.

We contend that past computer and information (data) technology has had barely any impact on strategic decisions. We have observed that current use of Information (data) does not affect management decisions. IT is focused on collection, storage, transmission, analysis and representation of information (data). Simply adding more information (data) does not necessarily make decision making easier.

For IT to be highly valued requires a rethinking of the purpose of information (data). Information (data) technology, to be useful to managerial decision-making, must be combined with a conceptual rethinking of both the purpose and meaning of that information (data). We begin by focusing on the context of what and how the information (data) is used, and not simply adding more and more content.

Helping managers understand the meaning of that information (data) and its implementations to their strategic objectives is essential to being seen as more valued. Subtracting the content and adding more context about what the information (data) is makes a manager's job of deciding easier

What is needed is not more data, but rather technology that helps make sense out of the endless data that piles higher and higher. What is needed is a technology that helps managers make the right choices and behave in ways that are consistent with the purpose and objective of the organisation.

This paper looks at how a cybernetic intervention can be used to solve many of the problems discussed above. The setting is BT’s 21^st Century Network Initiative. This work discusses the design and development of a prototype business model that will provide the requisite context for management decision making.

Keywords: Cohesion; cybernetics; data information and context; variety; viable systems model.

Identity and Recursion

Professor A. O. Moscardini

School of Computing and Technology

St Peters Campus

University of Sunderland

SR60DD

England

E-mail: alfredo.moscardini@sunderland.ac.uk

Abstract

This session considers the issue of identity and how it transmits through levels of recursion. I would consider that Metaphorum has an identity that reflects the identity of its members. If the members were replaced, would its identity change? A human body replaces all its cells every three months. An anthill can replace its individual ants. In both cases, identity is preserved. How does Metaphorum differ? This leads to the question of the extended or collective mind. How is the identity of the next level of recursion up connected to the system in focus?

Looking at the question for a different perspective, the BBC documentary Mindshock seems to indicate that transplanted organs can carry with them some of the identity of the donor. Thus how is identity of the next level of recursion downwards connected to the system –in –focus.

I wish to conduct an lively discussion into these questions. I welcome all opinions

Complexity-Based Imprecision and Improvisation as Methodology

Robert Woog

University of Western Sydney

Locked Bag 1797

Penrith South DC NSW 1797

Australia

E-mail: r.woog@uws.edu.au

Setting the Theme

Systems Thinking carries the assumption that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. But in making this statement it is further implied that, with care, the parts (systems, sub-systems and component variables) can be identified and studied. Much of Systems inquiry seeks to disentangle parts and analyse the relationship between them. Once the important sub-systems, component parts and the most salient relationships have been identified, what often follows is an attempt to make alterations to the system in order to effect some form of change or, broadly speaking, some form of systemic improvement. This approach can be recognised, in general, in most forms of Systems interventions, and, in particular, in Viable Systems Methodology.

The desire for improvement and indeed the applications of Systems methodologies are predicated on interpretation and understanding that is made from the disentangled systemic relationships. When the component parts and sub-systems become re-entangled under the dynamic of functioning systems (a phase of systems activity) the relationships change and importantly, they often change unpredictably. They do not necessarily follow the expected, probabilistic relationships, previously identified. But having identified causal relationships, systems categories are established and the systems practitioner works hard to fit the data (findings) into the established categories.

The Perpetual Problem Faced by Systems Analysis

The behaviour of complex systems cannot be predicted accurately beyond a limited period of time because of its sensitivity to initial conditions. The sub-systems in a complex system may interact according to known rules, such as those pertaining to economics, sociology or environmentalism, but the coherent, overall behaviour of the system cannot be predicted from the rules because the number of sub-systems is always too numerous and their self-organising interactions too promiscuous. The slightest change in rules or interaction can lead to emergent behaviour and outcomes.

Taking a complexity perspective would acknowledge the self-organising interplay of factors, which are potentially infinite in number. The assumption is that reduction in categorisation does not simplify; the whole consists of wholes – only the scale changes.

Seeking to Avoid Combat Between Systems and Complexity Theory

It is people, relationships and the construction of reality which matters. Any act involving a number of participants can be seen as a complex act of inquiry, and it will generate discourse and many forms of interpretation. The declaration of preferred interpretation and arguments often leads to the adoption of polarised positions. Reaching such positions and their defence and elaboration is an integral part of the dynamic of human sense-making.

The challenge for those wishing to move to a position of shared understanding or unified action is to move beyond combative, polarised thinking to a position of reconciliation. Some form of theory that is capable of bringing coherence and

conciliation to the discourse may lead to that serenity of mind to move those involved beyond an adversarial position towards a shared construction of reality. Bringing Complexity Theory to Systems Thinking is a gesture with such intent.

Complexity Theory: A Casual Introduction

Complexity science refers to a diverse and emerging domain of thinking and research, incorporating and deriving from physics, non-linear mathematics, chemistry, micro-biological sciences, cybernetics, studies of turbulence and systems far from equilibrium. Complexity, as used here, describes a set of interrelated theories that share the view that while certain phenomena appear as chaotic or random, they actually form part of a larger, coherent process. Complexity assumes the nature of reality to be adaptive, self-organizing, non-linear, sensitive to initial conditions, influenced by many sets of rules and emergent. In this usage, interpretations similar to those made by Wolfram (2002) and Kauffman (1995) are drawn upon.

In recent years, complexity has been proposed as appropriate for social application across a range of domains (see for example, Butz et al 1997; van Eenwyk 1997; Dimitrov et al 1996). When we consider human activity systems (organizations) as complex, their behavioural characteristics may be described as adaptive and self-organizing with emergent properties. A further characteristic is that they are all dynamic and changing.

Towards Methodology

It would be useful at this stage to explain such concepts – generated from Complexity Theory – as those of phase space, human experiential space and non-recurring patterns. It is from these concepts that a different way of knowing and doing will be postulated.

Phase Space/Human Experiential Space – in Complexity Science, phase space is a space comprising all of the possible positions and states of a complex entity. In practice an entity occupies only a minute proportion of its possible phase space. In relation to human activity we refer to this limited occupancy of infinite possibilities as human experiential space. Human experiential space (Dimitrov and Hodge 2002) describes that area of human action where people make sense and construe meanings with relation to their life events. Various writers have described this process of sense-making and knowledge construction (Kelly, 1955; Freire, 1970; Vickers, 1983). Experiential space is reactive to the influence of tiny changes. Its long-term behaviour cannot be predicted with precision. The nature of each experiential event directly reflects human perception of its time span. Both past and future meet in each present pattern of experience.

Pattern and Attractor Identification – the change dynamics of human activity systems are aperiodic, non-linear, under the influence of many rules, sensitive to and therefore dependent on and changing with different environmental conditions. Under these conditions, instability (disequilibrium) is the norm, and both control and predictability prove elusive. The recognition of complex dynamics can provide significant

predictive powers. The interpretative focus needs to change from a preoccupation with accurate prediction of precise development trajectories to an identification of the

meta-organisational principles. The presence and influence of attractors in human experiential space is the reason for pattern formation. An attractor is the preferred position of a system, such that if a system is emerging or changing from another state it will evolve until it arrives at the attractor and will then stay there in the absence other factors. The skill to recognise attractors and to interpret the interplay between them may be described as ‘attractor analysis’.

The difficulty in engagement with Complex Systems is that too much control changes the attractor interaction and actually causes the system being interpreted, described and managed to adapt and change and, in this way, to escape from the sphere of control that has been brought to bear upon it. Equally, insufficient engagement with the complexity of the system distances the knower and the inquirer to such an extent that they neither understand nor engage with the system in any meaningful or influential way, which can, in its extreme, be solipsism. The ability to operate between the two extremes is the requisite skill of attractor analysis.

The Strength in Imprecision

Intuitive knowing – is closely linked to attractor analysis insofar as, faced with non-recurring patterns and a repertoire of possible outcomes, a built or constructed understanding draws – from the observer – judgement, prioritisation, engagement with and reflection on past experience. Collectively, this interpretative, judgemental interplay leads to what can be described, because of the lack of clear precision and its

link to predictability, as intuitive knowing. It is possible to have such a volume of information that it becomes overwhelming should one try to use formal patterns of

cognition. Intuitive knowing becomes the process by which we determine which events should attract priority for attention and action. Intuitive knowing is also the

level of analysis, which proves useful when dealing with imprecision and change without end.

Towards an Improvised Approach to Organisational Development

Improvisation – means to draw on our knowledge and personal experience and to focus it on the moment and the context. Improvisation requires a willingness to take risks, to let go of the ‘safe’ and dominating influence of major dictums of knowing and authoritative explanations and to bring forth an interpretation, there and then, that is influenced by the personal perception of who and what we are and how we think. This way of doing things may well have proved unpopular in the age of the scientific paradigm but it has a haunting familiarity to the existential and temporal contextual reality of human action.

Improvisation is the type of intervention that would be expected to flow from intuitive knowing. Improvisation is bringing action to our way of knowing at a particular moment in time and in a particular context.

Post Script

The full paper will describe and elaborate methodology developed by bringing together Systems Thinking and Complexity and go on to argue the validity and usefulness of what can be termed imprecise/improvised methodology. Specifically it will explain the role and function of techniques in social inquiry, such as:

• Metaphoric narratives and fuzzy logic
• Attractor analysis
• Fractal characterisation

The paper will go on to report on a research project where the methodology was used to inquire into how a large urban community could arrest its apparent social decline and enable its own resurgence.

References

Dimitrov, V. and Hodge, B., 2002. Social Fuzzyology: Study of Fuzziness of Social

Complexity. Physica-Verlag: Heidelberg.

Freire P., 1970. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Seabury: New York.

Kauffman S., 1995. At Home in the Universe, The Search for Laws of Self-organisation and Complexity. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Kelly, G.A., 1955. The Psychology of Personal Constructs. Norton: New York.

van Eenwick, J., 1997. Archetypes and Strange Attractors. Toronto, Inner City Books.

Vickers, G., 1983. Human Systems are Different. Harper and Row: London.

Wolfram, S., 2002. A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media: Champaign, Ill.

Do We Know What We Do Not Know?

Main Weaknesses of the Discourse

on "Complex Learning Organization"

Czesław Mesjasz

Cracow University of Economics

Kraków, Poland

e-mail: mesjaszc@ae.krakow.pl

1. Introduction

Growing interest in such ideas as learning organization, intellectual capital, intelligent systems, etc., has brought about two inter-related phenomena. First, in a significant number of works, the above terms as well as the others, e.g. complexity, organization on the edge of chaos, fractal organization, turbulence and many similar ones are frequently used without any intellectual rigor.

Second, in many texts in management, instead of attempting to elaborate more precise and "objective" definitions, the stress is put on the categories whose meaning is emerging as a product of intersubjective discourse.

The second approach, relating directly and indirectly to postmodernism, is useful in theory and practice of management if in applications of “postmodernist” approach, the rules of formal (logical) correctness of the discourse are followed. However, too often in theory of management all the above ideas and the similar ones are “reified”, i.e. they are considered as "objectively" defined categories and not as metaphors and/or analogies.

The aim of the paper is to present basic limitations and errors made in applications of selected systems metaphors in management theory and policy. The paper can be viewed as an extension to management theory and practice the discourse initiated by the so-called “Sokal Hoax” (Sokal & Bricmont 1998).

The following ideas used in management theory and policy will be analyzed: complexity of social systems (organizations), organization on the edge of chaos, fractal organization, turbulence, learning organization and organizational knowledge.

2. Systems metaphors and management theory and practice

Comprehensive studies of advantages and disadvantages of applications of concepts (mainly analogies and metaphors) drawn from physics, engineering and biology are an inherent part of economic studies (Mirowski 1989, 1994). The same concerns applications of complexity in economics - see a series of writings published by scholars associated with the Santa Fe Institute, e.g. (Anderson; Arrow & Pines 1988), (Epstein & Axtell 1996), (Arthur; Durlauf & Lane 1997), (Cowan; Pines & Meltzer 1999) or (Rosser 1991, 1999). Similarly, applications of analogies and metaphors drawn from physics, biology and/or directly to referring to systems thinking and complexity studies are applied in management, e.g. (Morgan 1996), (Senge 1990), (Lissack 1999).

Due to their significance in the language of theory and policy of security, the main attention has been paid to analogies and metaphors deriving from systems thinking and complexity studies. Those analogies and metaphors are related to ideas drawn from "rational" science. They are treated as "scientific" and obtain supplementary political influence resulting from "sound" normative (precisely prescriptive), legitimacy in any debate on security policy.

In applications of models, analogies and metaphors in social sciences the following approaches can be identified: descriptive, explanatory, predictive, anticipatory, normative, prescriptive, retrospective, retrodictive, control and regulation.

Bell, Raiffa and Tversky (1988) have proposed to discern between the normative approach resulting from mathematical models, predominantly game models, and prescriptive approach reflecting recommendations resulting from decision analysis, including also qualitative aspects.

2. Limitations of metaphors – reflexivity and self-reference

In the classical approach the observer is treated as external and solely the relationships between the objects taken from the source field and the target field are taken into account. This fundamental approach is associated with the “first order cybernetics” and “hard systems thinking”.

		TARGET FIELD

Fig. 1. Traditional approach in studies of analogies and metaphors

Fig. 2. Contemporary approach in studies of analogies and metaphors

In the contemporary approach, which has become dominant in systems thinking at least since the late 1970s, the role of observer is taken into account. It is expressed in “second order cybernetics”, “soft systems thinking”, cognitive approach, and even “third order cybernetics” (Perez de Guzman, 1997). This concepts belongs to the foundations of postmodernism and constructivism.

These two approaches are of course well-known. New phenomenon is that in studies of the role of analogies and metaphors it is necessary to consider the role of cognition and consciousness (mind) in creating those analogies and metaphors.

3. Typology of writings in management

Before assessing the deficiencies of each of the above systems metaphors and analogies used in management theory and policy, it must be also into account that in management theory and policy, the following categories of writings can be distinguished:

· “traditional”, neo-positivist research – mathematical models and/or empirical research,

· discourse inspired by post-modernism with well-grounded methodologically approaches,

· applied research with less rigorous yet well-defined categories and methods,

· technical works – methods, techniques without deeper theoretical insights,

· “airport literature”, a kind of popularizing works usually with careless applications of concepts (no definitions, or broadly defined categories).

The main challenge in management theory and policy stems from the fact that not only systems analogies and metaphors are applied incorrectly within the above categories of writings but also due to the fact that the ideas are sometimes used across those categories. These confusions, which are already undermining the value of the discourse of “typical” metaphors like for example turbulence, stability are becoming even more intricate for such terms as learning and knowledge. For learning and knowledge no simple metaphorical interpretation can be applied due to self-referential and recursive character of those ideas.

Therefore the question put in the title: “Do we know, what we do not know?” seems especially relevant in the discourse on complex learning organization and knowledge

4. Main deficiencies of applications systems metaphors in management theory and practice

The core element of the paper will include a survey of errors and abuses of systems theory-based analogies and metaphors in the language of management. The survey will embody the following concepts: complexity of social systems (organizations), organization on the edge of chaos, fractal organization, turbulence, learning organization and organizational knowledge.

Applications of all of them in the writings belonging to the five abovementioned categories will be scrutinized. Analysis will concern classical misconceptions concerning “typical” metaphors such as for example chaos and turbulence and the barriers emerging in applications of such metaphorical and at the same time self-reflexive ideas as learning organization. Analysis will also concern the concept of objective and subjective complexity.

In the final part of the paper the impact of erroneous applications of systems analogies

and metaphors upon the communication processes in management theory and practice will be preliminary studied.

Preliminary Bibliography

Anderson, Philip W.; Kenneth J. Arrow & David Pines, eds., 1988. The Economy as an Evolving Complex System. (Sante Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, vol. 5), Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley (Perseus Group).

Arthur, W. Brian; Steven N. Durlauf & David A. Lane, eds., 1997. The Economy as an Evolving Complex System, II. (Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, vol. 27), Boulder CO: Westview Press (Perseus Group).

Bell, David E.; Howard Raiffa & Amos Tversky, 1988. Decision Making: Descriptive, Normative, and Prescriptive Interactions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Beller, Mara, 1998. The Sokal Hoax: At Whom Are We Laughing?, Physics Today, September, pp. 29-34.

Cowan George A.; Pines David & David Meltzer, eds., 1999. Complexity, Metaphors, Models, and Reality, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Perseus Press.

Epstein, Joshua M. & Robert L. Axtell, 1996. Growing Artificial Societies. Social Science from the Bottom Up, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson, 1980, 1995. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lissack Michael R., 1999. Complexity: The Science, its Vocabulary, and its Relation to Organizations, Emergence, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 110-126.

Luhmann, Niklas, 1997. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 2 vols. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

Mesjasz, Czesław, 1988. Applications of Systems Modelling in Peace Research, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 291‑334.

Mesjasz, Czesław, 1994. Systems Metaphors, Systems Analogies, and Present Changes in International Relations, Cybernetics and Systems, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 763-780.

Mirowski, Philip, 1989. More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mirowski, Philip, ed., 1994. Natural Images in Economic Thought: “Markets Read in Tooth and Claw". New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Morgan, Gareth, 1997. Images of Organization, 2^nd edition. London: Sage.

Morgan, Gareth 1997a. Imaginization. New Mindsets for Seeing, organizing and Managing, Berrett-Koehler Publishers/Sage Publications, San Francisco/Thousand Oaks.

Palmer, Ian & Richard Dunford, 1996. Conflicting Uses of Metaphors: Reconceptualizing Their Use in the Field of Organizational Change, Academy of Management Review, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 691-717.

Perez de Guzman, Torcuato, 1997. Reflexivity and feed before: from sociology to systemics, Kybernetes, vol. 26, no. 6/7, pp. 751-768.

Rosser, J. Barkley, 1991. From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Rosser, J. Barkley, 1999. On the Complexity of Economic Dynamics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 169-192.

Senge Peter M., 1990. The Fifth Discipline. The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday.

Sokal Alan, Bricmont Jean, 1998, Fashionable Nonsense. Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, Picador (New York).

Radical Change in Management Education –

where the full impact of Stafford Beer may yet take place

Clive Holtham,

Professor of Information Management,

Cass Business School, City of London

In physical science there is generally some sense of linearity, of moving forward, of knowledge slowly progressing over time. In the humanities and even the "social sciences", this sense of moving forward may not only be inaccurate, it could be misleading. Societies often seem to forget policies and practices that evolved over long periods of time, or took place in much earlier periods. There is some sense then of eventually returning to those earlier solutions, of overcoming the societal forgetting by re-learning.

This is all the more the case in relation to those who like Stafford Beer who offered radical solutions. Often the incremental is very greatly preferred to the radical, and the radical overpowered before it has ever been given a chance. It then becomes misrepresented and forgotten about. Beer envisioned the managerial problems of the late 20th Century, which are still present or even augmented in the 21st Century. Some such as information overload have become so serious that there is current doubt if they can be solved by any accumulation of incremental methods.

The author's managerial and academic career has been underpinned by the work of Beer and this career is used as a case study to illustrate and emphasise the above points, concluding with the argument for management education to be re-cast radically based on key principles of Beer's work. Drawing also on the inspiration provided by the Dessau Bauhaus, this proposal is summaried as "The Business Bauhaus".

Professor Clive Holtham

c.w.holtham@city.ac.uk

Globalization and Participation - The Challenge of the Future

- The Role of Systems Sciences

- in the Construction of Social Values

Prof. Dr. Inga Krättli, docupress Switzerland,

Verlag für dokumentarische Berichterstattung, Mitglied SBVV,

Zen Zinen 1, CH-3983Goppisberg, Switzerland

Tel. 0041 27-927 3770 Fax 0041 27 927 3772

e-mail: docuSwiss@spectraweb.ch

1. Introduction

In this presentation we use Systems Sciences to define the consequences of the actual global changes which might help us to manage the interface of the actual global transformation process with its dramatic loss of sustainability. The globaliz-ation issue gained scientific relevance in the early 1980^th and provoked a shift in unit of analysis in that it treats the entire globe as a single social system. Various subunits such as nations, organizations, economies, or religions were no longer foc-used on as pre-existing social unities with a surrounding broader environment. The new globalization theory considered them as social forms that constitute themselves primarily with reference to an emergent whole with its own distinctive properties (P. Beyer, 1994). This shift in unit of analysis implied a completely new direction in the conception of a global order that assumes the dominance of a single global culture.

This aroused among scientists ambiguities about how to approach the multidimens-ional structure of a global system which its inherent contradictions. The focus on the expansion of a global world economy which seemed to have a relative independ-ence of political action was for Wallerstein most important. Yet because of its miss-ing of empirical and theoretical foundations as well as its antisystemic direction it aroused critique among his own scholars. Meyer for instance promoted a dialectical vision of global value creation by believing in a nation-state dominance in the worldsystem, yet at the same time denying the independent value-creating power of political decision-making (J.W. Meyer, 1980). He contered that the use of money by governments is part of the world economy.

For Luhmann the question of globalization enters through the definition of society which means in our context that society as a whole is always condemned to struct-ure the role of participation. This involves for us the acknowledgement that science as a global sub-system is undergoing its own transformation process which requires the elaboration of the constituting elements in social, political, and economical systems and those determinants that link the chains of dynamic changes in a globalizing world. The main focus of the discussion will therefore be on globaliz-ation as a concept that has gained special contours during recent developments.

1. Basics of Social Interaction

Hence we have to promote an integrative understanding of non-linear and/or linear aspects inherent in living systems evolution and their proactive management in a dynamic environment. This requires to evaluate the risks and limits of our socio-cybernetic methods and to discuss the role of the following existential phenomena in dynamic systems: Complementarity, dialectic, and double-contingencies. While analyzing the impact they have on our research and the social efficiency of our feedback control in the actual sociological situation we are confronted with the question of the relation between social structures and their cultural expressions. This requires to overcome the ambiguity when analyzing what we mean by society and by a global system. By putting both in a broader theoretical context we have to build the bridge between living systems’ inherent uncertainties and our striving for continuity and/or sustainable development. This implies to consider regularity and process and/or statics and dynamics as constituting elements of social systems.

Social systems exist as correlative concepts in time and space. Time and space bind social forms. Serving as medium of social interaction and constituents of history they are irretrievably linked. Space constitutes hierarchically ordered arenas of soc-ial practice. Giddens (1984) sees different social forms as having various types of ex-tension in time and space, shaping time and space into socially conditioned con-figurations. Man and his extensions into his spatial environment constitute inter-related dynamic systems. Thus society exists in parallel systems that manifest them-selves in an interdependent social and economic relationship. Hence the develop-ment of capitalism and democracy as well as any other governmental or mercantile system can be viewed as a historical sequence of spatial forms which spans greater parts of the globe. It is the conjunction of physical/economical values and social needs that provides the basis for habitual elements and innovation, thus defining the compatibility of a political system with its economic counterpart.

The fact that many social stresses are engendered by the confrontation between micro-nationalism and broader political and economic structures, which results in an often stressful dichotomy between space and place, plays a pivotal role in the dis-cussion of the compatibility of social systems. In a globalizing world the question of this compatibility cannot be discussed without a frame of reference. One of the cent-ral problems of modernity is the influence spatial structures have on social systems’ statics and dynamics. Societies have to cope with the widespread structures of space on one hand and the human perspective rooted in familiarity and experience drawn from being in a particular place. This requires the differentiation between space with its enabling or constraining properties as the dynamic constituent of social processes, and place as a given historical, cultural, or social configuration.

To give an example: Democracy, as a political system, and capitalism, as an econ-omic system, represent two different forms of social systems. These function as sub-systems under the state as umbrella system. The systems’ approach emphasizes basic principles of organization. As living systems they fall into the category of open, dynamic, or autopoietic systems in Parson’s sense. As such they obtain their norm-ative orientation from a historically pre-determined value system, and are interactive with and interdependent of each other. Social systems constitute organizing patterns that provide behavioral orientation models because the members of the system have similar expectations. Human action is social in character insofar as it takes into account the existence of other people, their expected responses to one’s behavior, and the shared meanings they place upon these actions (Weber in Birenbaum & Sagarin, 1976). Stability of meaning can only be assured by ‘conventions’, observed by the involved individuals or parties (Parsons, 1951).

Thus social relationships are patterned by certain rules and regulations and often predictable because meaning is bestowed upon them that becomes ritualized by permanent repetition. At the same time, they are subject to cultural implications and change and thus are not inevitable. In premodern societies, tradition provided a relatively fixed scope of action. Violations, therefore, could be validated within the reference frame of one’s own culture and regulation system. Modernity’s globalization paradox, in turn, gives birth to new behavioral norms (Nasbitt, 1994). Globe spanning communication networks furnish a "world-society“ with continued violations of normative regulations which have lost their moral power and validity in a borderless society. The brutality of this confrontation promotes sensations of help-lessness. The subsequent loss of control fosters the vanishing of once stabilizing social restrictions which results in an increasing quest for globe-spanning values.

Wilson however argues that universal relevant moral qualities are established and maintained on the local level. When patterns of social behavior are directed towards the satisfaction of basic human needs, they tend to become institutionalized. It is the expectation of conduct inherent in such institutions that leads to social organization and ultimately to the formation of social systems, such as the family, the economy or political or religious systems which serve to fulfill specific needs. On the other hand, institutionalized systems bear a strong potential to interfere with the fulfillment of other needs that are not considered by the systems (Birenbaum & Sagarin, 1976). Parsons has termed this evolutionary potential resulting from the specific human subject/object position that implements a system’s inherent dynamics double con-tingencies. "There is a double contingency inherent in interaction: On one hand, ego’s gratifications are contingent on its selection among available alternatives. On the other hand, alter’s reaction is contingent on ego’s selection“ (Parsons, 1995).

2. Social Systems Dependencies and Interdependencies

Hence a system’s codes and policy are influenced by cultural implications and differ-ences in perception. The Western view of democracy emphasizes a society whose members are considered to be essentially equal and nobody is excluded from part-icipation. Based on constitutions and the division of power, Western democracies are meant to function as the highest legal norm, as an organizational principle. They lay the foundation of a just legal order, primarily because only just laws can guar-antee social equality. Majority vote, however, establishes social bonding in terms of a proportion rather than in terms of exact equality (Mitias, 1991). Though laws are general and accordingly impartial, people unite and agree to adopt a constitution in order to achieve collectively what they cannot achieve individually. Thus freedom stands in a complementary relationship to justice or regularity.

To quote from Plato: "There is no man whose natural endowments will ensure that he shall discern what is good for mankind as a community and invariably be both able and willing to put the good into practice when perceived“ (Plato, Laws, 875a). This is even more applicable in our contemporary complex societies. In order to make social systems compatible, a procedure is needed for discovering the interests of a people as a historical reality, organizing these interests, and then enacting them into law which ultimately should lead to the institutionalization of the people’s sense of justice. Mitias claims: "What is needed is to create the necessary legal and political conditions to safeguard the supremacy of this institution in the state by building into it a mechanism or a set of pragmatic procedures, which prevent the abuse of politic-al power in general and the cause of justice in particular“ (Mitias, 1991).

Each national form of social systems reflects peoples’ sense of values and tradition, their psychological temperament, and their future aspirations. In his Theory of the State Plato considered human life to be a game, which reflects the ancient Greeks’ understanding of a democratic interplay of social forces (Plato’s Nomoi, Reinbek 1960). One thousand years later, with the dawn of the Enlightenment and the emergence of bourgeois social groups, Plato’s World of Ideas turned into a World of Imagination, where man could transfer and live to the fullest his sensual merger with the world. Man’s social evolution transformed the unchangeable archetypal images, that can only be conceived by way of reflection, into material reproductions, which ultimately has led to our consumer society. Modern Western democracies are ideologically linked to wealth for a great majority and welfare for underprivileged members.

Weber sees the origin of wealth linked Western democracies as a by-product of the evolution of an ascetic Protestant Christianity in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Industrialization, with its seemingly limitless possibilities, transformed Puritanism’s consciousness of sin and predestination into a belief that material success is evid-ence of God’s blessing. Gaining wealth was connected with virtue. This belief in the moral obligations of wealth and corporate citizenship, supported by the establish-ment of philanthropic foundations by industrial barons, persisted into the 1950s. Marx, in turn, drew clear distinctions between an idealist proletarian democracy and what he disdained as bourgeois democracy. Emanating from a cultural perspective of serfdom and poverty, Marxism sees justice in democracy only when the claim for material equality for its members is implemented in the system.

The Marxian ideal of a real democracy, is built on the dictatorship of the proletariat, one which encompasses the whole world. Mao Tse-tung extended this concept into a progressive new democracy which has been adopted by many Third-World "democracies“. Marxian historical-materialistic definition of capitalism as a system of profit-oriented private ownership denigrated labor as a mercantile product. The German sociologist Weber was culturally more inclined to link capitalism to rent-ability, admitting that free entrepreneurs as owners of the means of production improve the system by contributing to a dynamically functioning economy through innovative production and organization. The basic idea of today’s Western capital-ism is: The more profit the more wealth for everybody. Since the quality of a political or economic system depends on the system’s cultural implications and historical heritage, to assume that a system which succeeds in one area will yield the same positive results when implanted into another culture, is false.

3. National Cultures and the Trouble of Mismatch

After the collapse of Communism it was assumed that the now ‘liberated’ nations would easily slide into capitalist economies. A baffled Alan Greenspan stated that he had always believed "the dismantling of communism in Russia and its satellites would automatically lead to a free market system“ (Pfaff 1997). The economic crash in Asia in 1998 is also an example disproving the theory that deregulation alone is sufficient to establish a modern industrial economy. The fallacy is to consider cult-ural and political factors as subordinate or irrelevant to economic forces. It is the nat-ional culture that determines the economic system.

Asia’s crash resulted from the imposition of a Western market model on political-economic systems in which tradition has given primacy to the collective over the individual. It was not the product of "Asian values“ but of the misapplications of Western values to Asia. Today we experience the same with the Irak, where the US wanted to install a free democracy. Western culture’s belief in the blessings of common good and national morality is being increasingly displaced by a modern manager self-realization or Puffolobill mentality. In Asian cultures social conformism is still seen as a positive value. People are bound by family and clan relations, and the governmental institutions are characterized by patron-client relationships. In our Western societies the combination of hedonist individualism and materialistic public cultures has changed the role of religion which, in turn, has become therapeutic rather than redemptive and has initiated a shift from party politics to entrepreneurial politics. Western practices of capitalism are merely an expression of this change.

With missionary zeal Western democracies emphasizing individualism have export-ed to post-Communist Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia a new version of economic determinism: that the market will solve all problems including those of justice and equity. "This could be called a dumped-down American inversion of Marxism, but it has become the national economic ethic, one which marks not only the United States today, but also what modern capitalism has become everywhere“ (Pfaff; IHT Dec. 12, 1997). But people don’t live by economics alone. It is a false assumption that political deregulation alone helps to establish a free floating market system. It is the same fashionable but false assumption that economic development by itself event-ually improves human rights conditions and thus the democratic potential of a country. The argument seems to have merit if one considers the conditions in which impoverished populations in many developing countries live.

Kenya, once the shining star of Africa and its hope for a more democratic future under President Daniel Arap Moi, has deteriorated into a repressive one-party state. Economic conditions have improved, but human rights have dramatically deteriorated and continue to do so. The same can be observed in many Latin-american countries. Hence a fundamental difference between economic forces and a democratic system invalidates any linkage between them. For markets do not appear in any obvious way to be ideal instruments for the regulation and control of public goods. Historian John Pocock asks "whether the subordination of the sovereign community of citizens to the international operation of post-industrial market forces“ is a "good or bad step in the architecture of a post-modern politics.” Barber’s answer is: "No, not bad, disastrous“ (Barber, 1996).

4. Participation and Regulation

Since our social life is ritualized and governed by rules that are familiar and recognized by those who participate, social activities are basically influenced by two variables: the rules of the game and the quality of the participants. Thus the ability to distinguish between economic and human rights hinges on how we define human existence. If there are not principles that transcend economic considerations and are worthy of higher priority, cruelty and barbarism will be tolerated in the name of economic benefit. After an earthquake during a Christmas season in Armenia some-one brought a sparsely decorated tree and set it amid the rubble. Slowly, others began to bring objects for the tree, often oranges, which were scarce. A television reporter asked those gathered around the tree why they had given up food to orn-ament a rather scrawny tree. “There are things that are more important than food someone answered. "Such as?“ the reporter queried. "Such as beauty and hope,“ was the reply (Kathleen Agena, IHT Jan. 2, 1998).

As already mentioned: Social systems exist as correlative concepts in time and space. Thrown into an already existing social, cultural, and universal environment, the growing individual is part of spatial concepts beyond his control or even cognit-ion. This growing into space, the act of laying claim to and defending a territory, is an organizational process which provides the kind of coherent unfolding of causes and effects that we experience as reality (Baudrillard, 1992). Establishing territoriality means setting the frames for individual and social existence. During this process space becomes internalized and interior spaces are created. This interpenetration of existential phenomena and social activity represents the source of existential dyn-amics. The resulting implication of differentiation has become rationalized in Cart-esian dualism. In his dualistic subject-object position, man is challenged by environ-mental demands in a two-fold way: the elements of statics and dynamic’s inherent in all impulsive behavior find their human expression in man’s ability to perceive and to act. This human quality of treating oneself as an object of observation, enables people to learn new expectations, which can be transferred through role taking.

What were implicitly understood expectations can thus become independent and crystallize into rules or norms. Because such rules have lost contact with their originators, they have a kind of immutable quality about them (Birenbaum 1976). Social sciences link this integration process to those complex cultural processes where communication and its reduction to action lead to a gradient between system and environment (Luhmann, 1987). Man and his extensions into his spatial environment constitute interrelated dynamic systems that manifest in interdependent social and economic relations. With their strong link to culture, social systems are influenced by the historical quality of their time-space relationships. As expression of a respective cultural ideology (Sutton-Smith, 1982) they are subjected to inherent cultural contradict-ions and represent subjective and objective realities in the Cartesian sense.

5. Dichotomy - The Source of Social Regulation

The features of order, manifested in the particular form of a structure and the regular array and distribution of its sub-structures, are the visible index of the regularities of the underlying dynamics operating in its domain (Capra, 1983). The incentive to move into space, attributed to higher developed species (Buytendijk, 1938), represents a trigger factor for characteristic functions of the species which become activated in confrontation with the rules of the environment (Groos, 1899). In the initial phase of social integration, man experiences the still unregulated encounter with himself and with others. However, an inherent intention regarding form and function constitutes an essential condition for individuation and group formation, where man is bound by the rules of the game. In this process, statics and dynamics serve as orientation tools. Regularity and process, law and freedom, or the structure of expectations and the process of action, represent crucial elements in orientation for individual performance as well as for group behavior (Künsting, 1990).

The unhindered desire for domination and self-assertion is characterized by variability. It corresponds to the relatively uncontrolled role of process. with the communicative purpose to maintain organizational patterns with the environment (Luhmann, 1987), while instinctive behavior serves to predict future behavior. It is organizationally and morphogenetically predetermined and as such represents reg-ularity. Though freedom and law belong together, it is a historical reality that rules and laws are only observed as long as they are stronger than the desire for self-realization . If the oppression by social forces becomes an existential threat for the involved individuals, the rules provoke an adaptation by the dominant institut-ions. Such institutions usually react with the establishment of rule enforcers. What starts out as a drive to convince the world of the moral necessity of a new rule be-comes an organization devoted to the enforcement of the rule (Becker, 1991).

Rules do not degenerate because of tightened regulations but because deviation re-quires complementary measures. It is the perversion of society which leads to a collapse of the rules. Or as Macedonio Fernandez stated: Things can reach a state of breakdown greater than themselves, a state where replacement has become a maleficent temptation. The increase of self-organization processes in our modern democracies furthers the capitalistic problematic because self-organization, as a form of spontaneous development, is opposed to hierarchy which equals hetero organization with the implication of management (Biggiero, 1997). In principle, how-ever, regulative measurements are of educational value. As the Greek philosophers insisted, laws and norms are most influential in the cultivation of moral character. They create the framework where social activities and competitive performance can take place in a humane manner.

Since institutional regulation and a dynamic environment are equally conditioning components of social processes, our role in creating the tools of recognition and in-sight must therefore be to pursue cybernetic implications. Democratic principles must be analyzed as cybernetic model functions, including the complementarity of regularity and process within a system. In this attempt we have to build bridges be-tween a fragmented dramaturgy of our social orders and the subsequent decline of societal values on the one hand, and the evolution of new forms of cooperation and ritualization in a gobalizing world on the other hand. Only by understanding the und-erlying action patterns become we able to replace control and burocratism by motiv-ation measurements. The cybernetic analysis provides many valuable suggestions for the regulation of political and social systems and a sustainability which corres-ponds with evolutionary purposes. This opens the debate on individual freedom and constraints which only together can guarantee a peaceful future on our planet.

"In our search for harmony of life, we should never forget that in the drama of existence we are both participants and observers.“

Niels Bohr, in: Dossier, 1984

[dS1] References:

Arnold, Pierre: Leben mit Elektronen, Zürich 1981, 15

Barber, Benjamin R.: Jihad vs. McWorld, New York 1996, 236ff

Bateson, G.: Our Own Metapher , New York 1972, 17

Baudrillard, J.: The Illusion of the End, Stanford CA, 1994, 1ff

Baumann, Werner: Psychologie für eine künftige Gesellschaft , München 1972, 51-53

Becker, Howard S.: Outsiders - Studies in the Sociological Deviance, New York 1991, 15, 155ff

Bertalanffy, L.: An Essay on the Relativity of Categories, in: Philosophy of Science, vol. 22,

New York 1955, 257

Birenbaum, A. & Sagarin, E.: Norms and Human Behavior, New York 1976, 1ff.

Böhm, Winfried: Wider die Pädagogiksierung des Spiels, in: Kreuzer, Karl Jos. (eds); Handbuch der Spielpädagogik, vol. 1, Düsseldorf 1983, 281ff

Bohr, Niels: Essays 1958 - 1962 on atomic physics and human knowledge (1964) in: London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine 2, 26.in: Dossey 1984, 292

Buytendijk, F.J.: Wesen und Sinn des Spiels. Das Spielen des Menschen und der Tiere als Erscheinungsformder Lebenstriebe, Berlin 1933, 119-120, 129ff

Buchmann, Marlis: Die Dynamik von Standardisierung und Individualisierung im Lebenslauf in: Der Mensch als soz. und personales Wesen, Handlungsspielräume, Stuttgart 1989, vol. 9, 91

Capra, Fritjof: The Turning Point - Science, Society and the Risng Future, London 1983, 287

Eccles, John C. : Wie das Selbst sein Gehirn steuert , Berlin 1994

Eigen, M./Winkler R.: Das Spiel. Naturgesetze steuern den Zufall, München 1983, 66-67

Fischer, E.P.: Niels Bohr, Die Lektion der Atome, München/Zürich 1970, 10ff

Geyer, Felix: The Challenges of Sociocybernetics, in: Kybernetes 24,4 - 7/11/12

Giddens, Anthony: Living in a Post-Traditional Society, in: Reflexive Modernization eds. Beck, Giddens, Lash, Stanford CA, 1994, 76ff

Groos, Karl.: Wesen und Sinn des Spiels, Zeitschrift für Psychologie. 133, 1934, 358ff

Löw, R.: Philosophie des Lebendigen, Der Begriff des Organischen bei Kant, Frankfurt 1980, 305

Hall, Edward T.: The Hidden Dimension, New York, 1969, 79

Hauser, Eduard: Innovation als Lernprozess in der Unternehmung , Bern 1990, 15, 20, 36ff

Homans, George C.: The Human Group, New Brunswick N.J.1992

Hurrell, Andrew & Fawcett, Louise: Regionalism in World Politics - Regional Organization and International Order, New York 1995, 309ff

Kolb, Michael: Spiel als Phäönomen - Das Phänomen Spiel, in Schriften der Deutschen Sporthochschule Köln, vol. 24, St. Augustin 1990, 7 - 13

Kaegelmann, Hans: Die Struktur der Erkenntnis, vol. 1,Windeck 1992

Künsting, Wilhelm: Spiel und Wissenschaft in: Schriften d. Deutsch. Sporthochschule Köln,

vol. 25, St. Augustin 1990, 9ff, 13 ff, 38ff, 84 ff

Krättli, Inga: Komplementarität und Unternehmens-Evolution, Zürich 1995, and Peak Performance - An Anatomy , Victoria B.C., 1994

LeShan, Lawrence und Margenau, Henri: Einstein’s Space & Van Gogh’s Sky, Physical Reality and Beyond , New York 1982, 4ff, 20ff

Lorenz, K.: Das sogenannte Böse. Zur Naturgeschichte der Agression, München 1983, 83ff

Luhmann, Niklas: Soziale Systeme, Frankfurt/Main, 1994, 103ff und 277ff

Meyer-Abich, K.M.: Korrespondenz, Individualität und Komplementarität , 1976, 934 und in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 4, Darmstadt 1967

Mitias, Michael H.: The Constitution as an Instrument of Social Progress , Warsaw 1991, 41ff

Nasbitt, John: Global Paradox, New York 1994, 197ff

Parson T.: Social Interaction, Int. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences Bd. 7, New York 1968,

Pfaff, William in: IHT Dec. 12, 1997

Plato: „Nomoi“ vol. VI, Hamburg, 1960, 35 ff, S. 173

Plessner, H.: Gesamm. Schriften, Lachen und Weinen, G. Dux (eds.), Frankfurt 1981, 90, 200, 187

Reich, Helmut: Komponenten von relations- und kontextkritischem Denken, in: Berichte zur Erziehungswissenschaft Nr. 105 & 107, Freiburg CH 1995

Reichenbach, Hans: Philosophische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik, 1949

Restak, Richard: The Brain has a Mind of its Own, New York 1991, 45ff

Sutton-Smith, Brian: Die Idealisierung des Spiels, in Grupe, Omno (eds.): Spiel, Spiele, Spielen, Bericht 5. Sportwissenschaftl. Hochschultag, Tübingen 1982, Schorndorf 1983, 61

Tofler, Alvin & Heidi: Creating a New Civilization, Atlanta 1995, 73ff

Goppisberg, 28^th of Febr. 2007

(Extended abstract)

WIKITEGRITY;

Team Syntegrity in the Wiki World

Stig C Holmberg

ITM / Informatics, Mid Sweden University

831 25 ÖSTERSUND, Sweden

Tel: +4663-165385, E-mail: shbg@ieee.org

1 Introduction

E-government, together with its many synonyms, has in recent years become a popular and widely employed concept (Holmberg, 2003). Far from all efforts in this area, however, have met their expectations. In an effort to overcome that deadlock we have in our research group tried to focus more on a user centred development and less on government initiatives (Löfstedt, 2007). So far, in our effort to develop a citizen driven development methodology, we have been working with small groups of citizens in development seminars. However, even if this approach has given many valuable and interesting results (Löfstedt, 2007) it has to be expanded further to fully meet the criteria of Banathy’s (1996) prescription for a third-generation “designing within” design of social systems. This means that all who will be affected by a new system have to take part in its design (Banathy, 1996).

Hence, in order to engage virtually all citizens in the design of future systems for e-participation (e-democracy, e-government, and e-services) we have found that the Wiki concept (Leuf and Cunningham, 2001) could be a possible candidate for gathering a big group of people around a common task. Wiki, however, is just a web based technical tool for giving everyone the possibility to access, change or add to a common corpus of intellectual results. This means that this candidate technology has to be combined with a methodological one. On this point, though, Beer’s (1994) Team Syntegrity Protocol (TSP) may provide the necessary structure and guidelines to the design process.

Hence, the purpose of this work is to assess possible ways of combining Wiki and TSP in order to fulfil Banathy’s criteria for third-generation social systems design. More specifically the following research questions will be answered:

- In what ways are TSP suitable for guiding a third-generation design of systems for e-participating?

- In what ways are Wiki a suitable technology for having citizens participating in the design of systems for e-participating?

- In what ways may TSP and Wiki be modified and combined in order to enhance a third-generation design process?

2 The History, Launching Process

Much can be said about the history. The decision to combine TSP with Wiki in order to obtain a third-generation design process was not obvious from the beginning. Finally, however, two basic requirements were found:

- The design of public systems for e-democracy and e-participation has to be in the hands of the citizens, i.e. user driven.

- All who will be impacted by such a system have to take part in its design.

The second point is here the crucial one. It is not evident how to have thousands of people taking active part in such a design. Anyhow, in order to make a long story short, it all ended up in the WIKITEGRITY concept. WIKITEGRITY is a mix of the wiki-concept, as a technological base, and TSP as a methodological or procedurial one. With this concept we a hoping to meet the basic requirements.

3 Planning for WIKITEGRITY

We plan to perform a short test and evaluation project in a medium sized Swedish city. Before the project starts our design will be fairly loose and preliminary. During the project, on the other hand, we will adopt an experimental approach. This means, by closely observing the process outcomes, we will do successive adaptations and refinements to TSP in order to make it work as smooth as possible.

We will make people interested in the test project by displaying it as much as possible in local media, radio, TV, and newspapers. We will also go back to the people that participated in the earlier development seminars. We know that some people will leave the process before it is over and perhaps some will also join after it has started. Further, some people will work with great commitment while others will take just a slight interest in the process. We are aware of those complications but for the day we have no concrete plan how to handle them.

We are not planning to put much energy or time into formal training of participants. We are on this point hoping that both TSP and the wiki-tool are intuitively easy to use and understand. This assumption is based on an earlier test of TSP (Holmberg, 1997).

4 Assessing WIKITEGRITY

In the empirical test just taking place we are planning to get at least preliminary answers to the following questions:

- To what degree does TSP, in any form, help in increasing the quality of the design process and its outcome?

- To what degree does the wiki-tool help in compensating for the physical closeness of the team members, that is a requirement in the original form of TSP?

- To what degree is it necessary to train the participants in TSP and the use of the wiki-tool beforehand? Is it justified to presuppose a high degree of intuition?

- To what degree is the WIKITEGRITY concept supported by the test outcome?

The assessment will be based on three main sources of data:

- Observations and recordings of what is happening during the test period.

- Interviews and discussions with the participants.

- Local radio, TV, and newspapers.

Of course, this first test project has been limited in many respects and has taken place just during a very short time period. Anyhow, those first indications will form a good base for planning and performing more full fledged evaluation and development projects.

5 Conclusion

Our empirical test is not yet finished but as far as we can anticipate it will be possible to demonstrate at least two things. First, the basic principles of TSP may successfully be applied in user-centred design of public, community wide systems for e-participation. Second, with the technical support of a wiki-tool, it will be possible to have a large group of people taking part in the design of such systems.

At last, we also hope to find some support for the WIKITEGRITY concept. At least to the degree that it will be considered worthwhile to continue a work of refining and developing the concept.

References

Aronsson, L. (2002), Operation of a Large Scale General Purpose Wiki Website. Experience from susning.nu’s first nine month in service. (http://aronsson.se/wikipaper.html 2007-01-15)

Banathy, B. H. (1996), Designing Social Systems in a Changing World. Plenum Press, New York.

Beer, S. (1994), Beyond Dispute; The Invention of Team Syntegrity. Wiley, Chichester.

Ebersbach, A., Glaser, M., Heigl, R. (2005), WikiTools. Springer, Berlin.

Holmberg S. C. (1997): Team Syntegrity Assessment. Systems Practice, Vol 10.3, pp 241-254.

Holmberg, S. C. (2003), Transforming Governmental Systems By Systemic Artefacts. Paper presented at ISSS’03.

Leuf, B., Cunningham, W. (2001), The Wiki Way, Quick Collaboration on the Web. Addison Wesley, Boston.

Löfstedt, U. (2007). User-Centred Development of Local Public e-Services. In Understanding e-Participation (In Print).

Organizations as social systems, conducting ongoing risky

experiments with their viability: a modified perspective on

organizational cybernetics.

Jan Achterbergh

Dirk Vriens

Radboud University

Radboud University

Faculty of management science,

Dept. of business administration

PO Box 9108

6500 HK Nijmegen

e-mail: d.vriens@fm.ru.nl

Abstract for the 4^th Metaphorum Conference, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

Introduction

The aim of cybernetics, as described by Ashby, is to provide “effective methods for the study and control of […complex….] systems”. A central issue in the cybernetic approach to studying and controlling complex systems is their circular organization, by means of which these systems adapt to their environment and thus maintain their viability (cf. Ashby 1958, 1961, and von Foerster, 1984). Accordingly, the aim of “organizational” cybernetics is to provide effective methods for the study and control of organizations as specific type of complex systems. The organizational cybernetic ‘study’ of organizations pertains to the question of describing organizations as complex systems that are able to maintain their viability. The ‘control’ of organizations has to do with (self-) regulation of organizations with respect to their viability.

Organizational cybernetics, then, always involves a description of an organization as a (complex) system and provides principles for their (self-) regulation. Stafford Beer (e.g. 1979; 1981, 1985, 1989), who can be considered as one of the main contributors to the field of organizational cybernetics, gave a description of organizations as ‘viable systems’ and laid down the ‘necessary and sufficient’ functional requirements for maintaining their viability. However, in our view, by stating these functional requirements not all of the regulatory principles for maintaining organizational viability have been put forward. The proposed paper discusses which other principles should be considered and how they are related. To this end, we describe organizations as “social systems, conducting ongoing risky experiments with their viability” and discuss the (cybernetic) principles with respect to “conducting” this experiment. We thus present an ‘modified’ version of organizational cybernetics, and given this version of organizational cybernetics, we discuss the role of Beer’s VSM and how it could be complemented in order to cover the necessary requirements for the experiment.

The paper consists of three parts. The first part covers the description of organizations as social systems conducting ongoing risky experiments with their viability. The second part treats the cybernetic principles for the regulation of this experiment, and in the last part we discuss how this modified version of organizational cybernetics advances ‘traditional’ organizational cybernetics, including Beer’s VSM.

In this abstract we (1) shortly introduce traditional organizational cybernetics (as represented by Beer) and present our proposed modifications to it, and (2) briefly discuss the intended contribution of the modified view on organizational cybernetics.

Modifying traditional organizational cybernetics

In order to maintain their viability, organizations have to select and adopt goals, and to select and perform transformation processes realizing these goals. Moreover, in order to deal with disturbances impinging on these goals and processes, organizations have to select and perform regulatory activities. Being able to select goals, select and perform transformation processes and regulatory activities requires that specific ‘organizational functions’ (e.g. strategy formulation, performing, controlling and coordinating primary processes) are realized appropriately and it requires a specific ‘configuration of infrastructural conditions’ – i.e. it requires specific technology, information and knowledge, personnel and a specific division of labor to realize these functions. Given these functional and infrastructural conditions organizations can set goals, install and perform transformation processes, attenuate disturbances and amplify regulatory potential.

With respect to this view on organizations, it may be said that ‘traditional’ organizational cybernetics, as represented by Beer’s viable system model, presents an elaboration of (1) the concept of viability and (2) the functional requirements for maintaining organizational viability (see for instance, Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985; or Espejo & Harnden, 1989).

We suggest to modify ‘traditional’ organizational cybernetics, by describing organizations as ‘social systems, conducting ongoing experiments with their viability’, thus stressing the experimental nature of organizing. Given this description of organizations, three specific modifications to traditional organizational cybernetics appear: (1) viability in a narrow and in a broad sense, (2) infrastructural conditions, and (3) organizations as social systems. Below, we briefly discuss both the experiment as well as the related modifications to traditional organizational cybernetics.

The ‘organizational experiment’

Organizations are, in our view, continuously conducting experiments. That is, many goals may lead to viability (securing the organization’s survival as well as its contribution to its larger societal environment). At the same time, many transformation processes may realize these goals, and many regulatory activities may deal with disturbances. And, likewise, many specific configurations of conditions can be implemented to set goals, perform transformation processes and regulatory activities. Moreover, there is no way to be certain a priori about the appropriateness of specific goals, transformation processes, regulatory activities and conditions. Because of their contingency and because of the uncertainty with respect to their appropriateness, organizations must to experiment with them. That is, goals, transformation processes, regulatory activities and conditions are selected, adopted, and implemented per hypothesis, meaning that they are supposed to contribute to the organization’s viability. As part of the experiment, the ‘experimental objects’ (goals, transformation processes, etc.) are selected, adopted, implemented, assessed and, based on this assessment either maintained or replaced.

This experiment is risky, because it is impossible to know in advance whether the goals etc. are appropriate. The experiment is also an ongoing activity: in order to adapt to changing circumstances goals, transformation processes, etc, may have to be re-assessed, giving rise to a new process of selection, adoption and implementation. In fact, the experiment can be viewed as a mechanism by means of which organizations try to maintain their viability (stability), and, in this way, it fits a cybernetic description of organizations.

In all, one might say that the experiment is an inescapable aspect of organizations: it can not be ‘organized away’– one might say that experimenting belongs to form of organizations.

Three modifications to traditional organizational cybernetics

Our description of organizations as social systems conducting ongoing experiments with their viability gives rise to three modifications to traditional organizational cybernetics.

The first concerns the concept of viability. Viability should be seen in two ways at the same time: as viability in a traditional ‘narrow’ sense and in a ‘broad’ sense. The narrow sense refers to organizations being able to remain a separate entity in its environment: the ‘survival of the organization’. However, in this traditional view, organizational contributions to society remain, to a large extend, implicit. Therefore, we propose to modify this narrow concept of viability, allowing for the incorporation of the contribution of organizations to society in such a way that it enables the development and growth of individual members of society - viability in a broad sense.

The second modification has to do with the infrastructural conditions for experimenting. Given the fundamental nature of the experiment for organizations should install conditions for improving the prospect of its success. As we mentioned earlier, two types of conditions can be identified: functional and infrastructural, and organizational cybernetics, as we see it, should provide the principles for designing these conditions. Functional conditions relate to the functions an organization should realize in order to maintain viable. Beer’s VSM explains these functions and their (recursive) relations. His model can be used to diagnose and design organizations with respect to the necessary functions. He thus provides principles for modeling and designing functional conditions. Infrastructural conditions refer to (1) the division of tasks and responsibilities (the organizational structure), (2) technology and information, and (3) human resources and their mobilization for organizational processes. In (organizational) cybernetics these infrastructural conditions have been neglected. In the paper we intend to discuss the cybernetic principles for designing organizational structures (based on the theory of de Sitter) and mobilizing human resources (based on Dreyfus & Dreyfus and Aristotle).

The third modification relates to doing justice to the social nature of organizing and organizations: organizations are social phenomena and organizing is a social process. Hence, in our view, conducting the experiment is inherently social. The ‘experimental objects’ come about, are discussed, selected, implemented and assessed in processes of social interaction. One may say that organizations are, themselves, social systems, realizing the experiment.

Although in organizational cybernetics, these aspects (viability in a broad sense, infrastructural conditions and the social nature of organizations) have been studied, a systematic treatment relating these aspects does not seem to be available. By presenting our modified perspective on organizational cybernetics, it is our intention to start building up such an integrative framework.

The contribution of the modified perspective of organizational cybernetics

In a nutshell, our modified cybernetic view on organizations is that they are ‘social systems, conducting ongoing experiments with their viability (in a narrow and in a broad sense). To arrive at this ‘modified’ organizational cybernetic perspective concepts from both cybernetics as well as from social system theory are used. Cybernetic theory mainly offers concepts to describe the experiment itself. For instance, Ashby provides helpful concepts such as ‘essential variables’, ‘parameters’, ‘regulation’, ‘stability’ and ‘ultrastability’ for describing the experiment. And, Von Foerster’s extensions of Ashby’s cybernetics (e.g. his discussion of the problem of selecting variables and non-triviality) can be used to emphasize the risky nature of the experiment. However, (traditional) cybernetic theory does not offer the concepts to describe either organizing, organizations, or society as social phenomena. To this end Luhmann’s social system theory is used, in which organizations (and society) are described as particular kinds of social systems.

The modified version moves beyond ‘traditional’ organizational cybernetics in two ways: it modifies it (1) with other cybernetic notions, and (2) with other ‘systemic’ notions.

Traditional organizational cybernetics mainly addresses the issue of functional conditions for viability (e.g. the work of Beer). However, in this functional ‘tradition’ little attention has been paid to infrastructural conditions – such as structural or HR conditions. Also, the issue of ‘viability beyond survival’ seems to have been elaborated only from a functional perspective. Infrastructural conditions for securing viability in a narrow as well as in a broad sense have received little attention. In the modified perspective on organizational cybernetics, we propose to use cybernetic concepts to include infrastructural principles – tied to both types of viability. In this way we modify traditional organizational cybernetics with other cybernetic notions.

Traditional organizational cybernetics is built upon concepts from first and second order cybernetics (cf. Ashby or von Foerster). These concepts are general and hold for all types of systems. Because of their generality, the specific nature of the systems to which they are applied is, of course, less elaborated. However, if they are applied to specific systems (such as in organizational cybernetics) one should take into account their specific nature. The functional approach to organizational cybernetics does not explicitly elaborate the specific character of organizations or of the society they operate in and contribute to. To do justice to the specific character of organizations we propose to modify the traditional perspective on organizational cybernetics with concepts from social systems theory (cf. Luhmann). This allows us to describe both organizations as well as society as particular types of social systems, and conclude that the organizational experiment with their viability (in a broad and narrow sense) is inherently social.

In our paper we intend to discuss:

1. The nature of the organizational experiment – mainly based on Ashby and von Foerster;

2. Organizations as social systems, conducting this experiment (based on the work of Luhmann);

3. functional and infrastructural principles for designing experimental conditions

- functional conditions based on Beer;

- Infrastructural conditions with respect to organizational structure (based on the theory of de Sitter) and HR-systems (based on Aristotle and Dreyfus & Dreyfus)

THE VIABLE SYSTEMS MODEL AND INTER-ORGANIZATIONS

Viveca Asproth viveca.asproth@miun.se

Mid Sweden University

Abstract

To work against threats and to obtain new possibilities, new forms of inter-organizational collaborations are formed. The management literature deals mainly with one single organization although aspects of collaborative processes are discussed. In this paper problems with inter-organizational management and decision-making are discussed. In this paper the possibilities and the limits of using the Viable System Model (VSM) for diagnosing and design of inter-organizations are discussed. The conclusion is that VSM seems to be promising but further evaluation must be performed. Organizational learning and negotiation support systems are approaches that should be used in inter-organizational management.

Introduction

To work against threats and to obtain new possibilities, new forms of inter-organizational collaborations are formed. Although many aspects of collaborative processes have been discussed in the literature, the predominant approach in management as well as in systems science literature is that of one single organization with its boundaries and its management levels. To handle managerial questions concerning more than one organization, a new system level is established. That could be a concern of companies or some coordinative authority. The new coordinative instance, though on a higher systems level, is formed in the same principle way as a single organization.

Coordination means achieving efficiency and reliability, consent and coercion. But telling another person to achieve coordination doesn’t tell him what to do. He doesn’t know whether to coerce or bargain or what mixture of efficiency and reliability to attempt (Caiden and Wildavsky, 1974).

Roe (2001) has identified four major management approaches for inter-organizational management particularly of different ecosystems. The approaches are Self-sustaining management, Adaptive management, Case-By-Case Resource Management, and High Reliability Management. High reliability organizations include for example air traffic control systems and nuclear power plats, which demands high technical competence, high performance, high complex activities, etc. Many inter-organizations are managed with case-by-case resource management as they have of a short-term character.

Three cases

To exemplify the managerial problems arising with inter-organizational collaborations, three quite disparate projects, in which I am taking part, are described.

The first project concerns critical situations caused by flooding. The aim of the project is to present a model for visualization of such critical situations, and to develop a computerized system for simulation based on the model. As several authorities and organizations become involved in case of flooding, there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. Priorities are hard to make as there is a lack of efficient tools showing critical buildings and constructions such as roads, railroads, water-purifying plant, etc, in combination with actual and forecasted water-levels. Furthermore, coordination between concerned authorities and organizations is not as effective as it could be. Interviews with representatives of authorities and organizations with experience of earlier flooding have been carried through. Documentation of earlier flooding has also been examined (Asproth and Håkansson 2005; 2006).

A question that has arisen during the work with the project is the problem with management of such an inter-organizational issue as a flood. All involved organizations are independent and make their own decisions with a few exceptions. The decision-making is also very time-critical and there is very little time to formalize the decision process about common decisions both within and between the organizations.

The inter-organizational management of a critical situation caused by flooding is typically case-by-case. The organizations involved varies from one occasion to another depending upon where the flooding is, how big it is and which interested parts are stroked.

The other example originates from a project called “Archives of the future”. The main objective in this project is to systematically study the electronic records management in a number of Swedish governmental and business organizations. Examples of research fields are to investigate and compare the need of electronic records and archives management from organizational, informational, economical and jurisdictional demands, to map and compare strategies that the organizations are working with for the management of electronic records (Asproth, 2005). The governments, both local and national, want to offer electronic services to the citizens. As an example can be mentioned the application of building permits. In Sweden an application can include information and partial permits from several departments within the local government but also from other governmental organizations. To facilitate for the citizen the e-service will include the whole chain as one singe e-service disregarded the organizational boundaries.

E-services to citizens are fairly new and inter-organizational e-services are very unusual. Earlier all information has been paperbound and the organizations have had their “original” of the document/documents. In introducing the e-service all information is electronic and resides in the system. Electronic business applications are often structured by workflow declarations that span potentially numerous generic activities in different organizations (Biskup & Parthe, 2006). The problem that occurs to be solved is the responsibility for the preservation of the information, which is an organizational and even inter-organizational issue.

Development of an e-service is carried through as a project. As an e-service may live for some time and certainly the information created in the system, the case-by-case approach has its limits (Asproth, 2006).

The third example is not really concerning inter-organizations, but the problems to deal with have similarities with inter-organizational issues. The project aims to create and test a model for collaboration and sustainable development among small and medium sized companies in local areas. In the project two industrial areas and a third constellation of companies, working with vehicles, are taking part. There are all together nearly 400 companies involved. The three company areas are today arranged in associations with boards and project leaders. This is a form of overarching system level, but at this level no decisions interfering with the individual companies’ right of decision can be made. The associations can act as informants and spokesmen and prepare suggestions which every single company can accept or reject.

Organizational Management

Flat and network organizations pushes decision authority to lower levels in organizations, reducing the need for several layers of management. With fewer layers of centralized, hierarchical management structure, organizations become increasingly characterized by structurally and geographically distributed human resources.

Network management features with equality, communication and reciprocity for open ended relationship. Hierarchical management feature with long term relationship, downward communications, clear boundaries, reliability for closed relationship.

Spiral management

Obata and Shiizuka (2003) propose to combine Network Management with Hierarchical Management for dynamism, flexible and sustainable reliance in for example E-business. This combining of management style called Spiral management combines relational, interdependence, reciprocity by network management and add responsibility, reliance by hierarchical management.

Virtual organizations

There are almost as many definitions of virtual organizations as there are researchers. Bultje and van Vijk (1998) have the following definition of virtual organizations:

“A virtual organization is primarily characterized as being a network of independent, geographically dispersed organizations with a partial mission overlap. Within the network, all partners provide their own core competencies and the co-operation is based on semi-stable ralations. The products and services provided by a virtual organization are dependent on innovation and are strongly customer-based.”

Virtuality, as a workplace process, requires new ways of thinking about management, communication and teamwork. (Larsen and Mc Inerney, 2002)

According to Zakaria et al. (2004) the human challenges of virtual team membership are:

· Creating effective team leadership

· Managing conflict and global virtual teams dynamics

· Developing trust and relationships

· Understanding cross-cultural differences

· Developing intercultural communication competence

Holmqvist (2003) and Rashman & Hartley (2002), recommend organizational learning as a tool to in the first place develop an intercultural communication competence, but also as a complement to learn more about each other. To develop organizational learning within an organization has shown to be successful. The question is how to transfer the concept to inter-organizations. There might be competitiveness and conflicting interest that put hindrance in the way. Another problem with inter-organizational learning is that there is mostly a case-by-case management approach. In the critical situation case the development of the new computer-based system may be of help to learn more. So may follow ups of earlier flooding be. In the preservation case there is a need to maintain the knowledge over a longer time. People come and go in an organization and the ones that knew all about the system disappear.

Viable systems model

The potential contribution of the systems approach to management research and practice turns out to be enormous, even though this is not yet widely known or understood. (Schwaninger, 2001; Beer, 1988; Espejo et al, 1996)

Among this rich variety of system approaches available to deal with complex problems, Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) has focused on the identification of the necessary and sufficient conditions which any organization has to fulfill in order to be viable. (Rios, 2006)

The Viable Systems model (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985) is a cybernetic tool for diagnosing and designing complex systems. The model provides a useful tool to consider alternative organizational structures and meet new challenges the system is facing. VSM can be used recursively, which means that it can be applicable on different system levels, a department within an organization as well as the whole organization. Further, it can be used at the society level.

Achterbergh and Vriens (2002) have applied Beer’s Viable System Model to knowledge management to keep organizationally viable knowledge available. They have identified four central processes for producing and processing organizational knowledge:

1. Generation of knowledge

Generating organizational knowledge can be done by acquiring external knowledge or by means of knowledge creation in a process of learning (Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Probst et al, 1998; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995)

2. Sharing knowledge

The aim of this process is to make sure that existing knowledge gets at the right place in an organization. Disseminating or transferring knowledge may be other labels for this process.

3. Retention of knowledge

To keep knowledge available, some kind of “organizational memory” is needed. Retention of knowledge refers to the process of storing knowledge and making retrieval possible.

4. Application or use of knowledge

The other three knowledge processes are subsidiary to the application of knowledge.

Instruments that facilitate the management of these processes are a core element of knowledge management.

Schwaninger (2001) states that, from a cybernetic stance, the basic faculties which distinguish intelligent organizations are:

1. to adapt, i.e. to change as a function of external stimuli

2. to influence and shape their environment

3. to find a new milieu, if necessary, or to reconfigure themselves virtuously with their environment

4. to make a positive net contribution to the viability and development of the larger wholes into which they are imbedded

Schwaninger (2001) further suggests that an integration of the Model of Systemic Control (MSC), the Viable System Model (VSM), and the Team Syntegrity Model (TSM) can provide a systemic framework for the development and learning about organizations.

A problem with VSM, as with most organization models, is that it is developed for one single organization (even if it is an overarching level), with its own tasks and goals. VSM can be used recursively, which means that it can be applicable on different system levels, a department within an organization as well as the whole organization. Further, it can be used at the society level. Though, a problem with VSM, as with most organization models, is that it is developed for one single organization (even if it is on the societal level), with its own tasks and goals. Schwaninger (2006) has made a comparison between Beer’s Viable Systems Model and Miller’s Living System Model (Miller, 1978). Miller refers to seven hierarchical levels for his model. The hierarchical levels are 1. Cell, 2. Organ, 3. Organism, 4. Group, 5. Organization, 6. Society, 7. Supranational Systems (see figure 1). Although this model also is recursive, it does not take into consideration inter-organizations, i e several independent organizations acting together. In the cases described earlier the first and second ones describes organizations at the society level, but not the (one and only) society level.

Figure 1: Hierarchical levels according to Miller (1978)

Schwaninger (2004) describes the power of the recursive design in the Viable Systems Model. However examples are not applicable on inter-organizations. The different hierarchical levels in the example are shown as parts contained in the next hierarchical level, Families as elements in one community, communities as elements in one region, regions as elements in one country, etc.

Assimakopoulus and Dimitriou (2006) illustrates how VSM can be applied on diagnosing and design of virtual enterprises. VSM is divided in three parts: the environment (E), the operational (O) units (System 1), and the collection of the other functions (Systems 2-5) that can be referred to as the meta-system (M). The environment will exhibit a number of variety states. Via channels of communication, through which information flows, the operational units within a viable system must be able to “destroy” the variety considered part of the local environments with which the organization interacts. Therefore, the meta-system (i.e. coordination (S2), control (S3), intelligence (S4), and policy (S5)) must have the variety to match those functions that the operational units require to maintain their ability to match the demands of their local environments.

Assimakopoulus and Dimitriou (2006) observe some factors that have to be dealt with:

- Flexibility: This means that the Virtual Enterprise partners will need to have their individual mission statements, budgets for the resources they need to carry out their mission, and an agreement that they can decide on their own internal development as long as they are working to the agreed mission.

- Stability: The existence of various independent, self-organized and sometimes contradicted organizations makes the need for some way of dealing with instabilities essential,. To deal with this, any viable Virtual Enterprise must have a System 2 (coordination) for resolving conflicts and dealing with instability.

- Efficiency: The meta-system (which may be one person sitting on the top of a ladder) will look at the whole system and may attempt to coordinate or think about optimization. It is poised with an overview of the entire collection of operational elements, it looks at the way these elements interact, and it considers ways of optimizing the overall efficiency of the system-in-focus.

VSM Systems 2 and 3 have to deal with this in Virtual Enterprises. The approach is to deal with as many of the problems at the operational level as you can by making the operational units as autonomous as possible and increase the capabilities of Systems 2 and 3 to ensure they can deal with the remaining issues efficiently.

Assimakopoulus and Dimitriou (2006) demonstrate the role for the five systems in VSM in virtual enterprises. They also point out actions to be taken when designing a virtual organization. However, they do not exemplify what the different meta-system parts are in virtual organisations. A set of questions to answer is raised in their work. The question of how to organize the system 3-5 and how they will be able to deal with the problems still remains to be solved. Virtual enterprises are only one type of inter-organization. The three cases described earlier shows that there are a range of different types of inter-organizations. Many of the aspects raised are the same, but the solutions may differ.

Assimakopoulus and Dimitriou (2006) also bring up the need for negotiation. In earlier work Asproth (2006) has claimed the need for negotiation in inter-organizational management. The concept of Negotiation Support Systems (NSS) has been developed in later years and has increased in importance. NSS permits to join different points of view and positions, to conciliate differences and to suggest solutions for compromises. As an advanced tool in the negotiation process, it helps to identify the true interests, evaluate the importance, and to place them in the context of the confrontation with the other interests. General principles for the negotiation process are presented by Raiffa (1982) and Bacow and Wheeler (1984). Research findings on NSS success, presented by Nunamaker and Vogel (1987), include hardware and software settings in a multi-purpose and flexible way, attention to the presentation support, and the possibilities to interact with the system on each individual’s prerequisites.

Concluding remarks

The management literature deals mainly with one single organization. To deal with inter-organizational management in a longer perspective the solution is often a new overarching system level that can act as one organization and hence be managed according to established management models. Many issues are handled with a case-by-case approach as a project. To maintain knowledge and to keep the trust and mutual understanding, there is a need for more long-lived relationships.

The Viable Systems Model seems to be a promising contribution to the diagnosis and design of inter-organizations, but further evaluation must be performed. There is a lack of empirical tests, that also must be carried through to see the possibilities and shortcomings of VSM in inter-organizational design. Organizational learning and negotiation support systems are approaches that should be included and integrated in inter-organizational management.

References

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Biological metaphors for social progress

A. Leonard

I’ve been working with the Viable System Model for some years and began to wonder, after attending briefings on several international situations, what could be done about countries or regions that were challenged with respect to economic or social viability. I wondered about small countries and remote regions whose deficiencies in infrastructure meant that they could offer little to the world markets even if they worked for free. The phenomenon of symbiosis, either actually or metaphorically understood offers some ideas. The Viable System Model is used as a framework to explore this possibility.

Self-organization in living systems:

Metaphors for sustainability and regeneration?

1. Espinosa

Hull University - Business School

The need for a change of paradigm in management sciences to deal with the increasing complexity of post-industrialized society at both local and global levels has been apparent for several decades. In complex societal issues like topics of sustainability of societal development and regeneration, there is a clear need to find new insights to support informal networks to operate and take responsibility of main actions. In this session we’ll reflect on how the Viable System Model and its implicit language and rules of self-organization can be isomorphic to those applying at other (natural) social systems. We’ll highlight some of the initial research questions that are opened through this research thread; hopefully it’ll contribute to an interesting debate about the constraints and possibilities of this field to research and its implications in fields as those mentioned above.

The Stafford Beer heritage in the 21^st Century

Leonid Ototsky – SIM Chair of the MIPT (Russia)

http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it

Abstract

1. The challenges to society at the beginning of the 21^st Century demand to revisit Norbert Weiner’s prediction of a “worldwide state in next century”. He made this prediction in his book “The Human Use of Human Beings” in the early 1950s. Current information and communication technologies can be enablers of this political development. I comment in a recent paper (http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/papers/prague2006.htm) that Wiener did not provide detailed arguments for his prediction and it was left to Stafford Beer, the “father of management cybernetics” the detailed proposal for new organizational forms. Furthermore I wrote that Beer’s legacy was not only a theory of viable systems but a political vision of a state through the design of Cybersyn in Chile.

It is reveling that at the same time of the Cybersyn project, independently of the Chilean project, another similar project was emerging in the USSR; the father of this project, the Global State Integrated System – OGAS, was the famous Russian cybernetician Victor Glushkov. Unfortunately both projects had sad endings. Cybersyn was obliterated by Pinochet’s coup d'état. The OGAS project died quietly under the rigid bureaucratic Soviet System in spite of Glushkov’s extraordinary energy and efforts.

 2. I propose that the time has come to revive those two imaginative societal designs. Last year I wrote about the importance of the Cybersyn experience in the modern world ( http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/papers/stafford21.pdf ). It will be in the best memory of Stafford if the metaphorum community debated today how to enable a “nervous system” for mankind’s viability, considering among other aspects the effective use of current ICTs. 
 
 3. Directions for making this possible could be: 
1. Dissemination of VSM ideas as wide as possible, including communicating the “islands of VSM lovers” through a shared ‘nervous system’.
2. Finding forms to integrate the VSM paradigm with the activities of the 
 most significant ICT vendors (IBM, Oracle …). 
3. Using the VSM as an “upper ontology” for performance management, linking it to ERP, SOA, Semantic Web, theory of constraints, etc (http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/t_times2001.htm).
4. Supporting research connected to the VSM (Viable Software - http://charles-herring.com/Thesis/ViableSoftware.pdf, Autonomic Computing - http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/ebizz/idd-ac.pdf , National Innovations Systems - http://nzae.org.nz/files/%2322-DEVINE.PDF , http://www.sim-mfti.ru/content/?fl=415&doc=1151 etc). 
5. Developing and extending the VSM itself, considering ideas such as Autopoietic Systems, biosemiotics, metasystem transition, some biological and sociological ideas which are not used in the VSM now. It is necessary to develop a VSM-II. Raul Espejo’s presentation to Metephorum-2006 about “Boundaries and Identity” may be a good example of such further development of the VSM. 
 
I will give details of the above 5 directions in the presentation.

National Innovation System and the VSM

Peter Ototsky- post-graduate of the MIPT .

peter.ototsky@gmail.com

Leonid Ototsky, SIM Chair of the MIPT (Russia)

http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it

Abstract

1. Innovation is receiving much attention today. Two main reasons for this are current developments in ICTs and market demand for more flexible and ingenious products. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) sees three issues that are high on the science and innovation policy agendas:

- promotion of stronger relationships between science and innovation systems, including the changing role of intellectual property rights in stimulating knowledge creation and diffusion;

- ensuring sustained development of human resources in science and technology;

- global-scale issues that call for enhanced international cooperation in science and technology.

(http://www.oecd.org/document/0,2340,en_2649_34487_25998799_1_1_1_1,00.html )

Along the lines of Richard Nelson’s work, the OECD proposed in the 1997 the concept of a National Innovation System (NIS) (Nelson 1993- http://ideas.repec.org/e/pne56.html ). It proposed the development of networks, information flows, technological change and globalization, suggesting that governments should shift their attention from addressing market failure in terms of innovation, to addressing system failure.

In systemic terms Stafford Beer’s VSM includes the innovation activity at the System 4 level and provides a solid foundation for the viability of business systems as well as of National Innovation System (NIS). Sean Devine from the Victoria Management School, New Zealand, has developed a proposal to discuss a NIS using the VSM (Devine 2005). This proposal focuses on how any complex adaptive system, can survive in a changing environment.

2. The MIPT is carrying out similar work in Russia. We have proposed a prototype NIS for the Moscow Region and think that the VSM is a useful model to study:

- the NIS’s ability to correct its own behavior (called single loop learning);

the variety that is required in the NIS to cope with the variety of the wider environment;

the NIS’s ability to redefine its norms, operating principles, raison d'etre- in other words its ability to be strategic. These activities are necessary for double loop learning: i.e. for a learning which goes beyond simply responding to events, but which sets the system’s future. Since our focus is the State recursive level, the NIS includes institutions such as the national science academies, R&D institutes and innovation and promotion units and its environment includes different investment units.

3. We differentiate the ‘external’ and the ‘internal’ sides of the innovation activity. The first is about using modern ICTs to coordinate the activities of many innovation units with investors and regional government institutions. For this we are using ideas similar to those of the CyberSyn project. Initially we call this an “Innovations Barometer”. The “internal” side is much more complex. It is about creating an electronic databases to handle the content and “ontologies” of the different steps of the “Innovation lifecycle” (fundamental science, R&D, inventions, promotion). For this it is necessary a good deal of work [2] and so far it is not included in our NIS prototype.

4. The initiators of the project were members of a group interested in promoting Stafford Beer’s ideas, including from the Institute for Applied Mathematics ( http://www.keldysh.ru/Eng/ipme_frame.htm ) and from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology - http://phystech.edu ) . The first step of the project was creating a conceptual and technical model of an Operations Room to monitor innovation activities in the Moscow Region. This was seen as a prototype for a future Russian NIS. In the Moscow region there is a great concentration of innovation agents (science, R&D, promotional firms, manufacturing enterprises etc). In the past few years many new institutions such as technological parks have emerged in the region. The group has succeeded in awaking the regional CEO’s interest, which has provided resources for this work.

5. Under the project the following work is in progress:

- a system to gather official statistics about innovation activities in regions of Russia and beyond ;

- a system to gather statistics about innovation activities in different topic in the region;

- a system to filter and analyze the statistics;

- the “barometer of innovations” portal for Russia ;

-