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Article
Publication date: 3 August 2012

Maurice Yolles, Gerhard Fink and B. Roy Frieden

In part 1 of this paper the organisation was modelled as a socio‐cognitive agency with a normative personality, where patterns of behaviour occur through underlying trait control…

Abstract

Purpose

In part 1 of this paper the organisation was modelled as a socio‐cognitive agency with a normative personality, where patterns of behaviour occur through underlying trait control processes, and from which specific behaviours can be predicted. However, prediction is dependent on a stable agency orientation which occurs in normal conditions of homeostatic equilibrium. In post‐normal conditions the immanent dynamics of the agency have the potential to change its orientation leading to a lesser likelihood of predicting behaviour. Using information theory, this paper aims to further develop the model to show how it is possible to predict behaviour in post‐normal conditions. It also aims to consider the nature of agency pathologies.

Design/methodology/approach

The information theory approach of Frieden is harnessed to explain the immanent dynamics of the agency, and explore the likelihood of predicting its behaviour.

Findings

The outcomes of the research formulate the cognitive processes of normative personality such that its potential behaviour in given situations can be predicted, even potentially where the agency has pathologies.

Originality/value

There are no comparative approaches to explore organisational behaviour and their potential pathologies.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 41 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

The Sustainability of Restorative Justice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-754-2

Book part
Publication date: 21 December 2010

Liam Leonard and Paula Kenny

The following sections will present a brief overview of theories of justice that have underpinned the development of the institutions and administration of justice in modern…

Abstract

The following sections will present a brief overview of theories of justice that have underpinned the development of the institutions and administration of justice in modern Western societies. It will begin with an examination of the general political–philosophical ideas and concepts in the area of justice in the modern era. It will then examine the perspectives of punishment, which are linked to these philosophical theories.

Details

Sustainable Justice and the Community
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-301-0

Article
Publication date: 28 January 2014

Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink

Based on the cybernetic agency theory of part 1, the paper creates a parallel theory to Maruyama's Mindscape theory called mindset theory, relying on the three-trait…

Abstract

Purpose

Based on the cybernetic agency theory of part 1, the paper creates a parallel theory to Maruyama's Mindscape theory called mindset theory, relying on the three-trait organisational value system of Sagiv and Schwartz that arises from extensive theoretical and empirical work on cultural values originally undertaken by Shalom Schwartz. The derived normative personality types are embedded into a cultural system and interacting with a social system. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the paper deals with Sorokin's theory of the immanent cultural dynamics arising from swings between more sensate or more ideational culture. For characterisation of interaction with the social environment, the paper relies on the dramatist/patterner trait from empirical work by Shotwell et al., which acts as an attractor of agency behaviour. Thus, the paper designs a five trait agency model, with one trait that serves as an attractor of agency behaviour, three formative normative personality traits, and one social trait that directs the how of behaviour.

Findings

The Sagiv-Schwartz mindset types reveal the missing four types of the Maruyama-universe, as sought by Boje. Sagiv-Schwartz mindset types create generic transparency and a theoretical and empirical base for the selection of mindset meta-types. Through its perfect match with Mindset Agency Theory as developed in part 1, this research creates a structural model that has the potential to distinguish between normal and pathological personalities within the same framework.

Research limitations/implications

The modelling approach can be applied to social, economic and political situations, with the likelihood of anticipating the likely behaviour of social collectives like durable organisation and/or nation states. Analytical and empirical application in different contexts is yet to be provided.

Practical implications

The paper sets up a means by which patterns of behaviour can be analysed in different organisational or national contexts. Empirical analysis based on this theory has the potential to identify normal states and shifts away from normal states of social systems, which may shift into stages of tension and crises, and/or mobilise forces directed towards paradigm changes in social systems.

Originality/value

The paper draws on earlier work undertaken in the last few years by the same authors, who in a new way are pursuing new directions and extensions of that earlier research.

Article
Publication date: 1 November 2018

Maurice Yolles

Complex systems adapt to survive, but little comparative literature exists on various approaches. Adaptive complex systems are generic, this referring to propositions concerning…

Abstract

Purpose

Complex systems adapt to survive, but little comparative literature exists on various approaches. Adaptive complex systems are generic, this referring to propositions concerning their bounded instability, adaptability and viability. Two classes of adaptive complex system theories exist: hard and soft. Hard complexity theories include Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Viability Theory, and softer theories, which we refer to as Viable Systems Theories (VSTs), that includes Management Cybernetics at one extreme and Humanism at the other. This paper has a dual purpose distributed across two parts. In part 1 the purpose was to identify the conditions for the complementarity of the two classes of theory. In part 2 the two the purpose is to explore (in part using Agency Theory) the two classes of theory and their proposed complexity continuum.

Design/methodology/approach

Explanation is provided for the anticipation of behaviour cross-disciplinary fields of theory dealing with adaptive complex systems. A comparative exploration of the theories is undertaken to elicit concepts relevant to a complexity continuum. These explain how agency behaviour can be anticipated under uncertainty. Also included is a philosophical exploration of the complexity continuum, expressing it in terms of a graduated set of philosophical positions that are differentiated in terms of objects and subjects. These are then related to hard and softer theories in the continuum. Agency theory is then introduced as a framework able to comparatively connect the theories on this continuum, from theories of complexity to viable system theories, and how harmony theories can develop.

Findings

Anticipation is explained in terms of an agency’s meso-space occupied by a regulatory framework, and it is shown that hard and softer theory are equivalent in this. From a philosophical perspective, the hard-soft continuum is definable in terms of objectivity and subjectivity, but there are equivalences to the external and internal worlds of an agency. A fifth philosophical position of critical realism is shown to be representative of harmony theory in which internal and external worlds can be related. Agency theory is also shown to be able to operate as a harmony paradigm, as it can explore external behaviour of an agent using a hard theory perspective together with an agent’s internal cultural and cognitive-affect causes.

Originality/value

There are very few comparative explorations of the relationship between hard and soft approaches in the field of complexity and even fewer that draw in the notion of harmony. There is also little pragmatic illustration of a harmony paradigm in action within the context of complexity.

Book part
Publication date: 20 November 2023

Fabien Trémeau

Since the 1990s, the German current of Value Criticism has been proposing to rework a critique of capitalism based on the mature works of Marx. Starting from the primary…

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the German current of Value Criticism has been proposing to rework a critique of capitalism based on the mature works of Marx. Starting from the primary categories of capital – value, abstract labor, commodity fetishism – they intend to overcome the traditional contradictions of Marxism, capital/labor, proletariat/bourgeoisie, etc. The Canadian thinker Moishe Postone has, independently of value criticism, developed a thought that is close to the German current while distinguishing itself on certain important points. However, it is appropriate to question these new readings of Marx which, if they can be fruitful, pose many problems, both philosophical and political.

Details

Value, Money, Profit, and Capital Today
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-751-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2013

Masudul Alam Choudhury and Mostaq M. Hossain

Learning field of events is characterized by the occurrenceof random and uncertain phenomena, all of which have probabilistic distributions. The meaning of learning is exchange by…

Abstract

Purpose

Learning field of events is characterized by the occurrenceof random and uncertain phenomena, all of which have probabilistic distributions. The meaning of learning is exchange by interdependence between interacting agents. Such agents are both the human entities and the non‐human ones. Thus, in a learning field of probabilistic events there are complex forms of interaction between the domains of mind (human cognition) and matter (world‐system). The purpose of this paper is to formalize and study such interactions by the epistemology of unity of being and becoming of relations between given variables in analytical perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

The critical argumentation and search in this paper leads to the premise of the episteme of unity of knowledge. It is found singularly in the doctrine of the paired universe of the Quran. The episteme of oneness of the monotheistic law and its consequential forms establish the axiomatic basis of the criterion function representing the phenomenon of probabilistic learning field. The authors refer to this criterion as wellbeing. It conceptualizes and measures the degree of unity of being and becoming that exists between the variables of a specific problem under investigation.

Findings

The results of this study formalize the probabilistic model of learning. The simulated evaluation of the probabilistic form of the wellbeing function brings out the synonymous results between unity of knowledge and its impact on the unity of the world‐system induced by the knowledge‐flows. Such a transformation of a world‐system presents the meaning of endogenous (or systemically self‐regenerated) ethics and morality in such broader fields of choices involving embedded learning systems.

Originality/value

The dynamics of pervasive complementarities arising from learning by unity of knowledge, and considerations of ethics and morality remain exogenous factors in economic theory. This paper, instead, has formalized ethical endogeneity in models of decision‐making with probabilistic learning fields that remain embedded in complementarities by interaction and integration across economic, social and ethical systems.

Article
Publication date: 8 January 2021

Maurice Yolles

This paper is in two parts. The purpose of the first part was to explore the basis for the creation of an agentic ecology theory that could provide a generic multidisciplinary…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper is in two parts. The purpose of the first part was to explore the basis for the creation of an agentic ecology theory that could provide a generic multidisciplinary context-free manifold that can be applied to specific domains and contexts. As an element of this, it explored the relationship between agency and its agents (at various foci) and the nature of agency ecologies. It also explored the relationship between viability and sustainability. In this second part, the purpose is to create an agency model that will recognise the analytical and decision-making attributes of the viability–sustainability relationship by centring on the modelling a socioeconomic ecosystem and a social disciplinary species model.

Design/methodology/approach

Agency theory will be used to model a generic agency ecology and its environment of subordinate elements – especially those subordinates that can be used as amenities to satisfy the needs to agency development. Part 1 of the paper took a tour of concepts relevant to the representation of ecosystem structures and their application. Part 2 will centre on delivering a schema capable of embracing agency ecology from which applications may derive.

Findings

It is shown agency theory is not only a modelling schema but can also provide diagnosis to examine the condition of, or for locating problems within, an agency in its ecosystem environment. This is illustrated within a socioeconomic context.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is conceptual in nature, without any to diagnose any substantive issues within the socio-economic context.

Originality/value

A generalized agency ecology approach is proposed over this two-part paper that is novel through the use of 3rd order cybernetics.

Article
Publication date: 2 February 2015

Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink

Anticipating behaviour and responding to the needs of complexity and problematic issues requires modelling to facilitate analysis and diagnosis. Using arguments of anticipation as…

Abstract

Purpose

Anticipating behaviour and responding to the needs of complexity and problematic issues requires modelling to facilitate analysis and diagnosis. Using arguments of anticipation as an imperative for inquiry, the purpose of this paper is to introduce generic modelling for living systems theory, and assigns the number of generic constructs to orders of simplex modelling. An nth simplex order rests in an nth order simplex cybernetic space. A general modelling theory of higher orders of simplexity is given, where each higher order responds to every generic construct involved, the properties of which determining the rules of the complex system being that is represented. Higher orders of simplexity also explain greater degrees of complexity relatively simply, and give rise to the development of new paradigms that are better able to explain perceived complex phenomena.

Design/methodology/approach

This is Part 3 of three linked papers. Using principles that arise from Schwarz’s living systems set within a framework provided by cultural agency theory, and with a rationale provided by Rosen’s and Dubois’ concepts of anticipation, the papers develop a general modelling theory of simplex orders. They show that with the development of new higher orders, paradigm shifts can occur that become responsible for new ways of seeing and resolving stubborn problematic issues. Part 1 established the fundamentals for a theory of modelling associated with cybernetic orders. Using this, in this Part 2 the authors established the principles of cybernetic orders using simplex modelling. This included a general theory of generic modelling. In this Part 3 the authors extend this, developing a fourth order simplex model, and exploring the potential for higher orders using recursive techniques through cultural agency theory. The authors also explore various forms of emergence.

Findings

Cultural agency theory can be used to generate higher simplex through principles of recursion, and hence to create a potential for the generation of families of new paradigms. The idea of conceptual emergence is also tied to the rise of new paradigms.

Research limitations/implications

The use of higher order simplex models to represent complex situations provides the ability to condense explanation concerning the development of particular system behaviours, and hence simplify the way in which the authors analyse, diagnose and anticipate behaviour in complex situations. Illustration is also given showing how the theory can explain the emergence of new paradigms.

Practical implications

Cultural agency can be used to structure problem issues that may otherwise be problematic, within both a top-down and bottom-up approach. It may also be used to assist in establishing behavioural anticipation given an appropriate modelling approach. It may also be used to improve and compress explanation of complex situations.

Originality/value

A new theory of simplex orders arises from the new concept of generic modelling, illustrating cybernetic order. This permits the possibility of improved analysis and diagnosis of problematic situations belonging to complex situations through the use of higher order simplex models, and facilitates improvement in behavioural anticipation.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 44 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 February 2020

Maurice Yolles

This paper has two parts. The purpose of part 1 explains the need for an adaptive paradigm that can efficaciously respond to the complex issues in wicked problems and the…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper has two parts. The purpose of part 1 explains the need for an adaptive paradigm that can efficaciously respond to the complex issues in wicked problems and the fundamentals that this requires were identified. It involved the formulation of a cross-disciplinary relational methodologically plural paradigm with certain properties. The purpose in this Part 2 is to provide a theoretical framework. It adopts autonomous agency theory in which paradigm holders collectively act as “living system” agencies and deliver “living stories” to create coherence in addressing wicked problem issues, and then adopts hybrid structures to address this need.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach seeks to address wicked problem issues. Wicked problems do not respect academic disciplines, requiring a cross-disciplinary approach. Autonomous agency theory is adopted capable of structuring cross-disciplinary inquiry processes and formulating a hybrid inquiry paradigm. The paper sets up a narrative that delivers a structured essay resulting in a general theory of hybrid inquiry. This paradigm is explored in detail, considering how it can be applied to wicked problems.

Findings

The paradigm, which traditionally defines a field of study conceptualises and regulates approaches that enable inquiry into behavioural systems. Mono-disciplinary, they are not suitable for the resolution of issues that arise from cross-disciplinary wicked problems. To resolve this, a relational paradigm has been defined within which sits a cross-disciplinary hybrid inquiry system. A general theory of hybrid inquiry has been offered, with an appropriate illustration in ecosystem management. It is shown that agency theory can successfully embrace a relational paradigm.

Research limitations/implications

To determine the limitations of this theory, there is a need to provide exemplars, which is currently premature. Another outcome is to centre on modes of practice in hybrid inquiry but there is insufficient space for this here.

Originality/value

This paper makes an original contribution by formulating a structured approach on the creation of a relational paradigm capable of supporting hybrid inquiry. It also adopts cross-disciplinary theory to make its case for a relational paradigm, recognising that wicked problems are cross-disciplinary. As part of the regulatory process it connects Rittel’s issue-based information system (IBIS) schema intended to resolve wicked problems issues and the Johari Window and explains how they would relate. A means is suggested for determining the degree of undecidability of wicked problems issues and hence that of the models that inquiry produces. This uses formative characteristics that define a modelling space. The paper also adopts Husserl’s concept or lifeworld, which acts as a channel for complex narrative theory through which regulative processes are enabled.

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