Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the ISSS - 2015 Berlin, Germany

The Limits of Bioenergy: A Complex Systems Approach to Land Use Dynamics and Constraints

Alexandre Strapasson — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper summarises a PhD thesis recently defended by the author at Imperial College London. The aim is to present a novel methodology to obtain an understanding of the potential limits of bioenergy by using a complex systems approach for assessing land use dynamics and constraints. Although bioenergy is classified as a renewable energy source, land is a finite resource and its expansion limited. The anthropogenic demands on land result from a combination of multiple provisioning services. These include global food consumption, dietary preference, crop and livestock yields, land use integration, wastes and residues, and bioenergy yields and forms, as well as the allocation of surplus land for forestry and energy crops, and the potential role of negative emission technologies. Thus, bioenergy is just one part of a complex land-use system. The general hypothesis is that there are fundamental limits to the overall scale and rate of the sustainable expansion of bioenergy, which can be assessed by means of combinations of empirical data, mapping tools and complex systems models. To this end, a novel methodological approach is proposed, which is based on two original integrated models. The first one is termed the Global Calculator Land Use Change Model (GCLUC), developed as part of the Global Calculator initiative, in which land is freely allocated worldwide and food security is assumed a priority. The second considers land for dedicated energy crops as a delimited reserve, by integrating Hubbert’s curve principles (originally proposed for peak oil assessments) in agro-ecological zoning schemes (as recently done for sugarcane ethanol in Brazil), resulting in a new model here termed green-Hubbert. The results show ranges of bioenergy potentials and expansion rates in the context of different land use futures. The potential public policies necessary to support sustainable bioenergy are also discussed. Finally, the conclusions show that, indeed, there are fundamental limits to bioenergy, and these limits are dynamic over time.

Combining system dynamics modeling with other methods: A systematic review

Mohammadreza Zolfagharian, Georges Romme, Bob Walrave — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Although a significant number of system dynamics (SD) studies draw on multi-method approaches, there is not much knowledge on when and how SD is combined with other methods. Yet, combining SD with other methods allows both researchers and practitioners to enhance the contribution of their modeling work. For a comprehensive review of current SD multi-method practices, this paper draws on an assessment of 45 studies that used SD modeling along with at least one other method. We adopt an evidence-based systematic approach in reviewing these studies and find that additional methods can be embedded in two main phases in the SD modeling process: conceptualization and simulation. Our review contributes to the multi-methodology research practice by consolidating one of the main areas where substantial experience in combining methods has been obtained. In addition, this paper provides insights and a reference point for system dynamicists who wish to go beyond stand-alone SD modeling in addressing complex problems. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research in this area.

Anthropocene as Life’s State of the Art in Disorder Production: A Sustainability Conundrum

Jeffrey H. Robbins — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper launches on the proposal by Eric D, Schneider and James J. Kay that life is a response to the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating gradients. Adding a twist to the claim of Jeffrey Wicken that “entropic dissipation propels evolutionary structuring,” Schneider and Kay contend that “evolving life represents order emerging from disorder in the service of causing even more disorder.” Drawing on Gregory Bateson’s definition of information, a self-organizing system can dissipate a gradient, a “difference that can make a difference,” more efficiently than helter-skelter falling apart. Examples range from transient physical systems (Bénard Cells, hurricanes, tornadoes) and chemical systems (BZ color flipping clocks) to evolving biological (bacteria, trees, ant colonies, coral reefs, brains), and, it is proposed, human/biotechnological systems (automobiles, coal fired power plants, smartphones, apps) passing the baton of Erwin Schrödinger’s “order from order” means for sustainably remembering and capitalizing on what works. The second law of thermodynamics driven trend of disorder to order to even more disorder continues ever more effectively as state of the art in disorder production in the Anthropocene as autocatalytic, “Matthew Effect,” gradient degrading, human impacts on the biosphere, aided and abetted by advancing technology. Human/biotechnological driven gradient dissolution manifests itself not only in the usual tragedy of the commons victims of industrialized human activity−the sixth extinction of species, the toxic smog in Beijing and New Delhi, the vanishing glaciers, the draining of fresh water aquifers…−it manifests itself in and is linked to us. Robert Rosen observed that a “material system [can] change its own behavior in response to a force, and…that same system can generate forces that change the behavior of other systems.” Under the impress of the escalating force of techno-dependency, our addictive drug, as a system, we, convenience driven, environmentally foggy, smartphone glued to hand, clueless without app, humans are changing our behavior in ways that change the behavior of other systems, biospheric systems not excluded, and, on balance, not for the better. A sustainable future for coupled human/biotechnological systems and the soaring gradient of advancing technology is an oxymoron. The accelerating technical order is producing a deepening skew, a crossing tipping point to out-of-control, global warming scale, disorder of orders. A case-in-point can be seen by extrapolating the fragility of excessive interconnectivity in climax ecosystems, as Robert Ulanowicz pointed out, to the rising order of local and global interconnectivity rendering us, individually and collectively, increasingly vulnerable to looming, potentially catastrophic, collapse. What sustainability needs is the going forward stability of an order of orders. Viewing sustainability in the framework of flows and counterflows, excesses and deficits, concentrations and dissipations, of order as potent, transformable organized energy (exergy), a.k.a, power, this paper offers a possible handle on robustly overcoming the formidable barriers to gaining and latching a sustainable future, ourselves (hopefully) included.

Crisis Science for Sustainability

John Kineman — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Sustainability science requires interdisciplinary and even trans-disciplinary frameworks for research in order to shift from disciplinary and sectorial studies to more appropriate ways of understanding whole system sustainability. While this shift is difficult to achieve within current traditions, an actual crisis seems to trigger many of the characteristics that would also be appropriate for holistic science. Disciplinary research tends to be the norm when we have a carefully planned research agenda and well-posed questions; but when we don’t know the questions, as is the case in a crisis, we instinctively invoke trans-disciplinary modes of learning. We may thus learn a great deal about system sustainability and system research by looking at the characteristics of ‘crisis science’. Here we review personal experience from scientific responses to oil spills in the 1970's.We suggest a general framework in terms of R-Theory (Kineman, 2012), which is a relational holon theory based on four archetypal domains corresponding to Aristotle’s general explanatory hierarchy and many other similar frameworks that have been developed separately in various disciplines and perennial philosophy. We propose general development of “Crisis Science” as a complex systems research field that has strong parallels with holistic paradigms many are struggling to establish in ecology and environmental management. Not only is there a strong theoretical affinity between these two domains, but by promoting Crisis Science publically and in mainstream programs, funding may be more easily obtained for critical integrated research that supports both purposes. As part of a Crisis Science research program it is necessary to train between crisis responses, and shared principles and methods are possible across many holistic problems we face otherwise in anticipation of possible crises. Pursued together, Crisis Science and Holistic Science can establish the Anticipatory capacity we need to avoid crises.

FOUR LAYERS APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING A TOOL FOR ASSESSING SYSTEMS THINKING

Moti Frank, Sigal Koral-Kordova — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

To perform successfully systems engineering tasks, systems engineers need a systems view, in other words, a high capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST). A tool for assessing systems thinking of engineers, once validated, may be used for systems engineering workforce selection and development, developing systems engineering curriculum, education, and training programs, as well as a standard tool for assessing systems engineers' competencies. Since there is no known way of directly 'measuring' systems thinking in general and CEST in particular, an indirect method is needed. This paper proposes an idea for developing an indirect means, i.e. a questionnaire for assessing the CEST of systems engineers. The idea is composed of four logic layers.

Synthesizing Systemic Intervention Approaches: Combining Viable System Model, Knowledge Management, and Toyota Production System for a Sustainable Holistic Management Model

Bradley Moore, Javier Calvo-Amodio, Joseph F. Junker — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Non-profit service organizations existing in dynamic environments are often presented with management challenges, such as necessity for non-centralized management structures, knowledge retention, and meeting diverse stakeholder demands. Many intervention approaches exist to address these challenges, such as the viable system model (VSM), knowledge management (KM), and the Toyota production system (TPS). These approaches each stem from specific welantschauungen (world views), capable of leading interventions in particular problem contexts. Previous work such as total systems intervention, creative design of methods, and boundary critique provide roadmaps on how to combine different approaches to act in complex problem contexts. However, they require the analyst to possess significant systems thinking knowledge. This research explores a complementarist framework to assist those that are not educated in systems thinking in intervening in complex problem contexts. The proposed framework is presented through a case study based on a non-profit service organization that performs knowledge-based project work in a dynamic environment. The development of the proposed complementarist approach is presented through 1) the problem context definition, 2) selection of applicable intervention approaches, 3) the analysis and matching of relevant literature to the problem context, and 4) illustration of the resulting framework for the case study organization. Discussion on potential future applications and development of the proposed framework are also presented.

Workability and Mobility of Construction Machinery:Systematic Approach to Engineering Matters

Tatsumasa TAKAKU — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

A new computerization technology is proposed and described in the field of construction machinery. As for social requirements, the need for prompt feedback about actual or potential performance deviation on job sites is growing because the margins of profit are getting smaller, and industry needs to be competitive. The history of the industrial automation has deeply related to the world economy so far. The design system (CAD), the production processing system (CAM) and the industrial robotics which has been developed afterwards in the 1960s, have greatly contributed to productivity improvement. Recently multi-copters (drone: small flying robot) are being developed already at some construction sites. Robotics has four major functions; A) operation (manipulation, hand and thumb, teach to art), B) movement (locomotion, foot, drive to run), C) sight (observation, eyes, sense to view), D) intelligence (artificial intelligence, brain, think to act). As for the construction machinery, A and B mentioned above deeply participate to their functions, together with C and D. Each function of A and B is related to robotics and mobility, linked together hand work and foot work.

Systematic approach to engineering matters is described as a thinking process to analysing and organizing engineering system. In the long history of human activity, culture, tradition, customs, life style, language have been formed gradually based upon politics, economics, natural and social environments. Experienced theory and praxis of human activity are evaluated from different angles in the field of design and construction works. Workability and mobility of robots are similar to human and animal acts. When looking at human growth and history of evolution, the tools and parts of machinery are deeply associated with human workability/mobility (sitting/standing, working/walking, handwork/footwork).The man-made systems are sometimes unstable and fragile against natural hazard and human errors. Their originality bases on nature laws and rules. Risk management of engineering matters is associated with those nature laws, rules and finally ISO standards.

Positioning and mobility is described by displacement (distance), velocity (speed) and acceleration (force) which are generating trajectory of movement. It is newly suggested that the trajectory is controlled by speed ratio of steering and driving successively and continuously instead of positioning by numerical data. Speed and Trajectory Control (STC) method is newly proposed, which contributes to remarkable reduction of controlling data and to easy modification of plan data on line at site. Induction method has less quantity of updated data than deduction method, and there are various kinds of advantages. The updated processing by GPS and laser beam instruments makes it possible.

The STC method bases on induction, updating planed data by observation in dynamics. Some application examples of the STC method are explained about their acts and validity.

Keywords : construction machinery, computerization technology, robotics, nature laws, workability and mobility, risk management, Speed and Trajectory Control ( STC ) method, bulldozer, inertial land navigation, human activity, theory and practice

A CYBER-SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO EXPLORE A VIABLE ORGANIZATION FOR AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE SYSTEM

Isaias Badillo-Piña, Jorge Armando Rojas-Ramirez, Ignacio Enrique Peon-Escalante — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The purpose of this paper is to explore a viable organization for an Electric Vehicles System (EVS) for a big city, to contribute to reduce the pollution impact of the current system based on fossil fuels, to improve the Anthropocene status in general and to improve the environment on a big city on particular

A brief review of systems concepts, theories and methodologies of system dynamics (SD) and the viable system model (VSM) will be given before the proposal application of both streams of Cyber-Systemic Sciences.

The paper will conclude with a theoretical estimation of the benefits generated by the EVS such as: reduction of pollution/, strategies for evolution, sustainability, etc.

We think this is the first time that it is made a viability exploration of the organization of an EVS for a Big City, which support the benefits mentioned before.

Self-governance and symbiosis: a systemic approach to Socio Ecological Systems resilience

Angela Espinosa, David Guzman — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Several approaches understand resilience as a systemic attribute that emerges in the relationship between the system and its niche or environment; it is distinguished by an observer as a system's capability to persist or to maintain its intern change dynamics in consideration with (in some cases, despite of) environmental change dynamics. Described this way, resilience is an attribute related with viability, which implies considering aspects such as adaptability and transformability. Throughout this document we argue that it may be desirable to take into account a more holistic and complex way to approach resilience in Socio Ecological Systems - SES. Looking for a deep understanding of change dynamics in SES and what it may be a desirable change path for human societies, the aim of the paper is to introduce the symbiotic metaphor as a way to describe and understand relationships between human and ecological systems. We also argue that this approach brings up useful implications for self-organisation at various levels of systemic aggregation in human systems. Along the document we build a statement for changing resilience and governance analysis in terms of intern and environmental change dynamics, in such a way that change and self-organisation considerations are structured around relationship dynamics. The paper concludes showing how this approach has been useful for understanding dynamics of two different SES in the Colombian Andean Eco Region and discusses the implications we may draw for future research.

Viable System Model of Political Parties

Allenna Leonard — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

A VIABLE SYSTEM MODEL OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Allenna Leonard, Ph.D.

34 Palmerston Square

Toronto, Ontario M6G 2S7

Canada

<allenna_leonard@yahoomcom>

www.audemanriver.com

ABSTRACT

Political parties exist in western democracies as a means of reducing variety by formalizing factions and allowing for a more manageable choice for voters. I will be using the system in the United States as an example although comparisons with parliamentary systems will be noted at times.

Political parties are nested hierarchies that proceed from the national committee level down through the state and county/municipality. The rules that govern them range from the formal, such as the rules established by the Federal Election Commission to the informal and sometimes quirky such as the “we don’t want nobody that nobody sent”. Party discipline is far broader and far looser in the United States than it is in a parliamentary system. Voters usually indicate a party preference when they register to vote although about a third of the electorate now counts itself as ‘independent’. Depending on the state, independents may or may not be restricted to voting in the general election. Joining a political party is as easy as checking a box. In contrast, in parliamentary systems, a minority of voters join a party by paying a subscription fee which allows them to attend the party caucus that nominates candidates for that party. Party discipline is much stricter in the parliamentary system where the leader and his or her advisors determine the position on a vote and an office holder who votes against the position can be expelled from the party unless the special circumstance of the free vote is in force. In the United States, all votes are free votes. Party discipline is enforced by the party whip but the means used is persuasion, augmented by arm-twisting, horse trading and the occasional threat.

The activities of the five systems of the VSM are not evenly distributed throughout the recursion levels. For example, the party platform does appear in System Five, but aspects may be ignored or repudiated by individual candidates often without heavy consequences. Most System Four activities are concentrated on winning the next election, although shorter and longer term planning is done and issues are debated for possible inclusion in the platform or for legislative or judicial initiatives. Public relations and strategy also appear here. Systems Three and Three Star adjust resources among activities depending on election cycle calendar and other priorities with System Two coordinating whatever is applicable at the particular recursion level. System One activities include, again depending on the election cycle calendar, voter registration, candidate training, and fund raising. All may involve incumbent officeholders and candidates although the particular campaigns are separate organizations.

The VSM analysis will show some strengths and weaknesses of the present system and some possibilities for coordination with like-minded issue groups.

DEVELOPING CAUSAL LOOP DIAGRAMS FOR COFFEE SUPPLY CHAIN: SUPPORTING TO ENHANCE THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES OF A VIETNAMESE COFFEE

Thich V. Nguyen, Nam C. Nguyen, Ockie J. H. Bosch — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

In this paper, researchers develop causal relationships among different variables that present enablers and outcomes – operating within many identified feedback loops. The resulting causal loop model provides coffee managers with a snapshot of the dynamic interactions among elements in the coffee supply chain, which helps to identify proactive action in implementing the coffee supply chain philosophy for increasing the competitiveness of coffee products. Based on this review and analysis, recommendations are made regarding application of the causal loop method in coffee supply chain management. Important future research directions are also indicated.

Understanding the management of the Chinese bank from Systemic Perspectives

Jae Eon Yu — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper looks into the management and operational activities of the Chinese bank from cybernetic perspectives. The research is carried out using the application of Viable System Model (VSM) to explore the complex nature of banking activities according to Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety. Using VSM, we explore the nature of banking practice where it needs to assess, what happens in practice, and how we will design the system model for the banking business. Based on the systemic research on Chinese banking practice, we appreciate and present a good system model for the responsible management and feasible and desirable activities of the bank. Being a socially responsible bank, we propose a better banking practice from systemic perspectives. It allows a practitioner to be an actor for ‘sustainable finance’ in practice.

Systems Research: How do we discover what we need to know, according to whom, and for what purpose?

Mary C Edson, Ph.D., Gary S. Metcalf, Ph.D. — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The idea of the Anthropocene, an era in which human presence and behavior have become the most important factors of change on the Earth, increases long-standing questions about research. How do we discover what we need to know according to whom and for what purpose? The goal of our presentation is to introduce some consideration for a systemic approach to research and to provide stepping stones toward a path forward.

At a time in which the most troubling problems are often labeled as systemic (e.g. global financial relationships, environmental concerns, weather-related catastrophes, etc.) there is a need to reevaluate the ways in which we learn about and model the worlds in which we live. Increasingly, thought leaders recognize that critical thinking and positivistic approaches, while valuable, are insufficient to comprehensively and constructively address the most pressing issues of our time. Our ability to capture the dynamic nature of systems remains limited, though. As the urgency of issues related to governing the Anthropocene becomes more prevalent, Systems Research and application in Systems Practice is gaining increased attention across and beyond the Systems Sciences.

Using Critical Systems Thinking in Emancipatory Postgraduate Supervision

Roelien Goede, Estelle Taylor — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Postgraduate study is a partnership between supervisor and student. The nature of this relationship is mainly guided by the supervision approach followed by the supervisor. Identified approaches include: Functional supervision, enculturation, critical thinking, emancipation, and developing a quality relationship. It is argued in this paper that this list is not mutually exclusive but rather distinctive goals of supervision of postgraduate students.

The aim of this paper is to present the structure of an action research project aimed at creating guidelines for emancipatory supervision. The participatory action research (AR) method used in this study has five phases: diagnosis; action planning; action taking; evaluation of success; and specifying learning. This paper focusses on the diagnosis and action planning phases of the action research project.

Critical systems heuristics developed by Werner Ulrich is used to guide the diagnosis process. Critical systems heuristics is used as a tool for participants to articulate their views on how supervision should be done and what the goals thereof should be. The paper presents findings from the diagnosis process representative of the student and supervisor views on their experiences of supervision. A total of ten students and supervisors took part in interpretive interviews. Interview questions were guided by critical systems heuristics and literature on constructivism. The qualitative data collected was analysed using interpretive content analysis.

From the findings of the interviews and results of a literature review a plan for taking action is developed to develop a flexible process described by guidelines for supervision of postgraduate students.

Although the implementation and evaluation of the guidelines and resulting process are outside the scope of the paper, reflection is done on the applicability of the chosen framework of understanding for the development of a methodology to achieve the desired goals of postgraduate supervision.

Practical Value of the Systems-based Evolutionary Learning Laboratory in Solving Complex Community Problems in Vietnam

Tuan M. Ha, Ockie J.H. Bosch, Nam C. Nguyen — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper provides initial reflections on the practical value of the systems-based Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab) through a case study on improving the quality of life for women smallholder farmers in rural Haiphong, northern Vietnam. The first five steps were implemented during 2013-2014 providing valuable results that have made both practical and theoretical contributions with substantial implications to community development. The approach and framework helped to identify and engaged right stakeholders in problem analyses and decision making activities. Fuzzy problems within the complex web of life of the women and rural households were uncovered using relevant systems tools through a guided ELLab process. The ELLab helped to build capacity of local people for taking ownership of the process and outcomes to guarantee sustainability and long-term impacts. It also facilitated true participation and co-learning amongst stakeholders, making transformative learning occur. Contributions to action research are discussed.

Action Research as a Research Method in Architecture and Design

Christiane Margerita Herr — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Summary

This paper discusses the use of action research as a research method in architecture and design. It addresses the question of how academic work in the fields of architecture and design can pursue research through methods that are appropriate to the nature of design processes. This question is relevant to much research work done in architecture and design, which tends to revert to conventional research methods oriented either towards the sciences or to the humanities in order to be academically acceptable. Action research is introduced as a research method that has much in common with applied design processes, and which allows designers to develop research in the spirit of designing. This paper aims to inform those seeking to preserve the applied nature of designing and the involved nature of the observer/designer while pursuing a higher level of academic rigour.

Extended Abstract

Action Research as a Research Method in Design-based Fields

Design-based fields are strongly practice-oriented in that designing typically involves the inception and development of ideas as well as their manifestations. Acting (making) thus goes hand in hand with reflection in design processes. In contrast to many other fields, studying design is always linked to practicing design – designing cannot be learned from books and without applied practice. This characteristic distinguishes departments of architecture or product design from other departments within universities, and has been a constant source of debate as to whether these fields can be considered properly “academic”. Among designers working academically, this generates challenging questions regarding the validity of their methods of inquiry in the wider academic context. In particular in research-based degree programmes, this often means that academics as well as their Master or PhD students choose to shift to research methods considered more formal and defensible. Typically, such methods are taken from either the humanities or the sciences. Only rarely however does academic work in these fields acknowledge and employ design as a research method. While I focus on the field of architecture in the following, the insights developed are to a large extent generalizable to other design-based fields.

Research methods employed in the field of architecture vary considerably depending on the particular aspect of architecture under investigation, and range from scientific methods used in areas such as building physics and construction to qualitative methods of inquiry common in areas such as housing research or history. The nature of design related research, however, remains subject to an ongoing debate: Groat and Wang (2002), reviewing diverse research methods available to researchers in architecture, clearly distinguish research from applied design. Laurel (2003) emphasizes the synergy of both domains, while Downton (2003) argues that design can be a form of research and refers to the descriptions put forward by Archer (1981) and Frayling (1993) of three areas of investigation: “research for design”, “research about design” and “research through design”. In Downton’s (2003) view, the process of designing can be regarded as form of investigation that produces individual knowing as well as shareable knowledge and thus qualifies as research. Glanville (1998) even holds that scientific research is a restricted form of designing. More recently, designers working academically have increasingly emphasized the necessity of including designing in the methodological canon of academic inquiry. These efforts have been developed to a large extent in the context of the Design Research Society and its Special Interest Group on Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG). In addition to this, action research as well as design-based approaches are also discussed in fields such as management and business, which, like design-based fields, are strongly practice-oriented (Fendt and Kaminska-Labbe 2011). In the following, I discuss the potential role of action research in this ongoing discourse, with a particular focus on employing it in the writing of a postgraduate thesis. I introduce and examine in detail a case study (Herr 2008) that demonstrates how action research may be integrated into academic work that involves applied designing. The case study is a PhD thesis in architecture written by the author.

Case Study: An Action Research Thesis in Architecture

The positions outlined above indicate the importance of both design and research in the field of architecture as well as their complementary nature. In the context of architectural design, is widely agreed that design research is difficult to contain for empirical research purposes (Lawson 1997, p. 39) and may require flexible modes of investigation. For this reason, the case study discussed in the following employs a mixed methods approach (Creswell 2003) as it combines an initial proposition developed from a literature review with an explorative action research process. The aim of the study was to explore how cellular automata (CA) – an established method of mathematical modelling and investigation in scientific fields of inquiry such as mathematics or biology – can support the conceptual architectural design process.

In the first stage of the study, a review of previous work in the field was conducted. This led to the creation of a preliminary extended CA model that was then subjected to a design process that simultaneously constituted the research inquiry. The testing and further development of the initial CA model required applied design, which in the context of the study was understood as the process of developing software implementations based on initial assumptions, and applying (testing) them in architectural design processes. Results from five successive software implementations were used throughout the study to inform further developments of the initially proposed CA model as well as subsequent software implementations. This iterative research process is primarily qualitative in nature, with both research questions and the type of collected data subject to changes from one software implementation to the next. Moreover, the nature of results in this type of design-based research process is open-ended, as design processes cannot easily be predicted. For this reason, the study focused primarily on collecting qualitative data, as quantitative data collection is restricted to data of a predefined nature. The purpose of this applied phase of research was to allow for open-ended development of initial assumptions to capture unexpected results as they are commonly found in design processes. Data collection methods however changed over the course of the five software implementations this study.

Choosing Action Research as a Design-oriented Research Method

In order to choose a formal method of inquiry for the case study, the following criteria were initially identified as essential characteristics: The research method should allow for an actively involved researcher and be flexible enough to accommodate various modes of action. It should furthermore accommodate unexpected results as well as changing or emergent variables during the research process. Finally, it should allow for the research process to be based on initial assumptions. According to these criteria, action research was found to be the research method most appropriate to the case study. Groat and Wang (2002, p. 111) characterize action research as construction of knowledge through the process of change, with a focus on developing practical results through improving specific situations. While not the same (McMahon 1999), action research is closely related to Schön’s (1983) approach to reflective practice, who grounds his approach to an epistemology of practice on a close examination of practitioners, including architects. Schön (1983, p. ix) argues that reflection-in-action “is susceptible to a kind of rigor that is both like and unlike the rigor of scholarly research and controlled experiment”. Swann (2002) argues that the design process can be considered a research process, with a clear focus on action. He suggests “…that action research and the action of designing are so close that it would require only a few words to be substituted for the theoretical frameworks of action research to make it applicable to design” (Swann 2002, p. 56). The similarities between the process of design and action research are further emphasized by Stapleton (2005), who regards both approaches as "activities for changing social reality":

“Both are cyclical and emergent, with action research having a plan-act-observe-reflect cycle and design a problem-analysis-synthesis-evaluation cycle. Action research, as a qualitative methodology, can also successfully combine both qualitative and qualitative approaches that are necessary to investigate the craft of game design.” (Stapleton 2005)

The emergent nature of action research in Stapleton’s (2005) description refers to the flexibility of action research to accommodate insights resulting from unexpected outcomes of action. If necessary, even the research approach itself may be modified: new variables may only emerge during the process of investigation through action.

The full paper will extend the above as follows:

Action research will be discussed in further detail, in particular those aspects that are most relevant to applied designing.

Implications of demands for academic rigour will be discussed in the context of action research as well as design-based research.

Links between cybernetics and design will be discussed and analysed for their mutually enhancing potential.

An analysis and summary of insights gained from the case study and literature review will list challenges and opportunities likely encountered by researchers when employing action research as a research method in design-based fields.

Method for promoting ICT engineering safety

Takafumi Nakamura, Kyoichi Kijima — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Action Research or Design Science Research as Methodology for the Development of a Historical Digital Graphical Novel? A Critical Systems Perspective

Diane-Lee Pretorius, Roelien Goede, JT Terblanche — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The legacy of Nelson Mandela is part of the lives of most South Africans. His story inspires South Africans and people around the globe to forgive and work hard to achieve freedom from oppression and poverty. For this reason, we need to keep his story alive and teach young people about the sacrifices he made to achieve his goals. Funded by an international consortium, a project called Mandela27 was launched to educate people around the world on the life of Nelson Mandela. Part of the project involved the development of a digital graphical novel depicting life in the prison where he served a 27 year sentence.

This paper investigates action research and design science as design methodologies for the development of the digital graphical novel. The development of the digital graphic novel was commissioned to the Serious Games Institute of South Africa (SGI-SA) based at the North-West University. A serious game is a computer game that aims not only to provide entertainment but also to provide an educational experience to the user.

The SGI-SA often uses design science research as research methodology when developing games. Design science research (DSR) is a methodology used mostly by engineers to develop artefacts. DSR aims to provide scientific rigour in the process of designing, developing, and evaluating artefacts. Its epistemological stance is that knowledge is created through the making of an artefact and evaluating the success thereof. Many different approaches are documented but most often the following cyclic phases are proposed: Awareness of the problem, suggestion of possible solutions, development, evaluation of artefact, and conclusion.

Since these phases are comparable with typical AR phases (diagnosis, action planning, action taking, and specifying learning) the developers of the digital graphic novel had to reflect carefully on AR and DSR to select an appropriate methodology for the project. Both these methodologies use existing theory to guide the development process. Critical systems thinking promotes holistic thinking, pluralistic problem solving, emancipation, and reflection. This paper provides a reflection on the design of the digital graphical novel from an AR and DSR methodological perspective within the framework of critical systems thinking.

A critical systems approach to business intelligence system development

Carin Venter, Roelien Goede — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Business intelligence is becoming increasingly important in organisations. Business intelligence systems are very expensive to implement. Unfortunately these systems often fail to realise business benefits, even when they are technically very good. Traditional development approaches enable developers to develop technically good systems. However, a business intelligence system is a social artefact as well as a technical artefact; it should aim to improve the organisational context of its users rather than merely automate existing business processes. Yet, traditional development approaches do not enable developers to incorporate these social and organisational dimensions into their artefacts. Methodologies in the critical systems thinking paradigm aim to also explore the relevant social dimensions of a problem context in order to provide richer and more meaningful solutions. This paper describes an action research study whereby critical systems thinking principles (operationalised by critical systems heuristics) were applied as part of a business intelligence development project; the principles were applied during the business requirements analysis phase. The aim was to emancipate participants to explore: what is relevant; who needs to be involved in determining what is relevant; and how to handle conflicting views regarding the new business intelligence system.

A SYSTEMS SCIENCE APPROACH TO ADDRESS THE URBAN TOURISM ROLE IN THE CURRENT RE-URBANIZATION PROJECT OF MEXICO CITY

Oswaldo Morales-Matamoros, Leticia Elizabeth Romero-García, Jaime Moreno-Escobar — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Nowadays, faster population growth as well as new lifestyles which societies have adopted, partly due to the intensive use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), have lead governments to provide alternatives to reduce the problems caused by population growth mainly in large cities, besides addressing the necessities and requests of their citizens and visitors. The aim of this research is to generate the first approaches for the urban tourism role, as one of the main Economic sectors for cities, in the Digital, Smart and Knowledge city (DSKC) of Mexico City under a systemic approach. Thus, the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is applied. At the same time, the Strategic-Management Model (SMM) is used in a complementary and parallel way. The results achieved so far allow us to propose: i) a definition of the DSKC; ii) an approach to the urban tourism role in the DSNC; iii) a first outline of the systemic model of urban tourism in the DSKC of Mexico City; iv) the conflicts among the components of urban tourism and the DSKC; v) the key stakeholders of the system and; vi) the mission of the system in study, as well as feasible strategies to implement shortly to accomplish the mission. Hence, the bases are stablished in order to continue with the remaining steps of the Methodology and model for the construction of a systemic model proposal of the urban tourism incorporation in the DSKC of Mexico City.

INTERDISCIPLINARY COOPERATION AND SYSTEM MODELLING AS MEANS TO GOVERN THE ANTHROPOCENE

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The global development has now come to a critical state where humanity act as a new geological force and it is obvious that there are numerous of environmental problems which arise from the present geosphere-biosphere-anthroposphere interactions which urgently need to be addressed. This paper argues that systems analysis and modelling of environmental systems is one necessary part in successful governing of societies towards sustainability. In the 1960th many observations and data made it evident that the environment in most countries was in a bad state. To get a holistic view of the complex problems and to clarify the relationships of structure and function, systems thinking was applied e.g. modelling, cybernetics, systems analysis, life cycle assessment and energy and material flow analysis. Such tools used collectively, conceptualized as 'integrated assessment', can help to communicate fundamental knowledge, and to support decision-making when identifying, developing and implementing precautionary measures and solutions. There are good examples demonstrating the strength of such approaches; Solutions to the ozone depletion by replacing CFC's with more chemically reactive compounds that are degraded within the troposphere. Acidification of European low buffer soils and lakes, sensitive to acid rain, has decreased due to concerted action on Sulphur emission control in large parts of Europe. The handling and recycling of solid waste has resulted in a considerable reduction of deposits in large parts of the world. This basically natural scientific knowledge has also influenced the development within e.g. economy and jurisprudence and today ecological economy and environmental law assume ecological systems as fundamental.

The complexity of ecosystems and environmental issues can only be understood by use of advanced scientific tools such as modelling as a base for establishing interdisciplinary co-operation. Each component of such models will of course be an approximation, but validation and verification of the models will serve to make them useful. An ongoing research project at Mid Sweden University aims at building a complete carbon and energy balance model of an entire Swedish region, based on the Danish Samsø-model. Such models will make it possible to refer to a robust scientific base, thereby making it easier to argue for appropriate measures and actions. At the same time it will be clear what data these actions rest upon thereby making it easier to identify possible errors or limitations.

Systems analysis and subsequent modes are constructs. According to systems theory and model development they are strategies as the best representations of nature, we can make. At the same time it must be assured, that a continuous adaptation and improvement in a studied area is possible - i.e. that model outcomes are matched with phenomenological observations and that empirical work also is carried out. Model development can therefore be characterized as a dynamic and iterative process.

Governance in the Anthropocene must be based on an understanding of the problem picture at hand, and learning how to appropriately address increasingly complex issues. For identifying potential solutions and consequences of policy implementation, systems modelling on relevant levels will be one necessary tool. The current project developing an environmental regional model, illustrates how modelling can provide decision support for the county of Jämtland regarding management of energy resources and planning of future infrastructure, as well as serving regional and national information purposes.

PoSITeams – Positive Systems Intelligent Teams, an Agent-Based Simulator for Studying Group Behaviour

Teemu Tiinanen, Juha Törmänen, Raimo P. Hämäläinen, Esa Saarinen — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Systems intelligence is the ability to act intelligently within complex systems involving interaction and feedback. Organizations and social groups are typical examples of everyday systems. The dynamics of social systems can be difficult to understand because of their systemic nature. This makes positively affecting the state of the system a challenging problem. The effects of positive emotions have been linked with increased performance in social groups and individuals. Thus simulating emotion dynamics can be used to better understand how to act more constructively within organizations. PoSITeams is a web-based multi-agent simulator to study the dynamics of emotions. We present a novel agent-based emotional contagion model based on psychological research to study the dynamics of positive and negative emotions in organizations. The purpose of the simulator is to let the user explore the effects of different behavioural and structural changes in organizations. This facilitates perceiving the organization as a system and also lets the user recognize the potential of changing the system from within, thus promoting systems intelligent behaviour in the organization. The presented emotional contagion model is also considered as an optimization problem to let the simulator suggest systems intelligent actions. The behaviour of the model and the optimization methods are examined with example simulations.

Sense-Making between and across Stakeholder Perspectives

Javier Calvo-Amodio, Shannon Flumerfelt — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The CX Tool© provides a visual Tool© for creating congruence between what is known, thinking, and what is done, doing, within a socio-technical system. It guides the analyst by identifying six elements contained within thinking, Organizational Intelligence, and doing, Performance Management, dimensions. Three elements define Organizational Intelligence: Essential Ideas; Essential Processes/Protocols/Structures; and Essential Assessments/Audits. Three elements define Performance Management: Essential Actions; Essential Standards; and Essential Deliverables. The CX Tool© allows analysts to assign congruency scores between elements horizontally and vertically while allowing comparisons between current and desired state of the system. The CX Tool© does not distinguish between stakeholders’ perspectives, a feature that, when faced with complex and/or complicated systems, may prove critical. In this research the authors propose a conceptual framework to incorporate different stakeholders’ perspectives into the CX Tool©. A short case study is presented to illustrate how different stakeholders’ perspectives can be incorporated and quantified.

A Systemic and Hyperdimensional Model of a Conscious Cosmos and the Ontology of Consciousness in the Universe

Chris H. Hardy — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The existence of consciousness in the universe as a consequent dimension of reality and a force able to shape material reality has to be integrated in cosmological physics theories whose stated aim is to describe the whole universe. General Systems Theory is a substantial global systemic framework that, blended with hyperdimensional physics, can ground such modeling.

It is a fact that only by positing hyperdimensions can actual physics succeeds in reaching a near-unification of the four forces by blending the frameworks of Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics (such as in Witten’s 11-dimensional M-Theory). This paper argues that the only way to integrate the dimension of consciousness in a theory of the universe is by modeling a complex hyperdimension of consciousness (or ‘syg hyperdimension’) consisting in complex semantic fields (operating at all levels, from the cosmic to the biosystems levels), and entwined with a hyperspace and hypertime. The well substantiated ‘nonlocal’ dynamics of consciousness, experimentally evidenced, show mind processes constantly violating Newtonian-Einsteinian space and time constraints, and following instead complex systems dynamics based on connectivity and meaning.

The Infinite Spiral Staircase theory (ISST) postulates that this triune hyperdimension operates at a sub-quantum scale, at the origin of the universe before the very Planck scale that allows the existence of particles (matter), as well as space and time. It is a Kaluza-Klein compact 5^th dimension with a bulk pervading and encompassing our universe; the virtual particles of tachyonic speed populating it, the sygons, instantiate the very meaning-driven dynamics of our minds and allow for instant connectivity at a distance and two-way influences between semantic fields or minds and bio- and matter- systems.

A Systems Science Framework for Understanding the Nature of Governance

George Mobus — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The natural world of life is replete with examples of systemic governance subsystems that operate to sustain the continuance of those systems. Every cell, organism, population, and ecosystem demonstrates various self-regulation and environmental coordination mechanisms that have evolved to ensure the long-term viability of that system. A formal approach from systems science that is built on these natural governance subsystems may provide some guidance to our understanding of human social systems and their governance. The emergence of higher levels of organization in the origins and evolution of life can be seen to be the story of increasing sophistication in governance subsystems as disparate complex adaptive systems coalesce into “societies” of interacting entities (super-molecules to primitive protocells, prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic cells, those to multicellular organisms, those to communities, etc.). At each stage in this on-going emergence of higher levels of organization the one consistent aspect is how hierarchical cybernetic structures have contributed to the stabilization of functional relations among the component entities leading to sustainable super-entity structures. The progression is from simple cooperation of multiple entities to intentional coordination emerging to manage complexity. Information processing and decision subsystems (agents) that took responsibility for logistical coordination among components and others that managed tactical coordination of the whole system with external (environmental) entities, resources, and threats evolved to keep increasingly complex biological entities able to maintain their existence and reproduction. Now the governance of human social systems that seek to exist in some kind of harmony with the Earth’s ecology (what I call the Ecos) has emerged in the last 100k years or so and evolved over that time frame to produce the modern socio-economic systems in existence today. But it (characterized here as the neoliberal capitalistic democracy) is not as evolved as, say, the mechanisms of metabolic regulation. There are numerous reasons to believe that the modern governance subsystem is, in fact, moving human societies toward the opposite of sustainable existence. A systems examination of the theory of governance subsystems (hierarchical cybernetics) suggests pathways toward a more functional governance subsystem for human societies. The theory covers the regulation of economic flows as well as the legal superstructure and moral/ethical aspects of culture that collectively constitutes the governance subsystem of a human society embedded in a meta-system, the Ecos.

Three Constructs of Systems Thinking for Better Governing a Globalized World in the Anthropocene

Yeon-soo(Youn-soo) Shim(Sim) — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Living in a globalized society implies that political thinking necessarily extends beyond the national level to reach us in our roles as citizens of the world. Living in today’s globalized society also requires a new level of political thinking commensurate with the complexity of its challenges. To overcome the many difficulties we, and the planet we live on, face in the Anthropocene era, it has become incumbent on human beings to practice systems thinking. This paper will examine how general systemic thinking, critical systems thinking, and whole healing systems thinking can help us both comprehend and overcome these challenges.

Using Critical Systems Thinking to Promote Reflexivity on an Engineering Sacrosanct Concept

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper presents a systemic intervention in which a group of researchers and engineering students used critical systems thinking ideas to promote reflexivity on a basic concept that underlies engineering practice: efficiency. In particular we explored a situation in which students had to deal simultaneously with issues of efficiency and justice. Engineering students are frequently trained to design efficient systems or to improve the efficiency of already existing systems. Although engineering and economic efficiency are not the same, young engineering students tend to equate and value both of them. However, within many contexts efficiency is not the only relevant criteria for judging among different alternative solutions to engineering problems. Justice and other ethical considerations are also frequently relevant. Not all efficient technical solutions are also the most fair, and vice versa. In this paper we describe a research inquiry in which a group of engineering students were invited to choose among diverse solutions involving issues of justice and efficiency. Based on the work of a group of scholars such as John Rawls, John Nash, Robert Aumann, and Howard Raiffa, the students explored different conceptions of justice as well as their relationships with efficiency. During this process that involved both individual and collective work, we found evidence that the students became engaged in uncovering and questioning their ways of thinking and behaving, as well as their moral frameworks. Initially we found a tendency among engineering students to be unwilling to deviate from the solutions that involve Pareto efficiency, to give priority to efficiency over justice, to understand justice only within the context of efficiency, as well as to experience difficulties in developing rational arguments to reach rationally justifiable conclusions on issues of justice and efficiency. The research revealed that senior undergraduate and master engineering students frequently experience a substantial difficulty in arguing coherently in debates about practical rationality, something that is in stark contrast with their good ability to deal with technical issues and mathematical calculations. At the beginning of the experiment disputed questions related to justice and efficiency were frequently treated not as a matter of rational enquiry and justification, but as a problem of personal opinions and unarticulated presuppositions that were relegated to the realm of irrational acts of belief. The use of boundary critique and several critical systems thinking tools contributed to change the way engineering students made and justify their choices among competing conceptions of justice, and to develop a new notion on how to reach a balance between efficiency and justice. The discussion helped students to reflect on wider issues that involved their role in issues of social justice in their society. The changes that students experienced were not the result of the researchers’ intentions to convince the students of making some particular choices, but of a dialogical rather than a monological approach to ethical issues and practical rationality. This dialogical approach involved the exploration of different alternative boundary judgements that promote reflexivity on what and whose views are included in or excluded from analysis. Students were able to understand that different ethical choices result from choosing diverse boundary judgements.

SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO EXAMINE THE STRUCTURE, CONDUCT AND PERFORMANCE MODEL OF AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA, EVIDENCE FROM GHANA

Kwamina Ewur Banson — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The continuous growth in population and consumption, the intensity of competition for land, water, and energy, and the overexploitation of the ecosystem, have affected Ghana’s ability to sustain food security and it natural resources. Over the years, many promising agricultural development initiatives could not provide sustainable solutions to agricultural challenges in most parts of Africa, including Ghana, leading to food system failures. The agricultural industry is a complex system and requires a holistic approach to dealing with root causes of challenges. This research therefore uses systems thinking tools including Casual Loop Diagrams (CLDs) and Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) modelling to develop new structural systems models where stakeholders determined the components and interactions between the Structure, Conduct and Performance (SCP) of the agricultural industry in Ghana using the Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab). The results illustrates how the SCP elements interact together to influence the survival and growth of the agricultural industry among driving forces. The study identifies that stakeholders adopt several strategies to survive and compete, which lead to the overexploitations of the ecosystem. The results from BBN models indicate that the implementation of systemically determined interventions, policies and strategies could significant improve the rate of business survival and growth from 58.8% to 73%, while the chances of improving the SCP could be increase from 39%, 28.3% and 36.4% to 80.1%, 55.9% and 62.4% respectively. This paper contributes to the systemic approach to SCP in that, the improvement of production and allocative efficiency may usher a greater potential for improving food security and the natural resources and further strengthen agricultural sustainability.

RELEVANCE OF STAKEHOLDERS FOR TOURISM MANAGEMENT: THE CASE OF THE EL CHICO NATIONAL PARK, HIDALGO, MEXICO

Erika Cruz Coria, Abraham Briones Juárez, Lilia Zizumbo Villarreal — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 00:00:00 -0700

El Chico National Park (ECNP) is one of the most important protected areas in the state of Hidalgo. Tourism management of this protected area involves numerous stakeholders with different needs, resources and perceptions of nature. There are four forest communities that are involved in the tourist use of this park, but other stakeholders are also behind tourism activity in this PA: federal government agencies, state government agencies, municipalities, unorganized smallholder entrepreneurs. Tourism management of this protected area is a complex issue, particularly, when decision-making process is centralised by government bodies. This study explores the relationships’ structure among government agencies and community tourist associations (CTA) based on the tourism management of El Chico National Park. It presents a descriptive analysis of collaborative networks among ECNP’s stakeholders, using a qualitative research.

Intangibles and Valuation in the Age of Knowledge

Brian J Hilton — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Here we take an deductive approach rooted in the reason the firm exists Coase's (1937) then work on Williamson (1979), Hart and Grossman (1986), Tirole (1986) and Hernnart (1989) on the basis for that existence followed by most recently the role ICT plays in the process creating corporate boundaries (Holmstrom and Roberts, 1998, Antras 2011, Cantwell 2013).

In the emerging knowledge age it is highly pertinent to explore how to articulate the role of the corporation, or more generally enterprise, where knowledge is evidentially key to an enterprise's success, form, distribution of power, both within and without, and its location. Corporate ownership seems highly correlated with all these. Knowledge generation, distribution and location are not prerequisite for corporate existence but necessary artefacts of enterprise defined beyond the boundaries of ownership by any single corporation.

P2P in the anthropocene with the Convergence gathering as a case study

Victor Ronald David MacGill — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

There are many threats as we move deeper into the anthropocene age. The dominance based hierarchies that have become an unquestioned part of 21^st century life are a reflection of the linear profit driven paradigm that fails to see the interconnectedness between us, and between us and the world we inhabit. In order to find a pathway out of the looming dystopic futures that appear to be unfolding, a new paradigm that recognises the connectedness within nature and the social world is necessary to generate new social structures that can lead to more sustainable, thriving futures.

One weak signal on the horizon that might foreshadow a change in paradigm towards a more healthy way of seeing the world and interacting in it is the peer to peer movement. The peer to peer movement creates ways for people to interact without intervening controlling hierarchies that build value for those involved. There are a number of forms from digitally based platforms like Wikipedia, Linux, couch surfing and ride sharing through to the Arab Spring and occupy Wall Street. There are also links to the co-operative movement and community initiatives like transition towns and permacultural living.

A case study is presented examining one type of peer to peer group in more detail to reveal practical issues of operating within this new paradigm. The Convergence gathering is a group of people interested in alternative lifestyles that has met for five or six days over the New Year in North Canterbury, New Zealand for almost thirty years. It has developed an organisational style with no ongoing structured leadership.

How to Eliminating Adverse selection Action? Comparative Analysis on Credit Evaluation System and Guarantee System in Chinese E-Commerce market

Yong Pan — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Compared to the traditional market, the e-commerce transaction still could not get rid of information asymmetry between the online sellers and online buyers. Adverse selection actions brought by information asymmetry have negative impact on e-marketing and reduce the efficiency of the online transaction. Now website such as TAOBAO (http://www.taobao.com) are seeking ways to reduce adverse selection action. Widely used approaches are credit scoring system and guarantee system. This paper takes transaction data from U disk market in TAOBAO as samples and analyzes the role of credit scoring system and guarantee system in Chinese e-commerce market. The results showed that the credit scoring system and guarantee system can effectively counteract negative effect from the adverse selection actions. Although the credit scoring system has a significant impact on transaction volume; guarantee system has greater impact on the trading volume than the credit scoring systems. In addition, relationship between the guarantee system and credit scoring system are not substitutes but complement for each other. In the case of the existence of the guarantee system, online consumers’ purchase for online goods options is still subject to the impact of the credit scoring system. The paper proposes thoughts to improve credit scoring system and guarantee systems to promote the efficiency of e-marketing in China.

A Call to Action for the Systems Sciences Community

Irma Wilson, Pamela Buckle Henning — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The world’s systems scientists are crucial knowledge holders in this anthropocene era. This paper will put forth a deep call to action to the systems community. It is vital in this time that members of this community put themselves on more influential platforms, speaking in more audible ways. The message must be about what this community can see about the degradation of the living organism that is our earth, and what must happen in order to enable its survival.

This paper frames the systems community as keepers of vital wisdom about the macro effects of how the earth has been altered by humans. We will argue that such macro-level understanding must be joined with regional and local level meaning-making processes and actions already underway across the globe; it must inform those initiatives and be informed by them. As important, micro-level activities must have more ways to inform and influence macro level perspectives on how human activity is responding to the imperatives of the anthropocene. We will argue that this call to action is a call to develop fields of attraction – visible, plausible alternatives to the human behaviours that, in aggregate, jeopardize the likelihood that our future can be one wherein we can thrive. We propose there must be attractors with a wide variety of design paths, presented as narratives that invite and entice participation.

We will examine obstacles that members of the systems community face in taking up a call to action like this, along with ways to meet those obstacles, clearing the path to greater participation by systems experts in rising to the realities of life in the anthropocene age.

The Display/Pickup Paradigm and Practice: A Unifying Systemic Approach to School and Workplace Renewal

Susan Farr Gabriele — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The path to the new paradigm begins with a dramatic shift in agency--from teacher as agent to learner as agent. This shift is as dramatic and far-reaching as the earth/sun rotation paradigm shift in astronomy. Whether behavioral laws and causes relate to gravity or human agency, both paradigm shifts here are proposed as hard science--a result of extensive empirical observation, rather than speculation. However, the shift in instruction/management theory is only a partial answer, typically resulting in two conflicting camps: those who propose that the leader is sole agent and must control the supervised vs. those who argue that the supervised are agents of their own learning/ performance and need total flexibility.

Boulding’s Nine-Level Typology of System Complexity clarifies how both control and flexibility are needed. Levels 1- 3 systems—frameworks, clockworks, and control systems—are Things (T), which can be predicted and regulated. Levels 4 – 7 are organisms, which are self-regulating and behave according to interiorly prescribed criteria, especially sophisticated in Level 7, people (P). Levels 8 – 9 are social and transcendent systems with transient boundaries, while Levels 4 -7 boundaries are fixed. Thus, Level 7 (individual human) needs are mandatory; Level 8 (organization) needs are optional. It follows that people must meet their personal needs before their organization needs. Boulding’s nine system levels group neatly into three domains with different behavioral laws, resulting in TPO Theory (Things/technical; People/personal; and Outcomes/organizational). This theory proposes that when Things (T) are designed/displayed to optimize pickup by People (P), the result is improved Outcomes (O). Further, the key to organization health becomes the system’s adjustment capacities (cf. Boulding’s Level 3: “Thermostat”). The Display/Pickup paradigm explains that leaders DISPLAY (T) subject matter, policy, procedures, and so forth. Learners/workers (P) acquire them by PICKUP, each at their own pace.

A corresponding new practice is the 30/30 RoundTable, an activity designed for 30 people to give and hear others’ views in 30 minutes. The RoundTable adds no new demands because educators use it for their own purposes in their existing classrooms and meetings. RoundTables are thus seeds for systemic renewal, defined as enrichment and transformation from within, where the agency lies. Corresponding systems design/redesign is then achieved at users’ own pace, by the users themselves, each within their own (sub)system. This allows for the almost infinite variability and complexity from system level to system level, and from system type to system type. The RoundTable planted and flourishing, two new prongs/displays are gradually added for a three–pronged iterative activity at three entry points in the system: 1- 30/30 RoundTable (bottom-up); 2- TPO Thermostat (top-down); and 3- Triple-Bottom-Line or 3BL (in -out - in) or current goals/outcomes - 3BL holistic/comprehensive goals - revised goals/intended outcomes.

Towards a Systemic Evaluation for Graduate Academic Programs in Mexico

Gabriela García-Haro, Oswaldo Morales-Matamoros, Ricardo Tejeida-Padilla — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The level of development of quality life reached by a country is directly related to the quality level of the higher education offered in its institutions and universities. Particularly the quality of Doctorate programs where research and innovations are promoted, the results can be demonstrated by reviewing the research papers published in international journals, and the registered patents which eventually become goods or services that allow more welfare for the population among others.

In Mexico, the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT) is the responsible to guarantee the quality of graduate programs by the means of a periodical evaluation program, but it has been identified that such evaluation is very subjective, and therefore CONACyT along with other Government Institutions are in the process of acquiring abilities in order to perform a better evaluation system for Graduate and Postgraduate education in Mexico.

The literature review on systemic evaluation showed that most of the papers reviewed so far, focus mainly on the design of evaluation methodologies for industrial processes in which the quality is defined very well, according to the features of the inputs that go through a standard process producing a standard output. But none of the reviewed papers mentioned which are the main quality attributes in the case of academic evaluations. This shows the need to develop a more appropriate evaluation methodology for Postgraduate education in Mexico.

The evaluation methodology can be designed based on a systemic approach with an anthropocentric perspective since they are sociotechnical systems in which human interaction is a very important element. Also, the methodology can include the systemic attributes required to consider an academic program pertinent from an anthropocentric perspective.

Complex Systems Biology and Hegel’s Philosophy

Kazuyuki Ikko Takahashi — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Hegel was a German philosopher who was a major figure in the philosophical movement known as German idealism. In this study I will argue that Hegel’s philosophy has similarity to the self-organization theories of Prigogine and Kauffman, and is therefore an idea in advance of its times.

The development of thought and thing is at the core of Hegel’s work. In The Phenomenology of Mind, he tackles the development of recognition and being, subject and object, and self and other, - from simple to complex forms. In The Science of Logic, Hegel deals with the progress of categories from abstract to concrete, - and pure being to absolute idea. In The Philosophy of Nature, his interest is in how nature evolves through the mechanism of self-organization. Hegel was writing before Darwin proposed the theory of evolution, and his dialectic is aimed at analyzing and describing development in the logical sense. The common feature of these works is their analysis of the fundamental structures by which order is generated.

Hegel struggled to produce the concept of life from that of matter. He proposed that matter should develop into organism, but only in a logical sense with subjectivity and centralization producing spontaneous order.

In The Philosophy of Nature, Hegel divides natural philosophy into three parts, mechanics (space and time, motion, and astronomy), physics (from physical to chemical process), and organics (minerals, vegetables, and animals). In Hegel’s view, nature develops logically. Nature itself is a system of self-organization through the random motion of the contingent.

Hegel would like to say that the basis of life is the non-equilibrium self-referential structure. In more modern terminology, we could interpret this as meaning that the first organism emerged from interaction between high polymers.

Kaneko proposes a model of complex systems biology, which I will argue, Hegel was proposing in his metaphysics 200 years ago. Kaneko conceptualizes life as a living system that develops when interaction between the elements in a system is sufficiently strong. Living creatures exhibit flexibility and plasticity through fluctuations in these elements. Complex systems biology uses a dynamical systems approach to explain how living things acquire diversity, stability and spontaneity.

First, simple single-celled organisms arose through interactions between proteins and nucleic acids. These are the archae-bacteria in modern terminology, or the universe itself in Hegel’s terminology. Next, the development of eukaryote cells from the prokaryotes is explained by symbiogenesis or endosymbiotic theory. According to this theory, mitochondria and plastids were formerly free-living bacteria that were taken inside another cell as an endosymbiont. Hegel would call this the universe’s self-particularizing. In other words, cells consist of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane. They represent the first individual or self. The symbiogenesis theory means that the other comes into the self and then a new more complex self emerges.

Next, multicellular organisms appeared. These were networks of cells or systems of selves. They reproduce sexually and necessarily die. The process of individualization is complete.

This is just a return to universality. The dynamism between universality and individuality is self-referential. Universality (the first simple prokaryote) becomes individuality (the complex animal), and it then returns to universality (human beings with spirit).

An animal reproduces itself and necessarily dies, and then as an individual, the animal returns to the universality of genus. However, the individual animal is unaware of this, only spirit knows it. Here, it is important to observe that spirit emerges from nature. Nature has the purpose of producing organism from matter and then spirit from organism. It is teleology without theology depending only on contingent and complex systems biology.

SYSTEMIC DESIGN WORKSHOP

Peter Jones — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

An interactive workshop on systemic design for general and open attendance. Following an introduction to principles and processes, small groups will form to construct design models in application areas of interest to participants (e.g. urban ecology, healthcare systems, political governance, sustainable business ). The workshop is largely based on the 10 Systemic Design principles (Jones, 2014) and Methods (http://systemic-design.net/rsd3-proceedings/theories-methods/. )

Education for Anthropocene Governance Part I and II

Pavel Luksha, Alexander Laszlo — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

As a part of our GEF forum series (see presentation & GEF future map for details), we will organize a number of vision-building participatory processes that will help create shared understanding & vision of

* challenges of anthropocene: global trends that may lead us towards the desirable future (of thrivable civilization), and global trends that bring undesirable qualities (and call for creation / support of counter-trends) in next 20-30 years

* skills / meta-skills that are required from different types of agents, including business, government, academia, and social movements, to support desirable qualities and mitigate risks of anthropocene in next 10-20 years

* systemic innovations in education & training systems across the world that may be necessary to create such skills, that could be launched as pilots in next 2-4 years and scaled up in next 5-10 years

The results of this workshop will be included in the Global Education Futures Agenda report that will conclude GEF 2015 series and will be presented in several leading international forums, including World Economic Forum.

This session will also further the work of former ISSS President Bela Banathy (many of Prof. Banathy's group members have participated in our first large event in California in the beginning of April).

The session also presents 'Antarctic Biennale & Foresight Fleet' project, a unique international platform for transdisciplinary dialogue on new ways of thrivable living, coupled with artistic exploration of humanity frontier themes. During the session, we will connect the project with ISSS agenda and will source contributions of ISSS experts that can be embedded in the design of Antarctic Biennale.

Systems Philosophy and its relevance to Systems Engineering

David Rousseau — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Systems Philosophy is the branch of the philosophy of science informed by the systems paradigm. The INCOSE Systems Science Working Group is exploring how Systems Philosophy can be used to support expansion of the theoretical foundations of Systems Engineering (SE). This workshop will present a basic introduction to Systems Philosophy, and use it to explore:

Perspectives on SE as a discipline and the place of SE in the systems disciplinary field;

How Systems Philosophy can help SE and other systems disciplines work together to develop mutually beneficial foundations;

How Systems Philosophy and SE can support the development of a General Systems Theory (GST), and how working with a GST can help unify and expand the theoretical foundations of SE;

How SEs could leverage expanded theoretical foundations to address increasing complexity of engineered systems;

Key programs and projects under way to improve/expand the systems sciences;

Emerging opportunities for richer engagement between Systems Engineering, Systems Science and Systems Philosophy. The day will consist of seven presentations preparing the ground for four breakout sessions in which participants can explore and develop ideas and plans for strengthening SE using Systems Philosophy.

For more details about the upcoming workshop, please visit our workshops webpage at:

https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/meetings/workshop-2015-july

For more details about the "Systems Philosophy for SE" project, please visit our webpage at:

https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/projects/o-systems-philosophy

The Apithology of Humanity Psychology: An Introduction

Will Varey — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Apithology is a systems discipline that investigates the generative dynamics of living systems. Its specific focus is the causative dynamics of generative health and wellbeing. It provides a counterpart discipline to pathology, which examines the causes of dissipative dysfunction and disease. Apithology as a theory of practice is generated at the humanity-level of inquiry. It is applied in practice at individual-scales through practical applications.

In this Workshop participants will be introduced to the principles of apithology. Participants will be provided with examples of applications and will generate their own. Apithology as a discipline presently has over 120 modalities. This workshop will cover five preliminary inquiry practices: Adequacies, Concordances, Dimensions, Actuations, and Healths. This workshop will focus on their application to the wellbeing of humanity as a generative system, in line with the ISSS 2015 Conference theme.

This will be the first time this Workshop has been made available to practitioners in Europe. Systems practitioners, researchers and students with a humanitarian focus and a specific interest in generative systems are encouraged to attend.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEMIC MODEL IN MEXICAN SMALL, MICRO AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES FOR THE HOTELIER SECTOR

Sandra Dinora Orantes-Jiménez, Graciela Vázquez-Álvarez — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Currently in Mexico and the world the economy is characterized by factors such as socio/political/monetary issues competitiveness, technological innovation and the global nature of markets. Given this complex, random and demanding environment, companies must adopt new management practices to ensure their viability and competitiveness in the market.

To survive in today's competitive environment, they must be transformed from their roots; its management philosophy will be focused on achieving sustainable competitive advantages based on knowledge of “what makes a difference” from the competition. To achieve this distinction, companies must generate value added services, i.e. require insight into customers to properly understand their needs, so it is essential to establish relationship activities with them, allowing them to achieve that knowledge.

In this paper it is presented the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) as an essential tool for improving the competitiveness of Small and Micro companies, enabling their presence in complex markets. Thanks to advances produced in ICT, particularly in areas such as management and data storage and capabilities of the Internet, individualized relationships with many customers and greater knowledge of them is possible.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) arises inside of ICT. It was in the 90s and has become a key tool for managing today's businesses.

Taking a strategic analysis of the current situation of this sector in Mexico, it is possible to note that hotel companies face an increasingly competitive environment, in which the contest is the increase in quality without increase in price, while loyalty to the customer is decreasing. It has been found the customers are now more experienced and demanding and there is a growing monopoly in the industry and a strong increase in available hotel offers.

The systemic knowledge will study the tourism sector, conceptualize, and observe the sector as a system and fully display the mature of their interrelationships. Therefore, the concept of hotel companies will be addressed from the systemic approach.

Furthermore, at present the degree of development and implementation of CRM in the Mexican hotel industry cannot be considered fully examined and part of the problem is to determine characteristics of this sector, which affect to a greater degree the implementation of CRM.

This research arises to ascertain if the implementation of a CRM initiative involves organizational change and therefore is feasible to design a systemic model for its implementation that has valid measurement scales and is reliable for different variables of the proposed model. These variables could influence the success and result of a CRM strategy. We therefore propose a new definition of CRM from a systemic point of view.

Customer Centric Project Management Engaging the CUSTOMER in defining corporate requirements

Charles Villanyi Bokor — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Defining business requirement is a critical activity in determining what functionality the enabling technology solution needs to deliver. Customer Centric Project Management (CCPM) is the continuous re-examination, evolution and definition of the stakeholders' business requirements. The aim of this research and impact analysis was to examine all the changes in the organization that make it viable. The objective was to explore the application of academic methodology, identify sine qua non components in operational environments and by extension inspire future reflections, future research to pro-actively prevent one or the most problematic aspects that fail projects.

Findings and conclusions are primarily based on empirical evidence from observing the behaviour of CCPM applied to actual projects/cases, current literature and interviews with senior project managers. The focus of interest was on the impacts on business stakeholders, developers, the methodology, business analysts, organizational executives and on a promising framework for a solution.

To make the methodology work, the findings point to the imperative to engage stakeholders, assign needed accountability, use business analysts, involve executives and allow the PM to govern the project.

MIND MAPPING SYSTEMS THINKER’S ATTITUDES FACING A SEPSIS PROBLEM

Brigitte DANIEL ALLEGRO, Gary Robert Smith — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

By thinking about systems thinking, our aim was to provide other system thinkers with a mind map for the key elements of the thinking that took place.

The sepsis problem is highly complex and spans not just the biological system, but also the healthcare enterprise. Sepsis is the context in which systems thinking has been applied and examined.

Sepsis is an emergency situation that if left unrecognised and untreated in its early stage leads to multiple organ dysfunction and death. It is also the most expensive condition treated in U.S. hospitals. Stays with septicaemia (sepsis) have the highest aggregate hospital costs in comparison to all other conditions (US 2011 $20.3 billion) and these costs have more than quadrupled since 1997.

A systems thinking mind map was examined while relating the story of a systems thinker, Paul, who attempted to deal with the sepsis problem. Paul wanted to better understand sepsis in order to recognise potential leverage points for prevention, treatment and recovery.

This case study highlights the attitudes; comments on the system approach, and puts forward the cognitive concepts.

All these concepts are integrated in an overall mind map looking like a tree: the branches of the tree represent the systems thinker's attitudes; the roots of the tree represent features of systems that are commonly considered when systems’ thinking.

By examining the systems thinking applied in an unfamiliar domain this has facilitated new perspectives on systems thinking and systems science.

Knowledge Transfer as a Rational Choice: A Decision Theoretic Characterization

Yasuo Sasaki — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper presents a game theoretical framework to analyze the possibility of knowledge transfer about a game structure. We study, under asymmetric awareness of two agents in a game, what kind of knowledge can, or cannot, be transferred from one agent who has more knowledge to the other agent with restricted knowledge prior to playing the game. Such situations are generally characterized as a particular class of a recently developed framework of extensive-form games with unawareness and analyzed with the solution concept called rationalizability. We show some properties of such games and example analysis. Also we discuss some ideas to incorporate, in a more general way, inferences of the agents about knowledge transfer under asymmetric awareness.

Symmathesy--A Word in Progress

Nora Bateson — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This work is a prologue on the development of the term Symmathesy to refer to the charactieristic of living systems best described as mutual learning. The term Symmathesy is a combination of the greek prefix "sym" meaning togther, combined with the greek word "mathesi" meaning learning. A Symmathesy is defined as either a noun or a verb. Symmathesy provides a language to study the processes of mutual learning through communication, relationship, interaction, play, interdependency and contextual evolution. This is a beginning effort to name the study of the liminal realm between the chaos of change in an ever evolving set of interactions, and the order of the context which is itself an interface.

Symmathesy (Noun): An entity composed by contextual mutual learning through interaction. This process of interaction and mutual learning takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales of symmathesy. Symmathesy (Verb): The process of interaction, in its multiple variables, that produces a mutual learning context.

Anthropocene? Yes, but Stratified – Measuring Existing Societies with Civilization Level Index

Jason Jixuan Hu — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Abstract

This paper extends the authors previous work discussed at 2014 ISSS Conference, “Civilization Level Index (CLI): A Systemic Instrument for Measuring the Level of Development, or How Human Are We Actually Becoming.” Since the theme of this year’s conference is Anthropocene, it is relevant that we recognize as clear as possible what humanity exactly is and how human we are at current time. The biological definition of humanity has been clear even it starts being challenged by frontier researches in artificial intelligence and genome engineering. But the consensus of sociological and anthropological definition of humanity in this planet has yet to be formed at the global level. Civilization Level Index is a candidate tool for clarifying this issue. However, a full scale implementation of CLI measurement is a huge project requiring institutional support that is yet to be found, the author as an independent researcher can only initialize the first step, i.e. to use limited data available from the internet to present a small subset of CLI here for discussion and for attracting interests of cooperation for further work.

Reprogramming anthropocene - crowdsourced governance of trans-technical systems

Sasha Mile Rudan, Siniša Rudan, Dino Karabeg — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Anthropocene happens to be the largest socio-material system ever created. Mankind is daily interacting with that system; there are many bonds and loops between the system components. Every innocent step is an interaction, every need / desire or a resource requirement, every wish to redesign even a smallest corner of the planet, or even helping one species to survive, reflects as a loopback to the planet reinforcing in that sense, through that (mostly negative) feedback, the concept of the anthropocene.

Interactions are inevitable - micro-interactions build more observable and articulated actions which “crystallize” into patterns - chains of decisions and actions; we call them trans-technical patterns / bouquets. Finally, trans-technical patterns are loosely coupled into interconnected trans-technical processes.

Those interactions are hard to recognize individually on that rather complex process level, and very often performed in Brownian-motion manner stochastically and by enormous number of actors in the anthropocene making it hard to observe and track. Still, following the principles of the minimal energy paths (as simple as walking across the same stepped through path across park) or following leading social behaviours, patterns got recognized, reinforced and eventually encoded in the embodiment of society, culture, and finally the anthropocene system in whole. We explain how this processes are one the most fundamental mechanisms of running society shaping anthropocene and how by acting on that level we are capable of governing anthropocene.

Recognizing the fact that majority of big systems that humanity relies on (like economy, education, government, education, etc) are governed through cyberinfrastructure, we see how real-world socio-technical process got migrated into the cyberinfrastructure and how power-structures and behaviour patterns are imprinted in it.

Our approaches are aligned with Bela Banathy's "True empowerment" - developing people’s competence to take part directly and authentically in the design of the systems in which they live and work, and on top of that increasing their motivation to take action.

We address motivations issues by incorporating techniques resulting from Self-determination theory and through Social and emotional contagion processes.

We introduce a concept of visual language for modeling those processes, together with an interface for domain-experts, capable of recognizing positive and negative trans-technical patterns, and present framework CollaboFramework for designing systems that follows those principles. We argue that the system design has to adapt toward more flexible loosely-coupled components that are capable of recognizing user interactions and processes and adjusting system experience and behaviour to achieve to most efficient results. That framework has to provide a set of system components that will provide mechanism, but also guarantee fulfilling principles. Through this framework we are capable of treating complex trans-technical interactions, political and business rules, power-structures, democracy laws/patterns and reprogramming trans-technical patterns imprinted in fabric of humanity.

We present examples of our framework through the CollaboScience - the infrastructure for collaborative practice of research and examples of extracting insights in ISSS community of practice, followed with three shorter examples of Charirty.Net, DemocracyFramework, CollaboArte.

A moderating role of the sustainability in lean production systems: a longitudinal case study analysis

Maria Rosaria Marcone, Domenico Carminucci — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The puropse of this paper is to explore the extent to which principles of lean product development are applied to product design and engineering at production systems in Italian medium sized firms. “Lean thinking”, with its focus on the elimination of waste for the improvement of flow, and on continuous improvement has profoundly influenced many aspects of manufacturing

Coverage of ‘human factors’ in project management literature: a systematic journal review

Beverly Pasian, Kirsten Feldbrugge, Shankar Sankaran — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Researchers of project management over the last 20 years have published multiple significant reviews that have served to map the landscape of project management, revealing its complexity and deepening our understanding. Contributing to this understanding is an ongoing challenge, and one dependent on the timely identification of topics that reveal truths and propel practice. This paper contributes to this understanding through a systematic review of more than 1100 journal articles published in the last 5 years on the theme of the ‘human factors’ of project management that reveals their multiplicity, distribution and focus. The article will conclude with directions for future research.

Toward the definition of the local development system in tourism

Abraham Briones, Ricardo Tejeida-Padilla, Erika Cruz-Coria — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Abstrac

The local development is an interpretive concept, which is generated by the definition that individuals and groups make on it. However, in general it helps to reduce poverty by expanding the people's capacity to generate productive activities that have an impact on the social and individual wellbeing. Tourism is a relevant activity for this type of development, because it allows either people or communities to interact with other actors in order to get bases to support its own development and the development of the environment. This function begins with understanding the use of the livelihood means and the relationship among the different environments that make up the local development. In this study a theoretical proposal is presented about local development through the systemic view in order to generate new ideas that support the local development of communities through tourism activity in Mexico.

Apithology of Humanity Psychology: Humanity as a Generative System

Will Varey — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The systems discipline of apithology was established to look specifically at the wellbeing of the humanity system. Being a systems theory of generative dynamics it provides the potential for a different research focus in the field of human systems. It looks for systemic outcomes for human health and offers a counterpart perspective to the mitigation of problems. This enables a generativist approach to the complex challenge of governance for humanitarian outcomes. This paper comprises an introduction to the application of apithology theory and practice to humanity psychology.

While apithology theory can be applied to many forms of generative systems, its greatest value is possibly in its application to the formation of human motivations. This involves the analysis of dynamic tensions in systems of conceptions. This form of human systems inquiry illuminates the changing capacities of human conceptions across varied human contexts. The result is a systems discipline for the ethical care of the generative potentials necessary for humanity-scale wellbeing.

In this paper the distinction between generative and dissipative dynamics is clarified. The tensions involved in the formation, continuation and actuation of systems of conceptions are described. This is done using the systems principles of autopoietic systems, purposive systems and complex systems. The delineation of three systemic dimensions comprising coherence, orientation and integration is made and the effects of their interactions explained.

From this analysis the basis for a generativist approach to the health of humanity-scale systems is proposed. The generation of an apithology triptych is demonstrated. This is used to illustrate three forms of systemic health as a focus for the enablement of humanity’s capacity for adaptability. The practical challenges and ethics of practice, as well as the abilities of practitioners in this field, are also mentioned. The paper concludes with a description of the governance challenges for the wellbeing of a future humanity.

Sustainable development - behavioral changes with a view to a more sustainable future

Markus Arzberger — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The heading clearly splits in three different parts. Above all: Sustainable Development. As an introduction, the first part of the paper will be influenced by the work of Donella Meadows and Dennis Meadows, which has been done in the seventies of the last century (The Limits to Growth). Other authors, who the paper refers to, are the economists Tim Jackson and Herman Daly, as well as the German post-growth economist Niko Peach. Since the term “Sustainable Development” means a wide range of possible interpretations, this definition is fundamental at the beginning.

According to behavioral changes, it needs to be worked out, who has to change the way of living in a non-sustainable setup and, even more important, why. The American scientist Jared M. Diamond has done a whole lot of research, regarding the possibility of catastrophic near-future consequences to mankind, which many of us have to endure already, especially in poor countries. In order to get an idea why sustainability is a good choice, several concepts will be considered. A very important concept to measure fairness is the ecological footprint. It measures the human demand on the Earth’s resources and is distributed highly unfair between monetary rich and poor countries. Based on the results of Kate Picketts work “The Spirit level - Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better”, published in 2009, worldwide fairness will be proven to be the only way to a global sustainable development.

After the definition of “A sustainable future” has been done, the last part of the paper deals with the accuracy of predictions and the limits of models. Do mathematical models, even highly sophisticated, really describe reality in a sufficient way? Certainly not! Yet, we are not even able to describe a comparatively simple subsystem as the weather. It is just too complex, to be predicted for as little as just a few days in advance. Besides that, a few more questions will be considered. Since we know, that systems are adaptable, one can argue that today nobody cares about the fall of Easter Island. People have learned to deal with the different situation and abandoned the Island. Indeed not voluntarily at all. What we could learn as society for our present situation is: To exclude the possibility that mankind will settle other planets one day would certainly be wrong. To assume, it will happen within the next days too. Before the background that the earth will be there for about another three billion years, it is safe to say, that we are not in a hurry. At least for the construction of space ships there is plenty of time left.

The Value of the Frame: Painting Complexity using Two Chronic Disease Models

Amber D. Elkins, Dennis M. Gorman, Jay E. Maddock, Hye-Chung Kum, Mark A. Lawley — Sun, 15 May 2016 00:00:00 -0700

As with all chronic diseases, it is now recognized that type 2 diabetes is a complex health issue, the etiology of which involves numerous risk factors operating at different ecological levels of analysis. However, this ecological complexity of the problem seldom manifests itself in the interventions for preventing the problem, which typically focus on changing behavior through universal health education, with the assumption of a homogeneous population. This paper examines the limitations of this way of framing the problem of type 2 diabetes, particularly its failure to capture the way in which this problem emerges because of dynamic interactions between individuals and their environments and how these interactions vary in fundamental ways depending upon the context within which they occur. Specifically, the paper examines how framing of type 2 diabetes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) affects which systems modeling method selects to understand the problem and to help guide policy-makers to ameliorate it. Each systems model has a paradigm characterizing it by a set of fundamental rules and underlying concepts. That is, each method bases on assumptions of how the model should be constructed and the knowledge obtainable from such assumptions. By assuming the model should be constructed in a certain way, the modeler (whether implicitly or explicitly) frames the problem by making assumptions about the phenomenon-of-interest. Choosing to develop any model asserts that the model proscribes to paradigmatic assumptions for how it would contribute something of value) in some capacity (for a purpose), which is ultimately affected by understanding, interpretation, and application of the problem. The paper describes how specific types of systems methods, those using agent-based models (ABMs) and system dynamics models (SDMs), can produce very different ways of understanding the problem of, and the leverage points for, type 2 diabetes in the LRGV. Additionally, it moves beyond simply outlining the general differences in the use and applications of ABM and SDM, to presenting models demonstrating how framing of the problem and model paradigmatic assumptions affect understanding of the problem of type 2 diabetes in the LGRV and its potential leverage points. While the examples are specific to a health problem in a specific community, the significance of such an approach is in its generalizability to how understanding social system behavior depends upon how framing the problem and the paradigmatic assumptions of the modeling method affect our understanding of social systems and public health problems.

The design of inquiry for Business Growth

John Paul Kawalek — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper is concerned with the design of ‘business growth programmes’, i.e. specifically designed learning programmes with explicitly stated goals of promoting and impacting on business growth. This paper is based on research into the design considerations of growth programmes in 3 European countries. It is the result of a two year European research study funded from the European Commission. With this as context, using Systems Thinking we re-theorise the role of design itself as it applies to business growth programmes. This is achieved by re-tracing some of the most fundamental systems ideas back to Kant’s critique of practical reason. The paper draws out several implications, (i) to demonstrate the application of a new set of principles which are designed to simultaneously help to develop and evaluate future business growth programmes; (ii) these principles also can help explain the tendency towards sub-optimal growth programmes in current practice; and (iii) to re-consider the policy priorities and assumptions for supporting business growth programmes in future.

Initiatory Rites of Passage as Leverage Points: A Comparative Investigation of Symbolic Meaning in the Japanese School System

Ian Roth — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

This paper will concern itself with rites of passage, in particular focusing on those embedded in various schooling and educational systems and used to signify initiation. It will investigate how, as educational elements, such rites exist, are practiced, and remain significant in an increasingly anthropocentric world. The paper will begin by discussing a particular case: that of Japan’s entrance examination system. It will show how this system once served as an initiatory rite of passage, playing an important role in the mental and emotional health of individuals as well as in the functioning of the society at large. The paper with then move into an investigation of contemporary Japan exploring how, over the last two decades, entrance examinations have fallen ever further into disuse. This trend will then be shown to correlate with the development of overly dependent, asocial, and/or self-destructive behavioral trends among young Japanese. The possible connections between Japan’s disappearing rite of passage and its growing troubles with its younger generations will be explored and interpretations based on a framework rooted in anthropology and existential Psychology will be offered. In order to develop a richer and more complex understanding of the trends in question, the paper will then compare Japan to both Korea and the United States applying the same framework to further explore how initiatory rites of passage can act as leverage points in the production of social trends. It will conclude by inquiring as to whether an active approach to the design and implementation of initiatory rites of passage would be an ethical and advisable strategy for reforming education.

Strategic planning during the most recent Anthropocene

William F Roth — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Due to the constantly increasing rate of change faced during the current Anthropocene traditional approaches to strategic planning are no longer capable of producing the desired results. Most of them depend on predicting future trends and events so that organizations can prepare for and take advantage of them. Plans are made, priorities defined and action steps outlined based on the originally identified objectives. The problem is that the length of time for which we are able to accurately predict the future is shrinking rapidly so that by the time we get around to implementing our decisions they are too frequently obsolete. What we need is a new paradigm that makes organizations capable of learning continually from their environment and adapting rapidly. Interactive Planning is such a paradigm. After scanning the environment to discover what currently exists, instead of defining project priorities the second step in Interactive Planning is to redefine or redesign the organization's function, structure, and key processes in a way that is highly participative, that integrates the organization on all levels, and that encourages continual learning of the entire workforce. A technique frequently used to accomplish this is Idealized Design. In that Interactive Planning is a never ending process it gives organizations a better chance of deal effectively with the Anthropocene.

Educating and Empowering Children for Governing the Anthropocene: A Case Study of Children’s Homes in Sri Lanka

Eshantha Ariyadasa — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Educating children and young people on how to care for the environment is the focus of this paper. Today's children will encounter the adverse effects of global population growth and subsequent pollution by adults at the expense of the environment. Thus it is important to draw children's attention to carbon footprints and climatic changes. Through participation they will have opportunities to learn more about the implications of the way we choose to live our lives in the short, medium and long terms. Children learn about their rights and responsibilities by being given the opportunity to express their ideas and to translate policy into practice through small scale interventions that make a difference to this generation and succeeding ones. Such interventions can include lessons on recycling, use and re-use of resources, composting, organic and ethical farming, water and energy conservation techniques and much more.

The essence of this paper has been extracted from my Participatory Action Research (PAR) on the life chances of children and young people in institutional care in Sri Lanka. This PAR largely employs qualitative investigations to manipulate the information collected during the study in order to assess and evaluate the findings. During the PAR, it was identified that some children's homes have initiated a few enhanced ecosystem governance practices that redress problems associated with the worst aspects of industrialisation. These practices promote the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature and have adopted the concerns of critical systemic thinking with consequent improvement of human well-being and ecosystem health. The potential of these homes to provide education for these vulnerable children by improving their ability to deliver stewardship responsibilities towards the environment should never be underestimated.

Contributing to Sustainability through Translation in Governing the Anthropocene

Oktay Eser — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

There are many factors that contribute to changes in the Earth’s system, one of which is humanity. Due to the loss of habitat related to human activities, slightly less than a quarter of Earth’s terrestrial biomes are untouched. We seem to be living in a transition period from the Holocene epoch into the Anthropocene epoch. We are faced with many and diverse kinds of environmental changes that have been taking place. It is apparently a new phase in the history of humanity as well as the planet Earth which is being shaped by human forces and natural forces. The Earth that we live on is a permanently changing system. It is changing irreversibly through human activity, which will leave a substantial trace in the geological record of the Earth’s history. Some of these changes are permanent, even on a geological time scale. Since the beginning of the 19th century, there has been a rise in the number of human beings from under a billion to over six billion now. A rapidly growing population has had a global impact on the environment and made the exploitation of natural resources soar. There have been major changes to the Earth in terms of landscape and biodiversity. As a consequence of the global impact of human activities, sustainability of the Earth in the age of the Anthropocene has important consequences. This could pose a potential threat to biodiversity and international peace apart from geology. As a force of nature, humanity needs to act responsibly in order to compensate for the human impact on the environment and engage in processes that will re-shape a future that is morally acceptable. All global human initiatives are about people working together across different languages and cultures around the world. Social sciences can also play a part in understanding the Anthropocene. Therefore, I will focus on how translation could help to coordinate international initiatives and communicate more effectively in order to address the Anthropocene. Better communication will enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of global initiatives. This will result in human action changing from uncoordinated individual action to coordinated social action at either local or global levels. Coping with (governing) the challenges of the age of the Anthropocene will require a collaborative effort taking into account multilingual communication.

Ecological Footprint and Governing the Anthropocene through Balancing Individualism and Collectivism

Janet Judy McIntyre-Mills — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

ABSTRACT

The current way of life is unsustainable (Papadimitriou, 2014) and in a bid to maintain the status quo – profit is extracted from people and the environment.

The challenge of scaling up efforts to engage people in an alternative forms of democracy and governance is that currently the response to social, economic and environmental challenges is that internationally politics is being shaped by so-called realist politics (Beardsworth, 2011) based on a) competition for resources, b) the notion that profit and loss, win and lose is contained /carried by ‘the other’ and c) Huntington’s ‘clash of cultures’ thesis rather than an understanding of our interlinked, co-created and co-determined fate.

Risks, Crisis and the European Union Law: Implications and Parallels for Addressing Financial, Energy Security and Environmental Catastrophe

Juliane Katherine Mendelsohn — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper compares crisis narratives and descriptions of the anthropocence to the institutional and substantive changes that have been brought on the way by the creation of the Banking and Energy Union in the EU. From the aims alone it becomes clear that both the Banking and the Energy Union were born out of the political desire to make each of the systems more robust, but that the visions themselves fall short of significant substantive change or a reinvention of the system itself. Whilst the explanation of this is almost entirely political, some of the reasons also have to do with the functioning and the mechanisms of the law. The law, in particular public law, stands and falls with formal legal principles, has a particular difficulty dealing with, defining and coming up with solutions for risk whilst staying true to formal principles such as certainty and proportionality. Risk detection requires the introduction of new procedures and agencies (institutions). The mitigation of risks requires a multicontexual and multipolar balancing of rights and interests. Both proceduralism and a complex act of balancing can guarantee the intergrity of law and its methodology, but they do not bring about substantive change.
This paper sees a third method of risk mitigation in the creation of new institutions (such as the Energy Union, but also the United Nation or NATO). This is perceived as the creation of something that is larger than the threat it addresses (“super strucutres”), but substantively ends up enforcing little more than the “lowest common demominator”. This paper therefore suggests abandoning such methodological approaches and changing the principles on which the EU and the law of the common market is based instead. It proposes a “first best” and a”second best” solution. The first is the introduction of new and prevalent aims and principles and an actual change of the economic system. The second (though more likely solution) proposes a mere extension of the goals of the European Union, which results in a careful act of balance between more sustanainability and the development of the internal market project.

Balancing Individualism and Collectivism in an Australian Aboriginal Context

Keith Miller — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Epochs have occurred throughout the history of the earth. A move from one epoch to the next can be considered to occur when there is a major transition which has a geological impact on all of life. A transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene is now considered to have occurred in about the year 1800 with the Industrial Revolution. Dramatic changes to global conditions have occurred in a little over 200 years since then, with the consequent impact on the environment and all living things. Along with a geological change, a cultural transition has occurred. An individualistically oriented style of thinking has come to prominence with an objectification and exploitation of the environment. Yet, amongst Indigenous cultures, this change has not taken place. They retain a collectivist style of thinking and behavior and a deep respect for the land and all it contains. One of the values we can gain as participants in the Anthropocene is a recognition of these different types of knowledge existing in cohabitation, a comfortableness with an individualistic and relational identity occurring alongside each other. How much more valuable for this epoch to become an inclusive era when the collectivist perspectives from Indigenous cultures are appreciated alongside individualistic perspectives of developed nations?

The Anthropocene Problem as an Axiological Desequilibrium

Francisco Parra-Luna — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

What does it mean that we have an anthropocene problem in the world?. It means that the value of “Conservation of Nature” or the “ecological problem”, is underperformed in relation with other goals of society. But the real problem is that an adequate conservation of nature depend of the rest of the universal human values that inevitable are associated with it. Which are these values?. According with a certain Reference Pattern of Universal Values (RPUV) are the following nine: Health, Wealth, Security, Knowledge, Freedom, Distributive Justice, Conservation of Nature; Quality of Activities, and Moral Prestige. Among these goals of society there is always a dialectical relationship where a better performance of the value “Conservation of Nature” may lead to a decrease of Freedom, Wealth and other values. That is why to imagine any kind of solution for the anthropocene problem can be only seen as related to the other values.

A Systemic view of the Value of Environmental Conservation: The Case of Bono Takyiman, Ghana

Kofi Poku Quan-Baffour — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

From a systemic point of view it can be understood that the physical environment is important to every living being because it supports and protects life. It contains the ecosystem of which humans, animals and trees interact. All living organisms depend on the environment for survival. With the increase in world population, pollution, and climate change, environmental conservation has become the dominant concern of everyone: individuals, communities, nations, governments and international organisations. From time immemorial the indigenous people of Bono Takyiman in Ghana have depended on their cultural beliefs and practices to conserve the physical environment. Although the indigenous conservation approach of the Bono is based on traditions, the practice is in tandem with modern scientific methods of environmental protection. In fact the indigenous people seem to be ahead of others in environmental awareness and the general concerns of environmental degradation. Using the relevant literature on environmental conservation, this paper discusses two major approaches which the indigenous people of Bono Takyiman employ in protection of the environment. In the paper I set out to share with others from so-called developed and developing countries alike this indigenous orientation to saving the environment. I discuss the worthiness of the approach and I consider lessons that can be learned from it for our way of addressing the Anthropocene.

Foregrounding Critical Systemic and Indigenous Ways of Collective Knowing towards (Re)Directing the Anthropocene

Norma Ruth Arlene Romm — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper begins with the understanding that the global commons is under threat. In the light hereof I consider why it is important to appreciate Indigenous styles of collectively-oriented knowing, where selves are understood as “selves-in-relation” to one another and to all living and non-living things, as part of the web of life. I suggest that often accounts of the Anthropocene (as proposed by various authors postulating this concept) do not accentuate how the forcefulness of human impact on the world (by virtue of humans manipulating and extracting resources) can be regarded as rooted in Western-oriented supposedly rational styles of knowing and calculating, which to date have been historically dominant. This approach to knowing and being-in-the-world is ill-equipped to incorporate a conception of our existing as humans in relation to others, including to all that exists. Indigenous thinking as expounded by various Indigenous authors across the globe (which I define as I proceed with the paper) starts with the premise of connectivity of life forces, and therefore with the assumption that we, as humans, are called upon to play a responsible role in our caring for each other and for the earth. Working in terms of the notion of care does not mean that we are less rational, but on the contrary that we recognize that our existence is contingent on our supporting, and being supported by others (including non-living entities). This in turn implies an attitude of respecting how “individual” well-being is a function of the well-being of the whole. Based on these considerations, I propound in the paper that planetary stewardship should not be envisaged as applicable only now that we have entered the epoch named by some as the Anthropocene, where the human power to manipulate the environment has become a global geological force in its own right. Instead, we need to question the way in which this power has hitherto been used, and the (dominant) worldview that enabled the use of such power as a manipulative enterprise. Such questioning allows us to reconsider the values in terms of which the Anthropocene can be approached, by taking on board—and indeed foregrounding—Indigenous views, and bases, of stewardship. The paper concludes with some considerations of how diverse knowledge systems can be brought into communication/integrated towards enhanced ecosystem governance.

A Wicked Methodology for the Analysis of Wicked Problems: Integrating the Analysis of Meetings and Networks

Christina Wasson, Julia Gluesing — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

One feature of the Anthropocene is the rise of large-scale environmental problems produced by human actions. A pressing problem is how to manage these environmental problems effectively. Their governance is often challenging because different stakeholder groups disagree on what the appropriate course of action should be. Furthermore, the problems are often complex, and scientific knowledge about them may contain significant gaps and uncertainties. We are interested in understanding the most challenging of these situations, which are often termed “wicked problems,” and what effective environmental governance might look like under those conditions. In this paper, we report on a new, integrative methodology we have developed for analyzing governance processes by examining communications both within an environmental decision-making group and across the stakeholder networks within which the group is embedded. Shaped by a systems perspective, our methodology weaves together multiple theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, forms of data, and levels of analysis. Very few previous studies have closely examined the actual decision-making process in participatory meetings, or situated these meetings in the broader stakeholder network interactions within which they are embedded. Our approach redresses this significant gap in the literature. For our field site, we selected a commission that was formed to develop recommendations for a new municipal ordinance on hydraulic fracturing (fracking). In order to preserve the anonymity of the commission, we do not identify the geographic region in which the commission was located, other than to say it was in the United States. Fracking exhibits all of the features associated with wicked problems, including multiple stakeholders with conflicting values, scientific uncertainty, and political complexity.

Application of the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for Management of Laboratory Hazardous Wastes

Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Higher education institutions generate a significant amount of wastes in their laboratories. Toxic reagents can react to other chemicals and form unknown products which are dangerous to both human and environment. Despite the severity of the situation, these wastes are not always discarded properly due to either lack of awareness by students and employees or lack of follow-up inspection. As education institutions, the universities should be the best example of how to manage their wastes and therefore show concern about the environment. This work is aimed at applying the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for management of hazardous wastes in a laboratory at the Federal University of Uberlândia, including their storage and disposal, in order to improve the awareness by those involved in scientific laboratory research about this issue

SUSTAINABILITY AS A DYNAMIC CAPACITY: EVIDENCE IN A BRAZILIAN SUGARCANE ENERGY COMPANY

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Environmental concerns have increased the awareness of the limitations of the modern conception of nature and its disastrous consequences. Corporate sustainability consists of ensuring long-term economic viability and, at the same time, contributing to the socio-economic development of communities, the health of the environment and the stability of society (Ethos, 2009). The concept of corporate sustainability involves sustainable economic growth that is aligned with social development and environmental conservation. Consequently, a new development strategy emerges embodying political, economic, social, technological, and environmental dimensions. This new paradigm of a sustainable development implies the need for profound changes in the current production systems, human society organisation, and utilisation of natural resources essential to human life and other living beings (Belico et. al, 2000). Therefore, the paradigm of sustainability implies the need for changes in the current production systems, including human society organization and utilization of natural resources essential to human life and other living beings (Liboni; Cezarino, 2014).The aim of this paper is to analyze the development of changes in operations management towards sustainability using the Soft System Methodology. The results show that Balbo company, Brazilian sugarcane industry, has developed new ways to change and adapt in a disturbing environment was able to built dynamics capabilities. SSM is a soft methodology, which was developed from the observation that not all problems and situations faced by corporations are of a precise nature (Martinelli and Ventura, 2006, p. 163). This systemic method was “designed to assist in the resolution of soft issues, which are of complex nature and involve many human elements” (Martinelli; Ventura, 2006, p.163). Native branch and all the changes demanded by the company’s new business were the source of development of dynamic capacities and adaptation of the company, which shifted from a stable commodity market to a dynamic, increasing market of organic food products. In order to seek a more sustainable management model, the company has developed dynamic capacities within the economic sphere focusing on efficacy, reduction and reuse of solid wastes, and cogeneration of energy; within the social sphere, the rural workers are assisted with security and quality of life programs; and within the environmental sphere, the company, through the Cana Verde project, has environmental certifications and preserves protected areas by conciliating the respect for the environment with the production processes of all areas.

TOWARDS AN AUTOPOIETIC MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY SYSTEMS IN MEXICAN TUORISM SECTOR SMES

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

This paper aims to contextualize the management of human activity systems (HAS) in lodging Mexican SMEs in the tourism environment, given that the management has been constrained in its ability to respond and adapt, this affects the operational dimension as well as the service provided to customers. Complementarity between methodologies and models of systems science allows to set the tourism SMEs concept through the of Warfield’s domain science model. Due to complex interactions derived from the interrelationships among actors engaged in tourism services, it seeks to unify different views about problems faced by human activity system management and establish guidelines between the being and the should of it (Soft Systems Methodology), it is proposed that the adoption of the principles of autopoietic systems can lead management to a state of order and self-organization in the human activity system to influence the efficiency of the total system. Professors and actors with decision-making power within these organizations would benefit from a new perspective in the issues treatment of the human dimension of these companies.

Corporate level Managerial Knowledge as a Complex Adaptive System

Luz Maria Rivas — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Managing a single business demands knowledge regarding how to create and sustain competitive advantage. Additionally, managing a multi-business firm requires the coordination of business diversity and the capturing of synergies, thus increasing managerial complexity. These challenges demand a different type of knowledge. Based on qualitative research, this paper presents a conceptual model of corporate knowledge as a complex adaptive system (CAS) in which multilevel agents, synergy stimuli, adaptive responses and systems of action make up the aforesaid knowledge. Managerial knowledge at the corporate level is tacit, collective, integrative and collaborative. This research uses the complex case study approach for a Colombian multi-business firm, focusing on the top management team. The resulting method helps to enhance the conception of managerial knowledge at the corporate level and facilitates the decentralization of decision-making.

TOWARDS A SYSTEMIC BUSINESS MODEL FOR SMES PROFESSIONAL CONGRESS ORGANIZERS IN MEXICO

Ricardo Tejeida-Padilla, Ana Gabriela Ramírez-Gutiérrez, Jaime Moreno-Escobar — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

During the last decades, Tourism has been one of the fastest growing economic sectors across the world, reverting importance by the governments as a key factor in socio-economic progress due to the revenue by the activity, employment and infrastructure investment.

Derived from the phenomenon of globalization and the relevance of the activity, tourism experiences a continuous expansion and diversification, for that reason, and the need of organizations to hold events in which information could be updated for their industries, MICE Tourism emerged in the late 1950s, consisting in the organization of Meetings, Incentive travel, Conferences and Exhibitions. The MICE Tourism highlight very specific characteristics: (a) interdependence between the various stakeholders; (b) extent of the phenomenon; and (c) the event and its inter and multi-disciplinarity, which requires knowledge of the economic, social, cultural and environmental context within a systemic vision.

In Mexico the number of companies engaged in MICE Tourism has increased; however, many have been created as a market opportunity, without reference to the requirements of the segment and a structured business model that allows their long-term growth and generate value for all the stakeholders; in addition, most companies that make up this sector are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which have many deficiencies generated by various factors, which does not allow them to develop more and in some cases can lead to its demise, reason why their study is relevant, not only to prevent the failure of these enterprises but accelerate growth and level of global competition.

It is for the above explained that this research describes how building a systemic business model can generate value for Professional Congress Organizers. Because of the magnitude and interdisciplinarity that involves the operation of Tourism SMEs, the research develops a holistic view from the systemic approach due to their ability to study the system as a whole and covering its complexity, allowing the study not only of the intern problems of the company, but the external factors that affect it. Specifically in this research, is used the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) by Peter Checkland.

The diagnostic of the Professional Congress Organizers in Mexico using the SSM and Strategic Management was developed as preliminary results of the research, showing the current situation of these enterprises, their strengths and weaknesses, the elements of the system and the approach of the Business Model according to the diagnostic.

Causality and Reponsibility

Mary Catherine Bateson — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Systems theory developed within the cybernetics movement as an enriched understanding of causal connections, but most people still make decisions on the basis of simple lineal connections between actions and desired outcomes. Decisions made on this basis are at the root of todays environmental crisis, which is only intelligible in systems terms. As we look ahead at the anthropocene, it is essential to shift from lineal to systemic decision making and reshape our "common sense" about the nature of responsibility, intention and causation. When and how is such a change possible in the life cycle?"

Capacity Building and Think2Impact

Ockie Bosch, Nam Nguyen — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

"The difficulty to establish systems education is evident in many institutions worldwide"; ".....is a highly complex task"; "There is a strong need to educate students who can deal with the complexities of integrating environmental, social, economic and business components associated with the development of sustainable management systems and the creation of new era leadership"; "There is a need for a new way of thinking in this complex and turbulent world we live..."; "... systems thinking needs to become mainstream in society". These are only a few sentences in current literature. Is a stronger emphasis and research on how to diffuse systems thinking in society - effective and continued capacity building -the answer?

Capacity building in systems thinking is a concept with wide implications for a variety of people. We talk about 'Executive training programs', formal university education, informal training and learning - depending on the purpose of the capacity building. In all cases there is a need for a new way of thinking. Executive training programs address the need of managers and other decision makers to deal with the many problems they are facing that are embedded in a complex web of global issues that are all interconnected with each other. There is a strong realisation that issues cannot be solved anymore with traditional single discipline and linear thinking mindsets. This realisation has also led to employers to increasingly require from new people entering the workforce to have the attributes/capacity to redesign in systems and sustainability terms. This requirement has become one of the biggest challenges for education in this century and creates a significant pedagogical dilemma in current university education that tends to be focused on discipline specific teaching which has no room for a wider systems approach. It has become essential to develop innovative curriculum designs and learning environments that address academic paradigms as well as industry requirements. Then there are the many people in organisations, businesses, communities, government departments and other stakeholders who are not necessary at managerial or decision making levels, but who are (should be) involved in finding solutions to every day complex problems. In their case there is also a need for a new way of thinking, but they do not require a deep knowledge of systems concepts and theories. Informal training provides these members of society with knowledge and an awareness of the basic principles of systems thinking and interconnectedness, how user-friendly systems tools can help them to unravel the complexities and how to identify leverage points in the system for interventions that would address the root causes of the problems, rather than treating the symptoms.

In this presentation the focus will be on:

A discussion of the need for and value of learning platforms for ETPs and recent progress on determining effective modes of delivery that would have a global reach;
Preliminary outcomes from the 'reflection step" of the first two rounds of the cyclic process of an ELLab for systems education, which revealed that students have shifted their way of thinking significantly from limited understanding and linear thinking to more coherent and interconnected thinking;
How the use of Think2Impact as a global platform can fulfil our vision of educational institutions to be linked together for sharing reflections and lessons learned with each other in order to move to new levels of performance and assist each other to diffuse systems thinking into educational systems around the world; and
the importance of capacity building through informal training (provided in the 'Learn' platform of Think2Impact) and co-learning during the establishment and cyclic running of an ELLab, and the capturing of these learnings to be shared through "Access" platform of Think2Impact.

Ecosystem Approaches: Navigating Complexity, Promoting Health "

Martin Bunch — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Ecosystem Approaches to Health (also known as the "Ecohealth" approach) link population or community health and wellbeing with the environment and sustainable development. The approach is based on the understanding that health (good or bad) arises from interrelationships between coupled human and natural (social-ecological) systems. The ecohealth approach rests on principles of transdisciplinarity, participation, gender and social equity, systems thinking, sustainability and research-to-action. It is a framework to study and manage relationships between human beings and the environment in pursuit of co-benefits; improving both ecosystem health and human wellbeing. In this presentation the emerging field of ecohealth will be introduced and its organization around communities of practice described. The approach will be illustrated with three case studies. The first case is the application of the Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health (AMESH) to interrelated crises of poverty, environmental degradation, and zoonotic disease along the Bishnumati River in Kathmandu, Nepal. Instead of a normal scientific approach to hydatid disease, a team of Nepali and Canadian researchers approached the problem by developing systemic understanding the social dynamics involved, leading to novel interventions in meat processing, sanitation and environmental improvement. The second case is an application to improve community wellbeing in a low-income informal settlement (slum) in Chennai, India. This community was stuck in a maladaptive attractor - a poverty trap. The project married an ecosystem approach to participatory action research to build capacity in the community and achieve social and physical interventions to improve health and well-being. Finally, an ongoing project with the Credit Valley Conservation Authority in Southern Ontario will be presented. This project is oriented to identifying and communicating relationships among ecosystem services and human health/well-being so as to demonstrate the importance and efficacy of watershed management. Ultimately the project will support scenario planning for watershed management that has explicit human health and wellbeing goals.

A Delicate Balance: the Interdependence of Natural, Artefactual, and Human System

Noam Cook — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Governing the anthropocene entails, in part, constituting a delicate balance among distinct types of systems. Building on the work of Sir Geoffrey Vickers, I identify three types of systems-natural, artefactual, and human. Each has its own requirements for stability and sustainability. Together they have further requirements for functioning interdependently, particularly in any form we ought to consider desirable.

I outline some of what these concepts suggest, and argue that

understanding stability, sustainability, and interdependence in cybersystemic terms may put us in a better position not only to govern the anthropocene, but to govern it more responsibly.

I explore some practical implications of this view in comparing major water projects in Singapore and California.

Governing in the Anthropocene: what future systems thinking in practice?"

Ray L Ison — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

To what extent can governing, researching, managing,.doing what we do when we do what we do...be understood as a praxis (theory-informed practical action) able to respond to the 'problematique' that an Anthropocene framing reveals? Reflecting on this question what possible futures emerge for systems thinking in practice and for a society committed in name to an internationalist discourse that to date revolves around 'the systems sciences'? What institutional forms and praxis innovations are needed to carry us forward, to be capable and seen to be capable, of responding to the Anthropocene? Responses to these questions will be grounded in 35 years of researching experience.

Designing a Future for Humans to Fourish: Reframing the Long Crisis of the Anthropocene

Peter Jones — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

We now find ourselves as a systems thinking community inquiring into planetary governance for climate and ecological politics. The Anthropocene demands a planetary response, and yet we often find even our fellow travelers tethered to discourses of technological management, cultural change, and right action. Perhaps we might now advocate a strong role for social systems design as a process for continual engagement of citizens as stakeholders, as advocated by Christakis, Ulrich and others. As we have seen power (economic and political) separate from its cultural histories, and become globalized, we may find ourselves in trajectories of action with marginal power to effect societal outcomes. We are faced with a dual mandate of restorative system design, recovering human needs in our communities, and policy system design, restoring the long historical arc toward democratic governance. And as these are both designable contexts, systemic design can integrate ecological, technological and design thinking to guide policy in more productive ways.

Leadership for Sustainability of Socio-Ecological Systems

John Kineman — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

The 60^th Meeting of the ISSS in 2016 will address an urgent global need for leadership in academic and applied sectors of society to develop a worldwide systemic sustainability agenda, focused on the wellbeing and future health of socio-ecological systems (SES). We ask participants to focus urgent attention on the systemic balance between science, policy, ethics and human action needed to achieve greater synergy between natural and human systems, including technology. This requires new ways to understand and manage the complex socio-ecological interface, 'coupling' natural and human system models scientifically, culturally, and in practical applications; and integrating knowledge to realize a new paradigm for system wholeness. In particular we wish to build interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary partnerships to explore the relationship between 'crisis science', 'anticipatory science', and 'sustainability science', including ways to enhance resilience, ecological health, regeneration, adaptability, and creative potential in socio-ecological systems. We also call upon attendees to address critical development needs for achieving these goals through education, institutional cooperation, community to intergovernmental stewardship, management practice, entrepreneurial opportunities, and both individual and professional development.

The related concept of "Unity in Diversity" aims to enhance both diverse and shared qualities necessary to achieve sustainability, and to go beyond it to more creative planetary symbiosis. It captures our aspirations for a better future than is likely to result from disconnected or fragmented ideas and actions. Unity in Diversity recognizes the critical importance, necessity, and beauty of differences and discrete or individual processes, while also finding balance and harmony among those elements in nature and humanity. It means true holism, bringing together diverse philosophies in a new way that resolves conflicts in knowledge and society.

Similarly, the concept of "Humanity in Technology" recognizes an extremely bright technological future that is certainly coming, but that should be infused with and designed with humanity; i.e., truly appropriate technology for human development. It refers to a natural balance that has always been necessary between the goals and the means for living in all creatures. Technology is the capacity for doing, which throughout the ages has existed in relation to values, supporting them or savagely curtailing them. "Humanity in Technology" means harmonizing form and function to ensure human values we can agree on. Ancient wisdom, sometimes forgotten in modern times, tells us that 'means' cannot really be different in quality from their 'ends'; that they actually cultivate and characterize what we ultimately achieve and how that serves humanity.

Generally guided by these principles of wholeness and appropriate development, we are making a major effort to connect with other societies, government and non-government institutions, political sectors, community and individual actors, and academic disciplines involved in global stewardship. Sharp divisions have fragmented and compartmentalized our collective approaches, and we must now apply clear principles of both science and humanity so that we as a human colony no longer operate in opposition to the natural systems that sustain us. Feedbacks from the imbalances we have created are now threatening to degrade the quality and abundance of human and other life, and thus compelling us to find solutions.

2016 will be the Society's 60^th birthday - "Shasti Poorthi" as it is celebrated in Vedic-Hindu tradition. It is a special time of entering maturity, marking one's transition from a material Being to a Spiritual Being with higher aspirations for humanity and one's own self-knowledge. It is therefore both fitting and symbolic that the 60^th annual meeting of the ISSS will celebrate this renewal and rebirth in partnership with institutions in India. Recognizing our global heritage and joint responsibility we are planning a collaborative venue with Indian Institutions of Higher learning to build multi-cultural understanding, consensus, and exchange on key issues in system science and sustainability. Connecting scholars and professionals in India and the USA in real time creates a valuable opportunity to combine the unique talents of two cultures and their present and historical worldviews. But it also represents a sizeable technological challenge. Facilitating this connection will require advanced communication technology that is capable of exchanging much more than words and facts. We hope to create a semantic presence in which we may share deep scientific, political, cultural, and ethical contexts. We thus call on corporate involvement for a collaborative demonstration of the future of communication technology.

We will also mark our 60^th anniversary and 'coming of age' by entering a new phase of global responsibility. In 2016 we will inaugurate the first ISSS "Policy Congress" that will extend the reach of the system sciences to greater society by identifying systemic issues and creating policy recommendations for key decision-makers and institutions. Our conference should thus identify key issues and provide clear statements of fact, need, purpose, and action. We also wish to encourage new international education development, especially at graduate and professional levels, aimed at investigating and applying more whole system understanding from a multi-cultural perspective. We call for participation of ethicists and spiritualists representing a wide variety of organizations, to work in partnership with scientists and decision makers as we together envision the future of our unique planetary and human system.

Systemic Consulting - Challenges

Louis Klein — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The invisible hand is not your friend. Following Scott's principles of observation we may want to look for the challenges of systemic consulting on the detail levels of the issues of clients or the consulting practices themselves. We may want to explore alternative perspectives on consulting. However the presentation will be dedicated to the conditions for the possibility of systemic consulting and the bigger picture of western society. Here we find systemicity and individuation as the main barriers of systemic change practices. We need to go back to the dialectics of enlightenment to understand where the challenges are and why it is about time to engage in social design impact evaluation.

Context Trumps Causality

Michael Lissack — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Many of the successes of our modern world have been the result of a focus on defined meaning and direct causality. Given these foci narrative heuristics can be transformed into efficient algorithms. But, efficiency comes at a price. Efficiency has little tolerance for ambiguity and even less tolerance for indirect forms of causality. Efficiency demands that context be treated as if it was a variable in a look up table. Our advances in material living standards and in live expectancy are due to efficiency's stubborn form of Ohkam's Razor. Yet, the anthropocene has its own demands -- for context sensitivity, for the tolerance of ambiguity, and for the cultivation of resilience. Our challenge over the coming decades is to relax efficiency's iron grip so as to allow the resilience required for future generations.

After the Anthropocene: A Degrowth Perspective on the Shortest Geological Period of all Times«

Andre Reichel — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The narrative of the »anthropocene« is gaining traction. On the bandwaggon we find classical environmentalists who are using the term as the starkest form of warning against human self-destruction, as well as technological optimists of a Kurzweilian kind eager to accelerate the path of human technological domination of nature. Regardless if there truly »is« something like the anthropocene unfolding, if it is perceived to be real from a growing number of followers, it is real in its consequences. Such a reality of the anthropocene leads to different kinds of proposals how to deal with it. In this talk we will take a degrowth-oriented perspective (French: Décroissance; German: Postwachstumsökonomie) on the anthropocene and deconstruct it together with the economic growth paradigm. If at all, the anthropocene can at best be connected to the availability of high energy sources in combination with the expansionist economic regime of late capitalism. As growth slows and turns this regime into some form of postgrowth development, the human footprint will decelerate and the anthropocene will pass as a short-lived episode of human history. In the end it will be argued that Boulding's notion of »spaceship earth« does not equate with the coming of the anthropocene but with its hopefully civilized undoing.

Manifesto for General Systems Transdisciplinarity (GSTD)

David Rousseau — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

see attached file

Emancipating Transformations: from Anthropocene control to culturing systems

Andrew Stirling — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Current global environmental governance reverberates with talk of a new 'Anthropocene epoch' defined by 'human domination', in which a 'perfect storm' of catastrophic threats is seen to force a singular 'great transition' towards 'Earth systems management'. The advent of this new discourse raises particular questions for how systems-based understandings can best inform policy making.

A key theme in this new governance movement, is the emphasis on 'control'. Under a growing mood of 'environmental authoritarianism', humanity is conceived "as a self conscious control force that has conquered the planet" and with a destiny to "take control of Nature's realm". And it is Earth systems theories that are relied upon to help take charge of the 'control variables of the Earth'.

But what these moves also reflect, are the longstanding priorities attached by powerful incumbent interests to exactly these kinds of rhetorics of control. Indeed, democracy itself presents an early target. Increasingly portrayed as a 'failure', a 'luxury', or even 'an enemy of Nature', leading figures argue for democracy to be 'put on hold'. With systems approaches apparently leaving no room for argument, there seems 'no alternative' but compliance - or irrational denial and existential doom.

Yet there are alternative ways to address the gravity of current ecological and social imperatives. It can be recognised, for instance, that democratic struggle is the principal means by which knowledges and practices of Sustainability were shaped in the first place. In this view, concentrated power and fallacies of control are more problems than solutions. Here, history shows the greatest ongoing forms of transformative progress (like release from colonialism, racism or patriarchy), to owe more to plural knowledges and values and unruly hope-inspired agonistic contention, than to single orderly technical 'transitions' based on deterministic notions of systems science or fear-driven structured control.

Like other great progressive struggles of history, radical shifts in grassroots culture and anarchically choreographed flocking behaviours in nature, the most effective modes for radical change often lie in spontaneous bottom-up collective action. These do not depend on rigidly disciplined 'integrated science' and monolithically-structured 'planetary management'. So, relations between human systems and natural systems are defined more by co-evolutionary processes of mutual culturing than control. It is in helping to understand, highlight and explore these contrasting modalities of distributed social and ecological coordination that enlightened forms of systems theory may offer special contributions.

Systemic Design Panel - (inter)actors’ Pecha Kucha

Liss C Werner — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

a conversation

It is undeniable that systemic design approaches almost all disciplines and hence offer potential for a similar understanding (a general system) of how to design, which behavioral, technical or structural rules to follow, to take on board or to create. The panel takes on the role of a ‘crisp’ conversation between a variety of ‘design’ perspectives in different disciplines, driven by and focusing on the challenges the anthropocene brings. Aim is to present short varying pitches ranging from innovation to material resilience, the relevance of geo-tagging or the necessity for education in design thinking. Pitches are to clarify and to confuse, to trigger and to embrace, to innovate, to criticize and to shake up.

The format of the panel acts as interface and as systemic design methodology in itself. 5x15 slides, presented for 20 seconds each describe the blueprint for an agile construction.

Yin/Yang Cancer Treatment System:A Fundamental Shift in Cancer Management

Elior Larry Kinarthy — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

ABSTRACT

Better cancer screening and advances in various treatments have increased the survival rate of the majority of cancer patients to over five years. The purpose of this case study is to demonstrate that with a restructured and balanced Yin/Yang management system, the survival rate of a male patient with bone metastatic prostate cancer can potentially exceed 15 years. The fundamental shift in cancer management begins from ground zero at the initial diagnosis to create a balanced integration of western and eastern healing modalities

This 15-year case study uses Nobel laureate Dr. Daniel Kahneman’s “System 1 and System 2” decision making process. (Thinking, Fast and Slow, Doubleday, Canada, 2011). These 2 systems of thinking can be useful in adjusting physician’s orders to “best fit” patients’ needs. The goal is to select the most effective cancer management for the patient in an optimal supportive environment. The focus becomes the patient as a client participant. The method for treating cancer successfully requires proactive rules of behavior at home, at clinics and in hospitals. The functional framework for treating cancer successfully requires adopting roles of behavior for the patient as a proactive client, the physician as an effective communicator and administrator of treatments, and for the family, friends and other patients as a socio-emotive support group.

The effectiveness of a Yin/Yang system recommends the participation of all practitioners in client advocacy workshop run by holistically trained persons such as a cancer nurse, or a case management technician. A complex array of Yin and Yang treatments can include CBD (Cannabidiol), DCT (Dendritic Cell Therapy), hormones, hyperthermia, meditation, IV infusions, nutrition, surgery, proton radiation, photon radiation (X-Ray), green tea (Gyokuro, Matcha, Sencha), Ginger, Turmeric, CQ10, and many other ingredients that are considered in a balanced use of Allopathic and Complementary treatments. All treatment data must be stored and organized as a computer application that is “designed” for the patient/client. The Yin/Yang system can also assure that the patient’s financial considerations do not add additional stress while receiving treatments both locally and internationally. Advocacy must be balanced using a harmonious and symbiotic mix of western and eastern medicine, using traditional and complementary treatment integration.

A psychological perspective enhanced the application of the Yin/Yang system for treating cancer and was based on a 15-year case study. The criterion validity of this case study was established by examining the relationship between various traditional-complementary treatment modalities and their outcome as measured by blood tests, PSA levels, Testosterone levels, immunoglobulin changes and other bio-markers such as repeated MRI images and limited use of CT scanning and X-rays. Reliability has been established by repeated measurements. The results of this case study show that the patient as a participating client has improved self-confidence, assertiveness and spirituality that resulted in an improved cancer prognosis. The Yin/Yang treatment model worked to effectively arrest cancer growth. The allopathic physicians accepted the changes in the treatment protocol initiated by the proactive advocacy of the patient.

Towards Systems Thinking: Strengthening the Bonds between Operations Research (OR) and Health Services Planning & Epidemiology

Maria Stella Castro Lobo, Marcos Pereira Estellita Lins — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The study proposes a dialogical approach between OR and Health Services Planning and Epidemiology based on the similarities of their own epistemological experiences, according to Habermas’ Theory of Knowledge. As a field of application, health services planning and epidemiology are Complex Societal Problems (CSP), requiring multidisciplinary and multi-dimensional approach. The paper suggests an agenda towards systems thinking to enhance the interaction between the disciplines to guarantee the implementation research´ results by decision makers. Multi-methodology and concept maps tools deal with CSP and may consider peacefully the coexistence of different paradigms. Structuring the problems by concept maps accomplish the systems thinking approach, by presenting the context with diverse levels, feedback loops and dependencies. The map is a real board upon which actors and stakeholders exercise their communicative skills and define collaborative loops towards concepts, meanings and practical implementation.

The Display/Pickup Paradigm for Social System Behavior

Susan Farr Gabriele — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Posternumber: 001 (Assigned by Journal editor)

The Display/Pickup Paradigm for Social System Behavior

Sue Gabriele

sgabriele@gemslearning.net

Public education, a wonderful creation of human society, is currently troubled by a cycle of increasing decline. Ever-increasing demands leave educators less able to address their own student, school and district issues. So, school quality goes down, for a 19 + 1 = 18 effect. That is: if school quality is 19, add a new demand (+1), school quality goes down to 18. Then, desperate new policies are mandated every year -– too quickly for schools to keep up. Over three years, the process looks like 19 + 1 = 18 … 17 … 16. This poster explains this increasing decline as caused by [I] flawed practice in which the leader or supervisor ‘installs’ the new policy, program and tasks in the supervised. This install practice is built on [II] flawed and conflicting assumptions. Namely, the flawed assumptions are that agency is in the supervisor, rather than the supervised. Expert supervisors have observed the errors in this thinking and many have overcorrected for an emerging new paradigm that assumes agency in the supervised, rather than the supervisor. The result is an either/or debate and conflict. Clarification of agency, building on Boulding’s Typology, yields [III] corrected theory and improved assumptions. Namely, cause/agency in learning and behavior is: dual & multiple, infinitely variable, and in everyone – learners and leaders. The result is a new unifying DISPLAY/PICKUP paradigm for education and management. The supervisor’s role is to be the agent of the DISPLAY of the agenda and subject matter. The supervised are agents of PICKUP, each at their own rates, for their own purposes. [IV] Corresponding practices are proposed, with the goal that [V] 19 + 1 = 20 … 21 … 22.

TPO Theory, Boulding's Typology, and the Display/Pickup Poster

Susan Farr Gabriele — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

TPO Theory, Boulding's Typology, and the Display/Pickup Poster

Sue Gabriele

sgabriele@gemslearning.net

TPO Theory classifies three parts of a social system, such as a school district, by their very different behavioral laws. Boulding’s Nine-Level Typology of System Complexity underpins TPO Theory and also clarifies how the nine levels cluster into the three distinct natures. Boulding’s Levels 1- 3 systems—frameworks, clockworks, and control systems (thermostat)—are Things (T), which can be predicted and/or regulated to exteriorly prescribed criteria. Levels 4 – 7 are organisms, which are self-regulating and behave according to interiorly prescribed criteria, especially sophisticated in Level 7, people (P). Levels 8 – 9, social and transcendent systems, have transient boundaries (illustrated by dashed lines). In contrast to Levels 8 and 9, Levels 4 -7 boundaries are fixed (marked by solid lines). Thus, Level 7 individual human needs are mandatory; Level 8 organization needs are optional. People can leave their level 8 systems (their schools or workplaces); they cannot leave their Level 7 systems (their physical bodies). It follows that individual goals are primary; organization goals are secondary. The great distinction between Levels 3 and 4 is a great shift in cause or agency. People are agents of their own learning -- agency represented by the color yellow. Thus, it is more accurate to describe the classroom instructional process as display/pickup: Teachers display subject matter; learners acquire it by pickup. Not only does pickup depend on each individual learner, rather than the teacher. But each learner has increasing variability in needs (Level 4), abilities (Level 5), perceptions (Level 6), and choices (Level 7). A close up on people (P) allows identification of four main pickup points for learning (pickup illustrated by graspers, rather than arrows). The four areas are people’s [1] eyes, [2] ears, [3] hands (and body), as well as [4] their own reflection on observed and intended outcomes. Such a close up also allows identification of four main output points for behavior, performance and creativity (arrows) – people’s [1] mouths, [2] hands, [3] feet (and body), as well as [4] their creating or participating in the creation of their input, subject matter, and tasks (T). Outcomes are even more unpredictable. People’s learning and performance are unpredictable and also infinitely variable (multiple colors) in O. Moreover, if a Level 8 system is not meeting an individual’s Level 7 goals, it is natural (and perhaps even healthy) that the individual Level 7 system will ignore Level 8 goals and use his/her energy for Level 7 goals. Finally, all people are learners, even leaders. In a nutshell, TPO theory proposes that, for best outcomes (O), Things (T) are to be carefully designed/displayed (input carefully turned from pointed arrows to rounded arrows) to optimize pickup by People (P) who learn and behave each according to their own interiorly prescribed criteria, each at their own pace, according to their own purposes.

Triple Action RoundTable: A Practical Three-Entry Point Innovation

Susan Farr Gabriele — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Posternumber: 001 (Assigned by Journal editor)

Triple Action RoundTable: A Practical Three-Entry Point Innovation

Sue Gabriele

sgabriele@gemslearning.net

The Triple Action RoundTable is conceptualized to triple the power of the RoundTable to facilitate systemic school or social system renewal, or perhaps even increase its effectiveness to the third power. It builds on the Display/Pickup paradigm. The proposition is that, since learning and performance depend on criteria within the learner, the role of the teacher is display, and the role of the learner is pickup. The Triple Action RoundTable acts at three entry points in the system. I will explain first in the example of a classroom. The first entry point is the 30/30 RoundTable (RT), an activity that is used weekly to develop classroom subject matter. Cued by a carefully designed RoundTable Guide/script, it allows about 30 people to give spontaneous learning reports in 30 minutes. This is a bottom-up entry point, as it allows the views of all the students to be heard by the teacher, as well as each other. The second entry point is the Triple Bottom Line (3BL). Once the RoundTable is established to allow ongoing development of the users’ subject matter, an additional topic, 3BL, is added. 3BL is an in-out-in innovation. In other words, users are invited to reflect on their current goals and outcomes (in), and then think out of the box (out) to consider more comprehensive goals. At the organization or institution level, 3BL might be the 3Ps (profit/budget, people, planet). At the classroom level, 3BL might be student CAP development (cognitive/affective/psychomotor) or PIE (physical/intellectual/emotional). Users then revise their own goals accordingly (in). The third entry point is TPO Thermostat Guide, Here, the teacher uses a thermostat metaphor modified by TPO Theory. TPO Theory explains that lessons (T=Things) must be designed around the needs/abilities of students (P = people) for best Outcomes (O). This is a top down approach. As the teacher manages classwork and students, he/she visualizes three TPO Thermostat system modes for optimal adjustment capacities. Mode One: When class is not in session, the system is OFF. This is the Planning mode, where windows/doors are metaphorically wide open to let in fresh air and ideas. In the next two modes, the windows and doors are metaphorically closed, to preserve the flow of heat/resources/energy, to maximize its distribution among users. Mode Two is ON: Manual for Delivering resources. The teacher is actively displaying the subject matter, perhaps in a temporal audio and visual display. Mode Three is ON: Auto, for passive Monitoring. The teacher keeps the environment optimal as people work independently. This mode is helpfully supplemented by ever-present display of subject-matter (on the walls of the classroom, in textbooks, etc.) Zooming out to a wider view, the Triple Action RoundTable is a tool for whole system or systemic renewal. Thus, it is used by all system members, in one of their existing meetings. Since classrooms typically meet daily, the RoundTable can be held at least weekly for 30 minutes. At other levels of educational system, RoundTables are proposed for use monthly in meetings – including meetings of faculty, parent/teacher-associations, grade-levels, departments, principals, superintendents, government-level educational policy-makers, and so forth.

Management as Evolutionary Epistemology: A Machian Genetic Critical Perspective as Basis for a Second Order Science

Carl Henning Reschke — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The paper sketches an argument how an evolutionary (‘genetic’) epistemological model of actors’ perspectives can be used to develop an enlightened approach to management of complex systems, such as organizations, along Popper’s dictum ‘The future is open’. This enlightened approach uses ideas from the history and philosophy of science and links into the program of second order science as discussed from different point of views by the authors in the 2008 volume of Constructivist Foundations and specifically for this conference by Lissack among others. Based on Mach, it takes a metaphysically critical, neutral monist approach that complements and may integepisterate other perspectives on second order science.

The development of concepts in management follows similar patterns as the historical development of scientific concepts. In line with Oeser, Management is based on heuristic information processing and condensation into action based on actors’ perspectives organized in multiple layers of information processing. These filter information and perspectives and may lead to flawed interpretations and errors ranging from minor mistakes to large scale failures, if adopted uncritically for wide-ranging decisions. One major issue in management is thus to decide on a ‘model of the world’ and to identify misinterpreted signals to be able to adapt the model. These risks can be easily ‘blended out’ through the filters of company culture, reporting procedures and variables reported in MIS.

Management takes place via actors’ heuristics, involving organizational procedures, management information and reporting systems, which lead to - sometimes flawed – interpretations and subsequent errors ranging from minor mistakes to large scale failures. While the epistemological issue is often defined as that we cannot know the future, we can know it enough to construct a vision and build models of what may (likely) happen. However, the bigger risk here is that the mental model of managers is partially wrong and the associated ‘politics’ of arguing for and against specific models lead to painful choices which are ‘discovered’ only in the future.

Thus it is necessary to identify early on indicators for deviations from the ‘imagined world’ and to adapt models and assumptions (,hypotheses’) as quickly and as fluidly as possible. Mach’s genetic epistemological view based on a ‘fluent’ gestalt concept is helpful in this.

To describe the challenge and develop hints on how to deal with such situations, I employ physicist-psychologist-philosopher Ernst Mach’s genetic perspective on the evolution of knowledge in the history of science. According to Mach, knowledge develops based on the adaptation of thoughts to observed facts and to each other. Scientists’ statements on the nature of reality need to be based on observations, which require an analysis of the ‘psychological worldview’ in and from which observations are identified, measured, analyzed and interpreted. The thought system, the worldview of scientists influences observations, interpretations of observed facts and identification of causality in models of reality. In turn, observations lead to adaptations of the thought structure of scientists as much as to a selection of observations that are deemed legitimate to support or refute a hypothesis.

This process often uses analogical reasoning to what is already known, which serves as basis for the further ‘agglomeration’ of thought structures. This type of reasoning is already used by managers, as it allows for quick decisions. It also poses the risk of making wrong decisions based on scarce information, if the underlying basis in an originally empirical, epistemological approach is not considered. The development of the worldview of managers and the psychology of epistemology and perception thus take center stage for the development of ‘enlightend’ approaches to humane management of members of organizations and information processing in organizations.

Disaster Management for Boiling Globe by World’s 441 Nuclear-heated Water

Shigeo Atsuji — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

The present research reviews, firstly outlines the ‘unstoppable’ nature of nuclear power generation as exemplified by the system lifecycle of ageing nuclear reactors, the decommissioning of reactors, and the nuclear waste disposal problem, which stakeholders find difficult to understand. Secondly, it highlights the sea-temperature rise in the northern hemisphere, specifically the North Pacific and North Atlantic, as a result of the thermal effluent water from nuclear power plants which is a product of today’s nuclear industry. Thirdly, it presents the hypothesis of the ‘Boiling Globe’ caused by this thermal effluent water, whereby the overheating of whole oceans compounds CO2–based atmospheric warming and accelerates the spread of infectious tropical diseases to the northern hemisphere. The research points to the unsustainability of this global boiling caused by the world’s 441 nuclear plants with an average lifespan of 30 years. The traumatic experience of the Fukushima disaster has become a ‘disaster anchor’ based on psychological and cultural aspects, comparable to the career anchors of Edgar Schein (1978), and is a cultural function forming the premise of decision-making. From the standpoint of Japan, which has experienced Fukushima and other frequent disasters, it is therefore important to make the world aware of the necessity of disaster management for our sustainable future.

“THE GREATER PUSH” FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY IN AFRICA - EVIDENCE FROM GHANA

Kwamina Ewur Banson — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Over six decades, agricultural policies attempting to increase the competitiveness of project performance had limited success. This is due to the use of traditional project management methods that do not address the complex challenges encountered in a systemic way. This paper provides an example of how a systemic approach is applied to agricultural development. The findings are based on a series of workshops conducted in Ghana in 2013 and 2014. Findings include an established community development model, the “Greater Push” and a new way of measuring, monitoring and evaluating sustainable development with Bayesian Belief Network modelling that satisfies the ‘Bellagio Principles’ for measuring sustainable development indicators. This research contributes to systemic application in project management and can help policy-makers across the world to identify threats to sustainable economic growth and help them to anticipate unintended consequences of their decisions and actions before it is too late to reverse the trend.

REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS ON A VIRTUAL REALITY TRAINING SYSTEM FOR CBRN CRISIS PREPAREDNESS

Annette Mossel, Andreas Peer, Johannes Goellner, Hannes Kaufmann — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

Over the past decade, training in virtual reality for military and disaster preparedness has been increasingly recognized as an important adjunct to traditional modalities of real-life drills. However, there are only a few existing solutions that provide immersive virtual reality training that implies improved learning through an increased amount of presence. In this paper, we present a thorough analysis of the state of the art of virtual reality training systems and outline the requirements of two peer stakeholders for disaster relief with an explicit focus on CBRN disaster preparedness. We discuss both analyses to draw conclusions if - and to which extent - existing virtual reality training solutions meet the stakeholder requirements. As a conclusion, we outline future research that must be conducted to fulfil the stakeholders’ requirements of a flexible multi-user immersive virtual reality training system.

Bridge the Gap: spanning the distance between teaching, learning and application of systems thinking in the workplace

Rupesh Amritlal Shah, Elaine Wedlock, Martin Reynolds — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 -0800

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This paper reports on a study looking at teaching, learning and application of systems thinking ideas for the workplace. It provides suggestions for designing learning systems to enhance the application of systems thinking in the workplace.

Drawing upon a qualitative interview process, the research looked at experiences of mature part-time students on a distance learning postgraduate programme in systems thinking in practice at the Open University, UK. The study also investigated the experiences of alumni (from the same programme) from the point of view as employees seeking to apply the learning from their studies in the workplace. Interviews were also conducted with employers of the alumni. Finally, a range of stakeholder including those who took part in the interviews were invited to a workshop to explore the design questions to enhance applicationof systems thinking.

The paper briefly describes three phases of the research. A review of the outcomes of this study prompts some key recommendations for future design of part-time postgraduate courses in systems thinking for professional practitioners. Two broad areas of insight emerge: changes in the way learners are supported during study and attempting to influence the landscape of practice by creating demand for systems thinking skills.

Architecture and Second Order Science

Ben Sweeting — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Since around 1980, Ranulph Glanville has put forward the idea that rather than seeing research in design as one form of science, we instead see scientific research as a specific form of design. This argument, based on the way that scientific research inevitably involves design activity but not vice versa, and others like it around that time consolidate a shift during the 1970s in thinking about design, from a concern with the scientific method to the idea that design has its own epistemological foundations as a discipline. The attempt to base design on a linear version of the scientific method failed for reasons that have been pointed out by Horst Rittel amongst others: because design involves the creation of the new, design questions cannot be exhaustively formulated in advance. This has marked something of a parting of the ways between design and science as being incompatible in terms of method.

Given Glanville’s argument this is not what we might expect: if science is a limited form of design, shouldn’t scientific approaches be commensurable with design even if they are not a basis for it? This apparent disjunction is only the case if we follow the changes in how design was thought about during this period without also following the comparable changes regarding science. Both broadly parallel each other, moving from a concern with method in the 1960s through a critique of this in the 1970s to new foundations from the 1980s onwards, focusing on what designers and scientists actually do in practice. Indeed the key critiques of method advanced by Feyerabend and Rittel, in science and design respectively, have similar structures and, so, what seems at first sight to be a rupture can also be read as a parallel journey.

Using this account as a basis, and in the light of recent discussions regarding the idea of second order science, I suggest that we can understand contemporary design research as one example of second order research practice, as is indicated by its continuity with cybernetics. More speculatively, and with reference to the Fun Palace project of Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price, to which Gordon Pask also contributed, I suggest that architecture can itself sometimes be thought of as facilitating such a reflective and participatory enquiry.