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By proposing a comprehensive measurement framework, this paper attempts to move the nascent body of theoretical and empirical work on performance measurement in social entrepreneurship ventures (SEVs) into reach for practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to help social entrepreneurs and academics put current knowledge to work to gain usable feedback about the success of operations.

This paper offers a framework for measuring firm survival, social action, and social change in SEVs based on a review of theoretical and empirical work.

Early work in SEV performance measurement shows consensus that social impact is at least as important as organizational viability, albeit more difficult to measure. The SEV measurement framework developed herein creates the link between firm viability (Survival), direct social action (Action), and long‐term social impact on the technical, political, and cultural aspects of society (Change) leading to the SAC framework.

The framework proposed in the paper gives practitioners a guide for comprehensive performance measurement based on their unique organizational mission using the SAC model. Widespread use of a measurement tool that addresses viability, action, and impact, may ultimately improve the efficiency with which SEVs attack social problems.

While there is some agreement on the usefulness of systems and complexity approaches to tackle the sustainability challenges facing the organisations and governments in the twenty-first century, less is clear regarding the way such approaches can inspire new ways of governance for sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to progress ongoing research using the Viable System Model (VSM) as a meta-language to facilitate long-term sustainability in business, communities and societies, using the “Methodology to support self-transformation”, by focusing on ways of learning about governance for sustainability.

It summarises core self-governance challenges for long-term sustainability, and the organisational capabilities required to face them, at the “Framework for Assessing Sustainable Governance”. This tool is then used to analyse capabilities for governance for sustainability at three real situations where the mentioned Methodology inspired bottom up processes of self-organisation. It analyses the transformations decided from each organisation, in terms of capabilities for sustainable governance, using the suggested Framework.

Core technical lessons learned from using the framework are discussed, include the usefulness of using a unified language and tool when studying governance for sustainability in differing types and scales of case study organisations.

As with other exploratory research, it reckons the convenience for further development and testing of the proposed tools to improve their reliability and robustness.

A final conclusion suggests that the suggested tools offer a useful heuristic path to learn about governance for sustainability, from a VSM perspective; the learning from each organisational self-transformation regarding governance for sustainability is insightful for policy and strategy design and evaluation; in particular the possibility of comparing situations from different scales and types of organisations.

There is very little coherence in the governance literature and the field of governance for sustainability is an emerging field. This piece of exploratory research is valuable as it presents an effective tool to learn about governance for sustainability, based in the “Methodology for Self-Transformation”; and offers reflexions on applications of the methodology and the tool, that contribute to clarify the meaning of governance for sustainability in practice, in organisations from different scales and types.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the convenience of the Viable System Model (VSM) as a framework to guide organisational adaptive response and resilience in times of instability and change.

A thought experiment based on the case study of an eco-village where a project based on action research was conducted following the introduction of the VSM.

This paper provides evidence of the efficacy of the VSM and its recursive structure to facilitate resilience and organisational adaptation and provides evidence of its advantages over conventional management tools to deal with uncertainty in complex environments.

Based on a case study, the scope of this paper is limited and context specific. The comparison of tools is also limited to the ones related to the allocation of resources aiming to provide resilience, viability and adaptive response to critical events, used by the observed community.

The case study invites to revisit and discuss the fitness of conventionally used management tools to cope with complexity – from an organisational perspective.

This paper invites to a reflection on the nature of dominant management tools used in contemporary management to cope with complexity. This paper provides insights on the value of organisational cybernetics and its capability to guide organisations in times of instability and change while facilitating resilience and adaptation through the management of variety.

The purpose of this research is to explore core contributions from two different approaches to complexity management in organisations aiming to improve their sustainability,: the Viable Systems Model (VSM), and the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It is proposed to perform this by summarising the main insights each approach offers to understanding organisational transformations aiming to improve sustainability; and by presenting examples of applied research on each case and reflecting on the learning emerging from them.

An action science approach was followed: the conceptual framework used in each case was first presented, which then illustrates its application through a case study; at the first one the VSM framework supports an organisational transformation towards sustainability in a community; the second one is a quantitative case study of intended greening of two firms in the supermarket industry, taken from a CAS perspective. The learning from each case study on how they support/explain organisational learning in transformations towards more sustainable organisations was illustrated.

It wase found that the VSM and the CAS approaches offer internally consistent and complementary insights to address issues of self‐organisation and adaptive management for sustainability improvement: while CAS explains empowerment of bottom‐up learning processes in organisations, VSM enables a learning context where self‐organised networks can co‐evolve for improved sustainability.

The main aspects of both theories and examples of their explanatory power to support learning in practical applications in organisations were introduced. The initial findings indicate that it will be worth studying in greater depth the contributions to organisational learning from both conceptual models and more widely comparing their applications and insights.

The paper offers some guidance to both researchers and practitioners interested in using complex systems theories in action research‐oriented projects, regarding the usability and applicability of both approaches.

It is considered that, by better understanding organisational ability to adapt and self‐regulate on crucial issues for sustainability, it may help to develop one path through the ongoing socio‐ecological crisis. While much has been written about sustainability initiatives and governance from conventional perspectives, much less is known about how a complex systems framework may help to address one's pressing sustainability needs. These issues from two innovative complexity approaches as well as the value of using them in action research were illustrated.

This chapter takes an empirically centered look at Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) as a section, both as an intellectual enterprise and as an organizational one to make recommendations about how CITAMS could expand is intellectual vibrancy and its organizational viability and capacity in the future. The chapter consists of three sections. The first uses membership data provided by the American Sociological Association (ASA) to discuss the intellectual development of the section. Here, the authors add to well-worn histories of the section with more recent data on section memberships and shifts in co-memberships before and after the transition from Communication and Information Technologies section of the ASA (CITASA) to CITAMS. Next, the authors draw on the annual reports submitted by the section chair to the ASA to discuss the organizational trajectory of the section, assessing ups and downs in membership and finance. The authors use the annual report data to introduce several section needs and make specific recommendations on how the section might further formalize CITAMS’s governance and ensure its viability. Finally, the authors synthesize their analysis and discuss how strategic, intellectual and organizational planning for the future could help develop and secure the section’s vitality for decades to come.

This paper aims to develop a model and measurement to investigate the factors influencing cloud computing adoption as a part of developing countries’ alternatives to implement e-government services.

This study proposes a theoretical model based on the literature of technology adoption models. It constructs scale measurements for the proposed model constructs by extracting and adapting the items from the literature. The authors verify the scales’ content validity and reliability by applying face validity, pre-testing and pilot study. For the pilot study, the authors collect the data from 26 information technology staff in five public organizations in Yemen. The authors test the reliability of the scales using Cronbach’s alpha criterion, and then conduct exploratory factor analysis to evaluate the validity of the scales.

The results show that the scale measurements meet the conventional criteria of reliability and validity.

Theoretically, this paper provides an integrated model for examining cloud computing adoption for e-government implementation in developing countries. In addition, it develops an instrument to empirically investigate the influencing factors of cloud computing adoption in the context of developing countries’ e-government initiatives.

This paper draws on the literature of cybernetics to argue that the resilience of organizations can be diminished by an unconsidered maximization of transparency and accountability. In doing so, it critically examines the concept of resilience and the relationship of resilience to neoliberalism.

A conceptual analysis of resilience is carried out at two levels. First, the use of the concepts of resilience, viability, transparency, accountability and neoliberalism is considered, together with the relationship between them. Second, the management interventions that result from the application of these related ideas are critiqued from the perspective of cybernetics and particularly of variety and black boxes.

It is shown that within complex social environments, the unconsidered imposition of transparency and accountability as a management strategy may constrain the resilience of the organizations and individuals rather than enhance it. The use of data analytics enhances this tendency.

The theoretical analysis of the relationship between transparency and resilience offers a basis for carrying out empirical studies.

There are practical implications for organizational managers, employees and stakeholders, offering them a means of understanding the systemic threat posed by organizational design decisions which enhance transparency and accountability without taking into consideration the full range of interactions which act to maintain organizational viability.

The analysis provides a rationale for resisting the imposition of social policies inspired by neoliberalism.

The bringing together of the concepts of resilience, neoliberalism, transparency and accountability, and their exposure to cybernetic analysis, provides a novel perspective on resilience, and new insights into way that organizations maintain their viability.

Despite the theoretical assumption that balancing exploration and exploitation is important for long-term performance and survival, previous studies have provided few insights into these relationships because they have focused mainly on the short-term financial performance of organizations. In addition, balancing exploration and exploitation is a critical challenge for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that lack the resources, capabilities, and experience necessary to achieving ambidexterity. In this regards, this study empirically explores the relationship between the exploration–exploitation balance and SMEs’ longevity in order to address two important questions from the ambidexterity perspective: (1) How does the balance between exploration and exploitation influence organizational survival? (2) How is the appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation influenced by an organization’s internal and external contexts?

An analysis of 1981–2012 data from the Korean SMEs in IT industry reveals an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between the extent of exploratory innovation and organizational longevity, providing support for the ambidexterity perspective. We further examine the moderating effects of financial slack and environmental dynamism on the relationship between exploratory innovation and organizational longevity. The results indicate that financial slack moderated the exploration–longevity relationship and call for a contingency approach for a better understanding of performance implications of the exploration–exploitation balance.

We explore the antecedents of workplace ostracism and delineate possible organizational interventions to deter ostracism. Under the lens of evolutionary psychology we argue that individuals deemed capable of contributing to social and organizational goals become valued group members while those who threaten group stability and viability risk being shunned or ostracized. Specifically, we review empirical evidence and present the results of a pilot study suggesting that those who are perceived to violate injunctive and descriptive norms, as well as threaten one’s self-concept are at increased risk for ostracism. In terms of intervention, we propose mindfulness techniques and organizational support as a route to deter employees’ inclinations to ostracize coworkers. Thus, a primary goal of this chapter is to explicate a framework for identifying the predictors and deterrents of workplace ostracism in order to generate additional research on this important topic.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and conceptualize the topic of Model‐based management (MBM) in organizations.

The relevance of different types of models for management is elaborated, and a research agenda for this new topic is proposed.

An analysis of the concept, role and function of models in the context of management and organization, as well as an outline for a new understanding of both the concept and role of models for management, grounded in system science is found.

Ultimately, MBM can enhance the intelligence, adaptiveness and viability of organizations of any kind: private, public, non‐profit, large or small.

Taking models as the pivot of a research project on general management is unconventional. The gain promised by such an innovative scope derives from its high potential: both theory and practice can benefit from the envisaged research. Theoretically speaking, advances in management and organization science can be achieved, while on the practical side, the insights gained will caution managers and leaders against succumbing to the traps of complexity, while radically improving their managerial effectiveness.