International Society for the Systems Sciences: Journals ISSS
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A Systemic Approach of the Technological Innovation Process in Mexico
No full textSchumpeter points out that innovation is a dynamic force that causes the continuous transformation of social, institutional and economic structures which ensures a plausible quality of life of its inhabitants. Innovation is a complex process of interactions between different actors can be understood best as a system where different social and institutional agents interact and promote the innovation and the development of the countries. To try to understand the complexity of this process were studied 41 variables which were related through network analysis and it was found emergent properties that reveal that less than 10 % of the variables are relevant and there are political and social, this result was mainly in developing countries like Mexico which was analyzed from 1980 to 2015. The results also show that these actors found in systemic innovation process have hampered the efficiency of the process
No One is an Island: Foundational Elements for Multi-Sector Transformational Change
No full textLarge-scale social change is becoming inevitable in the public and nonprofit sectors, yet the literature and models addressing this need are lacking. To address this gap, the author introduced a model for multi-sector transformational change called the Emerging Systems Transformational Change Model (ESTCM) in 2016. This paper gives an overview of the model and then explores in detail the five critical processes that create the foundation for an effective multi-sector transformational change effort. These processes are developing readiness for change, relationship building, mapping the system, designing social systems, and establishing a reflective practice
Killing the Modern Theatre: A New Medium to Augment Stage Performances
No full textPapernumber: 3386-11628-1-SM.docxKilling the Modern Theatre: A New Medium to Augment Stage PerformancesRichard Buckner1214 Calle Violeta, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, [email protected] Simon, in "The Dangling Conversation," asked "Is the theatre really dead?" Yes, traditional theatre of the literary, mechanistic age is. Consequently, the play script and its format are dead because we have moved to the electrical, electronic, digital (EED) age and theatre is no longer just humans on a stage delivering dialogue, action and possibly song with realistic or even impressionistic sets. This paper shows how Electronic Digital Displayed Script With Embedded Multi-Media (EDDSWEMM), in a way, acts as a "Bridge Over Troubled Water" from the new EED age to the old literary age.In fact, the whole of society has changed, and theatre needs to follow. Marshall McLuhan, the Toronto philosopher, stated that the societal impact of a new medium is far greater than its content. And, that a new medium requires a new form; it opens doors for new content that includes the content of the old print media. A crisis is that changing a play script format for any reason is tantamount to professional suicide.This paper follows up on my 2017 presentation at ISSS in Vienna, Austria, of "MS Windows Productivity Research Applied to Theatre"--a peer reviewed paper that lays a scientific foundation for projecting an electronic, digital script with embedded multimedia. It showed how the construct "Viewability," that I named, applies to theatre and script projection. Projection is a form of display of information. Drama displays, by human dialogue and action, the information in a script. Microsoft Word is used to write a script, and by means of Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), visual multimedia--represented by icons--may be embedded in the script. Display may be initiated by double clicking on icons in the text. Similarly, sound may be embedded and "played" by double clicking on music icons. In the interest of increased Viewability, non executable production cues may add additional information to the script. Stage drama is synchronized with the projected script.The resulting script, displayed on a monitor, also acts as a new digital-literary genre for the individual reader or actor rehearsing at home. Its presentation lies somewhere between the old, formatted as for a typewriter, literary based paper script and a traditional full production augmented by EDDSWEMM.This paper shows that there are many reasons for EDDSWEEM forecast by McLuhan's follow up and popularization of Understanding Media ... in a subsequent book, The Medium is the Massage ... . I identify additional reasons such as the obvious advantage to the deaf. McLuhan did not extensively treat theatre as a medium for communication.I review the Dramatists Guild modern play script format and show that it is part and parcel of the old literary/mechanical age. My proposed new EDDSWEMM format includes the content of the old (sacred) script format. The possibilities of additional content using EDDSWEMM are wide open. Risk aversive producers and theatres often look for tried and true literary works to ensure a gate, but if they want something new and are to survive, they will have to provide material that bridges EED to the old age. Directors, playwrights and audiences are always looking for new material but are locked into the old format; projection at least provides a reason to begin delivering dramatic material in new ways.Visualization, in this paper, is by projection of this paper.EDDSWEMM requires technical resources that exceed those that Microsoft currently provides for document production. Hopefully, this problem will be resolved as part of future research and can be reported in the next ISSS conference.I would like to dedicate this paper to Harrison Holmes Cochran, without whose interest, encouragement and kindness I would have never made it to this point
Patterns that connect: exploring the potential of patterns and pattern languages in systemic interventions towards realizing sustainable futures
No full textWorking towards more sustainable systems is a critical endeavor of the 21st century requiring collaborative efforts for the broad development of systemic literacy. This paper explores the potential of patterns and pattern languages as tools for systemic change and transdisciplinary collaboration, investigation and design, and outlines the ways they could be further operationalized to develop and leverage collective intelligence and agency towards Curating the Emergence of Thrivability and Realizing Sustainable Futures in Socio-Ecological Systems. Considering patterns and pattern languages, social organization, and systemic change from a variety of perspectives, the author suggests that the concept of pattern has an unfulfilled potential as cognitive technology for meaning-making, mediation, systemic configuration and exchange of knowledge, both within and across domains of human activity. In particular, patterns have properties that could help address the unity versus diversity dilemma while dealing with complex challenges. Rather than giving a complete theoretical review of the field of transdisciplinarity and systemic change, the paper sets key elements of the context and investigates possibilities and directions for future work. Starting with an outline of the nature and dimensions of the complexity challenges the world is faced with from a systemic and cybernetic perspective, the paper explores the versatile properties and functions of patterns and shows how they could help conceive and develop a whole family of tools for systemic focus, interpretation and connectivity. Finally, it presents possibilities of applications of pattern-based approaches in transdisciplinary intervention contexts, using patterns as boundary objects to bring into focus different dimensions of complexity
Crucial Institutional Innovations: Evolutionary Change in Higher Education
No full textIn 1969, Erich Jantsch published his paper about the disruptive forces affecting higher education and society. He was serving as a research associate at MIT and studying the futures of MIT and the American University at the time. Jantsch (1969) said students were concerned about whether the college curriculum was relevant. Meanwhile, society was concerned about the degrading side effects of technology on the systems of human living, cities, and the natural environment. Lastly, Jantsch pointed to the rising concern about the lack of systems and futures thinking. He coined these concerns “disruptive forces” and believed that the university was well-positioned to assume a new leadership role in society in order to assist in transforming these concerns. Jantsch predicted (hoped for) five crucial institutional innovations in order to transform disruptions into “cohesive forces”. Jantsch passed away ten years after the publication of this document and didn’t have the opportunity to see if his ideas came to fruition. Using a mixed methods approach, this study explores the evolution of higher education institutions by posing questions that revolve around Jantsch’s five crucial innovations, including a new purpose for the university, socio-technological system engineering, altering the structure of the university, re-orienting the operational principles of the university, and a more active relationship between the new university and society. Five institutions highly referenced for their innovation will be invited to participate in this research. Jantsch’s “crucial innovations” frame this investigative study. The conceptual framework consists of the concepts of disruptive forces, the three functions of higher education, self-renewal, and integrative planning. This paper will present the preliminary findings to this study. Keywords- Erich Jantsch, higher education, disruptive forces, self-renewal, integrative planning, innovation. 
INDUSTRY NEEDS FOR DATA WAREHOUSING STUDENTS: USING SSM AS HERMENEUTIC DATA ANALYSIS TOOL FOR INTERPRETIVE INTERVIEW DATA
No full textThe soft systems methodology was developed by Peter Checkland over an extended period of time to assist organisational improvements. It provides tools to assist different stakeholders to articulate their perspectives on the best action to be taken in problem environments. It is grounded in the ideas of soft systems thinking, where systems are viewed as conceptual models to make sense of a messy real world environment. The original focus of soft systems methodology is organisational use rather than academic use. In this paper we demonstrate how the soft systems methodology can be used to guide and analyse interpretive interviews with participants in an academic research project in the context of interpretive research methodology.We reflect on the hermeneutic nature of interpretive qualitative data collection and analysis and then we show that an activity diagram as used in the soft systems methodology, is a valid data analysis technique in terms of the epistemological context of interpretive data analysis.We demonstrate our proposal by means of the data analysis of interpretive interviews of data warehouse practitioners on their perspectives of the required skills of information technology students majoring in data warehousing. We compiled activity diagrams and used them in communication with our participants, thus enabling our participants to verify our data analysis and enhance our understanding of their perspectives. We show how different perspectives can be represented and reflected upon after compiling activity diagrams and how different perspectives can be accommodated to develop a single strategy for change.Our main contribution is to demonstrate the suitability of the soft systems methodology in data collection and analysis in interpretive cases studies where strategies for changes are studied.The paper is organised in four main sections, starting with a discussion on the ontological and epistemological assumptions of interpretive case studies in order to show that it is possible to use the soft systems methodology from an interpretive research perspective. The second section provides a very brief discussion of the soft systems methodology. Our main contribution is in section three, providing justification and guidance for using the soft systems methodology to guide data collection and analysis in the context of interpretive research methodology. We demonstrate our proposal in the fourth section, where we show how we analysed interpretive interview data. Our paper concludes with reflection and recommendations
System-purpose method: theoretical and practical aspects
No full textThis article observes methodological aspects of conflict-contractual theory of social systems. System-purpose method is formulated and determined in frame of the theory and presented in this article
THE ENTROPOCENE
No full textAccording to Eric Schneider and the late James Kay “nature abhors a gradient” as it seeks to degrade any and all differences that can make a difference. They also claim that life self-organized by creating a meta-order out of disordered orders, evolving as an increasingly efficient, effective, sustainable (order from order) means for degrading the huge sun to earth temperature gradient. They inject purpose into the scheme by claiming that life represents “order emerging from disorder in the service of more disorder.” Or, as Jeffrey Wicken succinctly put it in “Evolution and Thermodynamics: The New Paradigm,” “Organisms are remote-from-equilibrium systems that maintain their organizational structures by irreversibly degrading free energy through informed kinetic pathways acquired through evolution. Dissipation through structuring is the strategy of life.” In other words, life came about as an evolving means for giving the Second Law of Thermodynamics what it wants. Entropy. In my 2015 ISSS paper, “Anthropocene as Life’s State of the Art in Disorder Production: A Sustainability Conundrum,” I proposed that our species collectively is disorder producer summa cum laude. We are the most efficient, most effective, degrader of gradients, producer of entropy yet evolved. Calling our epoch, “the Anthropocene” doesn’t capture our essence. Our epoch is the Entropocene. We have turned the bio-geosphere from an accumulator of solar exergy (“free energy”, the measure of energy’s utility) as in fossil fuels, into a trapper of entropy a.k.a., global warming. Unfortunately, not only is our achievement as agent-of-entropy-in-chief not something to celebrate, our perch is being increasingly usurped by a new disorder churner on the block. Hyper-exponentially evolving technology is taking over where we leave off as it represents a far more effective, far more efficient means of degrading gradients, disordering orders including the gradients, including the orders that R us; our brains, our bodies, our face to face, family, community, societal bonds. This disorder, manifested as our increasing helplessness sans the escalating power of our technological props, our techno-prosthetics, spills over into the bio-geosphere and its ongoing degradation. My purpose in this paper is to continue exposing what’s really pulling the strings backstage of such global threats as climate change and by so doing set the stage for redress to ourselves, to our progeny, to our common, non-virtual, downstream future
HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT INNOVATION FOR MEXICAN LODGING THROUGH AUTOPOIESIS AND SELF-ORGANISATION
No full textIn the context of the Mexican hospitality sector, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are considered important agents given their participation in the generation of jobs and new business relations, nevertheless their closure rate in the first two years of operation is high. In addition, these companies face structural problems that limit their capabilities to attenuate the variety of the environment and, simultaneously, improve their operations. This paper, presents a proposal through the complementarity between the Soft Systems Methodology and the Viable System Model to build a structure that allows the human capital management to influence a state of self-organisation based on precepts of the Autopoiesis Theory. As a result, a model that integrates self-regulation, autonomy and learning to support self-management of human capital was obtained to adapt continuously to its current context
Engaging partnership to improve corporate social responsibility in developing countries
No full textThe CSR concept as it exists does not capture the essence of the kind of partnership required by CSR in developing countries to make the needed impact. In the bid to make CSR more beneficial in addressing developing country needs, partnership among stakeholders has been advocated as the panacea for CSR. In an attempt to develop a suitable CSR partnership for developing countries therefore, the study analyzed some NGO/corporate partnerships and community/corporate partnerships currently being used for CSR delivery in Ghana. Benefits of the NGO/corporate partnership include the availability of expertise and funds for CSR projects while the community/corporate partnerships benefit from the close interaction between the key stakeholders and targeted funding from the MNCs. The major drawback of both partnerships is their inability to engage in CSR from a systems perspective thus excluding some key stakeholders, particularly the communities. The government of Ghana which is in a pivotal position for development has no clear polices regarding CSR implementation and rather plays an indirect role in facilitating CSR by granting licenses and approvals for development projects. While NGO/corporate partnership and community/corporate partnerships met some CSR needs they were not effective in delivering the CSR that Ghana and developing countries require. I therefore posit the community corporate partnership responsibility (CCPR), a three stage concept that recognizes the key role of partnership among stakeholders for meaningful and mutually beneficial outcomes. The CCPR process involves community pre-entry processes, community engagement processes, and the CSR implementation processes and activities.