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Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Union state whose population is 96% Muslim, is aiming to penetrate the global halal market. Since 2016, its government has been committed to establishing a halal economy, purportedly comprising halal product exports and inbound halal tourism services. Given that a conducive halal ecosystem is a critical condition for creating and sustaining a viable halal economy, the current condition of the halal industry in the country must be diagnosed. For this purpose, we developed a diagnostic framework based on the halal principles and the Viable System Model (VSM) to identify the existing players and stakeholders in the halal industry ecosystem in Uzbekistan and their respective roles and functions, as well as the information flows amongst them.

The study utilised the qualitative methodology with the data gathered mainly from in-depth interviews with industry experts and consumers in Uzbekistan.

The findings revealed that the country has considerable potential to develop its halal tourism market due to its beautiful landscape, rich history and cultural heritage, which is supported by a full-fledged development policy. Uzbekistan's industrial sector exhibits substantial readiness to serve the Muslim market; however, the country lacks a specific policy for the development of the halal manufacturing export industry.

Our findings generate emergent themes that are relevant to the operations and future viability of halal industry of a Muslim country in a transitioning economy. These emerging themes further strengthened existing conceptualisation of the Viable System Model in terms of the elements of the environment and the function of policymaking in contributing toward a system's viability. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are also provided.

United Arab Emirates’ (UAEs) commitment to sustainable development is well reflected in its Vision-2021, 2030 and the Green Economy Strategy for Sustainable Development, followed by several initiatives at federal and local level. However, out of seven Emirates, the governments of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are adopting and rigorously implementing green initiatives for conserving energy, minimizing resources wastage and becoming zero-carbon ecology, leaving behind the other five emirates. To promote the implementation of government’s sustainability agenda holistically (including all the emirates), it is important to adopt a systems thinking to diagnose the complex social arrangements and their interactive relations with the larger systems and the environment at each and all recursive levels.

This viewpoint proposes that Viable System Model (VSM) framework can support sustainable planning and configuration evaluation holistically, by diagnosing the region (system-in-focus) together with the present and future environment, at multiple recursive levels of city, emirates and country-wide. To demonstrate the relative strength of the VSM structural framework and its principles to replicate/implement the green initiatives country-wide, the study provides supporting evidence and multiple examples of its application in other parts of the world for managing sustainability-related issues from smallest (town/city) to largest (national) levels in the United Arab Emirates.

The VSM framework has been adopted by several scholars for fruitful utilization of its structural, connectivity, recursivity and complexity principles in the context of sustainability at the organizational, territory and national levels. The discussion has been made on the suitability of VSM framework for implementing sustainable development initiatives county-wide by viewing it in totality and at multiple levels of administration and governance.

It has implications for leaders, policy-setters and regulators of United Arab Emirates as well as Gulf region inclusive of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

No prior work exists in Arab region where VSM has been proposed for the holistic management of sustainable initiatives. It has implications for leaders, policy-setters and regulators of United Arab Emirates as well as Gulf region inclusive of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

This paper aims to capture current difficulties with the practical application of the viable system model (VSM). On this basis, a set of suggestions toward a more effective application of the model is made.

The study is based on observations from practical applications of the VSM, systematically collected by the author.

The paper suggests that the VSM is currently stuck in the typical chasm of a bell-shaped diffusion curve. The paper makes six propositions to smoother pass from the early adopters to the early majority.

The six findings imply various research efforts.

In contrast to frequent claims that VSM should be made accessible easily to a larger number of people, the paper suggests that a smaller number of better trained VSM experts support a larger number of managers with a more generic know how.

A more focused but broader application of the VSM may lead to better societal organizations and therefore to a more efficient effective solution of societal problems.

The paper suggests to tighten the focus of the VSM to the very abstract topic of judging variety balances and at the same time to better connect the model with the suite of established methods and tools in management. This is a contrast to other attempts, which either simplify the VSM or extend it into a comprehensive methodology.

This paper aims to extend the scope of the viable system model (VSM), which was developed by Stafford Beer in favour of its formalisation and practical application, to overcome the criticism about its abstract nature.

This extension is achieved using the descriptive validation of a software project structural organisation based on the information that was obtained from the ICT sector set of companies in Castilla y León.

The main conclusion of the study indicates deficiencies in the proactive environmental control of the software project. To overcome these shortcomings at least partially, the author proposes the use of integrated dynamic simulation models and Team Syntegrity. Finally, the analysis provides a detailed reference to diagnose or design a software project organisational structure with viability-defined characteristics. Such reference can be adapted to different fields by extrapolating its application in favour of the VSM universality.

The originality is based on the VSM application in software projects organisation. The value is based on VSM formalisation and practical application, to overcome the criticism about its abstract nature.

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.

The purpose of this research is to increase academic understanding of the relationship between systems' political identity and their viability, and to contribute to anarchist-cybernetics by examining the idea of organization proposed by Malatesta using Viable Systems. The research also develops the understanding of the relationship between Viable Systems and the environment.

The author developed a content analysis method that uses dynamic analysis, identifying how some variables affect others, and data is analysed using the Viable Systems Model. The author used Dynamic Causal Diagrams and the Viable System Model to draw conclusions and build theory. The author examined 137 documents produced by Errico Malatesta, studying in detail 39 documents containing the researched concepts.

The article identifies the literature, proposes an organizational theory for society and for cooperatives, strongly grounded in both, self-management and control. It presents a theory of self-management as a balancing effort to the control exercised by the external economic, political and societal forces of the environment. The literature also shows a form of organization that can be interpreted using the VSM framework. The ideas about self-management found in the literature, extend to economics, social theory, ethics, organizations, management and even operations management. The article finishes proposing a set of committees linked to the VSM structure, and successfully bridges anarchism and organizational cybernetics.

The article presents a novel method of systems analysis for the study of literature. It discovers the theory proposed by Malatesta not identified previously. Using the VSM framework, the ideas presented by the author, are translated into the organizational identity, and the operation of cooperatives. It makes an important contribution to anarchist-cybernetics.

Seeks to explore the notion of organisational intelligence as a simple extension of the notion of the idea of collective intelligence.

Discusses organisational intelligence using previous research, which includes the Purpose, Properties and Practice model of Dealtry, and the Viable Systems model.

The notion of organisational intelligence requires a metaphorically defined psychological frame of reference. In trying to formulate this metaphor, there has been a need to explore the collective from a psychological perspective. Applications of the notion of organisational intelligence operate in a variety of areas, and two of these are in organisational learning and managerial cybernetics. In the latter an interest lies in dealing with organisational pathologies, resulting in viable systems.

Addresses the need for developing organisational intelligence.

Stafford Beer's viable system model (VSM) offers a powerful and alternative model for both economic and social organizations to structure themselves, especially for those operating in highly turbulent environments. Recent advancements in information technology make feasible the implementation of real‐time information systems. The purpose of this paper is to describe the author's involvement in designing an information system for Libya's Youth and Sports Ministry, using Beer's VSM.

Systemic methodological ways of gathering the necessary data to build and implement the model, such as Checkland's CATWOE and Espejo's VIPLAN, make it far easier for information systems designers to implement the VSM.

An implementation of the model for Libya's Youth and Sports Ministry was undertaken in 2007. Although the full implementation was never completed, the methodological approach used was effective. Another lesson learnt by the analyst was that before attempting to improve the viability of a system, whether a human resource planning information system for an organization or implementing a viable model for a ministry or state, it is necessary to plan for a scenario where unforeseen and catastrophic changes, whether from external environmental challenges or from internal policy changes, can challenge the survivability of the project itself.

Research papers on implementations of the VSM tend to focus on the structure and the philosophical mechanisms in achieving requisite variety, however methods and tools to aid the implementation of the model are very few and not well clarified. This could explain why the late Stafford Beer initially sought the need to publish Diagnosing the System for Organizations in 1985 to simplify the process of implementing his pioneering insights and thoughts.

The aim of this study is to diagnose the Egyptian political system from the perspective of the viable system model (VSM). That in turn gives us significant insights on how to improve the distribution and control of power in Egypt to warrant greater autonomy and representativeness in the branches of government.

The proposed diagnostic framework in this study was accomplished by applying the principles and aspects of Stafford Beer's VSM to the three state powers of Egypt: the executive, legislative and judiciary. In addition, it adopts the guidelines for applying the VSM described by both Stafford Beer and José Pérez Ríos.

The presented framework in this study shows a comprehensive explanation of the essential functions and their distribution among the entities of the Egyptian political system. In addition to that, the findings give us insights about the need for greater autonomy and self-organization among the political system's entities. Greater communication, consensus, cooperation and coordination is needed to achieve balance, regulate the interactions between them and to monitor each other without intervention. This, in turn, would ensure greater representation of citizen demands and expectations, and protect and guarantee their rights and freedoms.

The modeling of the Egyptian political system from a VSM perspective suggests the necessity of reform of the political system by a clear division of functions and tasks within the operational entities and subentities, decentralization of power structures and utilization of the decision marketing mechanism to reach public acceptance. The application of the VSM, for the sake of diagnosing and designing the viability of separation of power, can be considered as highly original.

Presents the Viable System Model, developed by Stafford Beer, as a potentially valuable resource for strengthening the capabilities of temporary, situation‐based organizations such as those assembled to respond to natural, technical and man‐made disasters. Describes a Viable System Model of a response to a small‐scale accident and extends its lessons to larger more complex situations. Suggests that the management of the high levels of variety in multifaceted disaster response efforts could be improved by using the model as a common frame of reference.