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This conceptual article aims to contribute to the design of a theory of family-influenced firms by a framework for the management of business-family dilemmas.

It combines systemic principles with the tetralemma, a tool from ancient Indian logic that families and businesses can use to manage and reframe dilemmas without dissolving the dilemmatic tensions or blurring their boundaries.

In applying the tetralemma, the article offers a range of suggestions, such as observing business and family as two discrete, yet codependent, social systems and envisioning conceptual and methodological imports from codependency research and therapy into family business research and practice.

The article proposes a framework for the selective and flexible navigation of family-business tensions without dissolving them or blurring their boundaries.

Cross tables are omnipresent in management, academia and popular culture. The Matrix has us, despite all criticism, opposition and desire for a way out. This paper draws on the works of three agents of the matrix. The paper shows that Niklas Luhmann criticised Talcott Parsons’ traditional matrix model of society and proceeded to update systems theory, the latest version of which is coded in the formal language of George Spencer Brown. As Luhmann failed to install his updates to all components of his theory platform, however, regular reoccurrences of Parsonian crosstabs are observed, particularly in the Luhmannian differentiation theory, which results in compatibility issues and produces error messages requesting updates. This paper aims to code the missing update translating the basic matrix structure from Parsonian into Spencer Brownian formal language.

This paper draws on work by Boris Hennig and Louis Kauffman and a yet unpublished manuscript by George Spencer Brown, to demonstrate that the latter introduced his cross as a mark to indicate NOR gates in circuit diagrams. The paper also shows that this NOR gate marker has been taken out of and may be observed to contain the tetralemma, an ancient matrix structure already present in traditional Indian logic. It then proceeds to translate the basic structure of traditional contingency tables into a Spencer Brownian NOR equation and to demonstrate the difference this translation makes in the modelling of social systems.

The translation of cross tables from Parsonian into Spencer Brownian formal language results in the design of a both matrix-shaped and compatible test routine that works as a virtual window for the observation of the actually unobservable medium in which a form is drawn, and can be used for consistency checks of expressions coded in Spencer Brownian formal language.

This paper quotes from and discusses a so far unpublished manuscript finalised by Spencer Brown in April 1961. The basic matrix structure is translated from Parsonian into Spencer Brownian formal language. A Spencer Brownian NOR matrix is coded that may be used to detect errors in expressions coded in Spencer Brownian formal language.

This perspective article provides an overview of current research on paradoxes within family business settings and outlines emerging trends and potential avenues for future research in this field.

This article is inspired by a systems-theoretical approach to business family paradoxes.

The article suggests that increasing research interest in more-than and neither-nor approaches to paradox could propel the digital transformation of paradox theory and facilitate the strategic management of family business paradoxes in multi-stakeholder environments.

This article synthesises the state of the arts in the field of research on family business paradoxes and proposes future research agendas.

This study aims to present a solution-focused approach to current problems and criticisms faced by business schools.

To facilitate the required shift from problems to solutions, this study outlines a theory method and demonstrates how it has informed my teaching at Financial Times (FT)-ranked business schools and other institutions of higher education in two subjects and on three continents.

The study reports on two student exercises showing that even advanced business school students confuse organizations with political economic hierarchies.

The study concludes that business schools pursuing a smart specialization strategy by challenging this reductionist view may turn into new schools of management distinguished by a broader, multifunctional concept of themselves and their impact on their environment.

This paper aims to probe the limits of the empirical-normative divide as a conceptual framework in business ethics.

A systems theory perspective debunks this divide as a false distinction that cannot do justice to the conceptual complexity of the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholarship.

Drawing on the systems-theoretic ideas of Niklas Luhmann and the “Laws of Form” by George Spencer Brown, the paper shows that the divide may be dissected into a four-cell matrix constituted by two other distinctions-descriptive vs prescriptive and categorical vs hypothetical-the latter of which was seminally suggested by Donaldson and Preston (1995).

The emerging four-cell matrix is shown to centrally embrace the multiplicity of normative, empirical and instrumental approaches to CSR. This multiplicity is exemplified by the application of these approaches to the phenomenon of CSR communication.

A more general implication of the proposed argument for the field of business ethics is in tracing the phenomena of moral diversity and moral ambivalence back to the regime of functional differentiation as the distinguishing feature of the modern society. This argument drives home the point that economic operations are as ethical or unethical as political operations, and that both economic and political perspectives on ethical issues are as important or unimportant as are religious, artistic, educational or scientific perspectives.

In contrast to the empirical-normative divide, the perspective is shown to centrally embrace the multiplicity of normative, empirical and instrumental approaches to CSR.

This conceptual paper seeks to bridge two existing theories in a bid to broaden our analytical scope when studying the process of onboarding, retention and exclusion of organizational members. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

The authors draw on the social systems theory to advance the fit theory demonstrating the pertinence of macro social factors for the determination of person–organization (P–O) fit.

The result of this conceptual groundwork is a framework for the creation of highly individual personal profiles that refrains from analyses of potentially discriminatory factors like age, race or gender.

The authors present an individualized, multidimensional and flexible framework for the analysis of dynamically changing constellations of P–O fit.

The purpose of this paper is to find a leading idea of the mid-twentieth century, demonstrating the pervasive nature of some concepts belonging to second-order systems theory. To achieve this objective, the paper looks at the art and literature of this era, to identify the principles developed by Luhmann in his late works. In particular, Escher’s drawings, Calvino’s stories and Luhmann’s concepts seem to express, in different ways, the same functioning mechanism of the complex social system.

With reference to theoretical approach and methodology, this paper carries out an interdisciplinary demonstration by alternative modes of logos and mythos. Some of the pillars of general systems theory are examined through the logical articulation of concepts developed by Spencer-Brown, von Foerster, and first of all through the late works of Luhmann, as well as through the analysis of Escher’s artworks and Calvino’s literary works. This paper interprets these artistic and literary works using cybernetic principles and systemic concepts, in particular, “two-sided forms,” “system–environment differentiation” and “second-order observation.”

In general, the main finding is the similarity of fascination with paradoxes and forms, with post-ontological reasoning, in twentieth century. The result of the cross-reading of Escher, Calvino and Luhmann reveals the presence of what Simmel called the “hidden king”: a philosophical paradigm of an era. In mid-1900s, this leading idea seems to express itself in the discoveries of biology and cybernetics, such as in Luhmann’s theory, art and literature. Escher’s drawings, Calvino’s stories and the concepts of Luhmann are projections of second-order system theory, in its constructivist value.

The originality of this paper lies mainly in the demonstration of theoretical concepts through the alternative modes of logos and mythos. These reflections can provide a new perspective to investigate social sciences from a cultural angle. This particular approach allows a deep awareness of the theory. The concrete value is to provide a better understanding to manage complexity.

Guided by paradox theory, the study aims to significantly advance Sustainability in Higher Education Institutions (SHEI) scholarship and inform change agents’ (CAs) practices by uncovering the tensions underlying the challenges CAs face in embedding sustainability in their universities and learning about potential strategies to manage these tensions.

The authors conducted a multi-step, mix-methods study including interviews (n = 15), an online survey (n = 36) and focus groups (n = 29) with CAs from 17 of Austria’s 22 public universities. Participating CAs consisted of faculty, staff and administrators with leading roles in their Higher Education Institutions’ sustainability change processes.

Austrian SHEI CAs’ responses revealed 15 tensions at and between the individual, organizational and system level addressing academic, organizational and external stakeholder engagement aspects. Six tensions were selected for more in-depth exploration including elaboration of management strategies, building on CAs’ experiences. Results revealed examples of acceptance, separation and synthesis strategies.

Based on the exploratory nature of our study, the authors do not claim to have identified a comprehensive list of tensions underlying the challenges faced by SHEI CAs, nor of all potential management strategies.

Although this study focused exclusively on Austrian SHEI CAs, the challenges they shared were consistent with those in the literature and, thus, insights should also support the CAs’ efforts in other countries.

This study offers novel perspectives on how to manage the challenges to SHEI. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to describe paradox theory-informed management strategies recommended by a heterogenous group of SHEI CAs to address the barriers they face in transforming their universities toward sustainability.

Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case, managers may need to make trade-offs between these interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of managerial decision-making about these trade-offs.

This paper draws on the ordonomic approach which sees business life to be rife with social dilemmas and locates the role of stakeholders in harnessing or resolving these dilemmas through engagement in rule-finding and rule-setting processes.

The ordonomic approach suggests that stakeholder interests trade-offs ought to be neither ignored nor avoided, but rather embraced and welcomed as an opportunity for bringing to fruition the joint interest of stakeholders in playing a better game of business. Stakeholders are shown to bear responsibility for overcoming the perceived trade-offs through the institutional management of social dilemmas.

For many stakeholder theorists, the nature of managerial decision-making about trade-offs between conflicting stakeholder interests and the nature of trade-offs themselves have been a long-standing point of contention. The paper shows that trade-offs may be useful for the value creation process and explicitly discusses managerial strategies for dealing with them.

The present article pertains to recent advances in social systems theoretical analyses of moral communication.

An introduction to basic concepts and requirements for systems-theoretical approaches to morality and communication is provided, as is an introduction to 14 contributions to a pertinent special issue of Kybernetes.

The review of these 14 cases suggests that social systems theory enables researchers to study moral communication without necessarily performing it.

This article reappraises and challenges Niklas Luhmann's occasionally distanced attitude to morality, which has occasionally been understood as a form of moral communication itself.