Realising Systems Thinking

by Mingers, John

• ISBN13: 9780387281889
• ISBN10: 0387281886
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-30
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

This wide-ranging book deals, in a detailed and scholarly way, with the contribution of a systems approach to a range of disciplines from philosophy and biology to social theory and management. It weaves together material from some of the pre-eminent thinkers of the day '” Maturana, Varela, Bateson, Merleau-Ponty, Checkland, Giddens, Habermas, Bhaskar, and Luhmann '” to create a coherent path from the most fundamental work on philosophical issues of ontology and epistemology through specific domains of knowledge about the nature of information and meaning, human communication, and social intervention right up to the implications of these theoretical developments for action and intervention in real-world affairs.It will be of interest to scholars in philosophy, biology, information systems, communications, social theory, management science and operational research as well as everyone in the systems community.

Author Biography

John Mingers is Professor of Operational Research and Information Systems at Canterbury Business School, University of Kent. He is Deputy Director of the business school and Director of Research. He is a past Chair of the UK Systems Society and has been a member of the Council of the OR Society. John Mingers studied Management Sciences for his first degree at Warwick and later completed a Masters in Systems in Management at Lancaster University and a PhD at Warwick. He also worked in industry as a systems analyst and then as an OR analyst.His research interests include the use of systems methodologies in problem situations - particularly the mixing of different methodologies within an intervention (multimethodology); the application of multimethodology to research methods within information systems; the development of the critical systems approach; autopoiesis (self-producing systems) and its applications; and the nature of knowledge, information and meaning as relevant to information systems. He has published over 80 papers in these areas in journals such as the Information Systems Research, The Sociological Review, Information Systems Journal, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Systems Practice, Management Learning and Organization. He has published the first comprehensive study of autopoiesis - Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis (Plenum, 1995), and has also edited Multimethodology: the Theory and Practice of Combining Management Science Methodologies (Wiley, 1997, with Tony Gill), Information Systems: an Emerging Discipline? (McGraw Hill, 1997, with Prof. Frank Stowell), and Rational Analysis for a Problematic World Revisited (Wiley, 2001, with Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead). He is currently editing, with Leslie Willcocks, a book titled Social Theory and Philosophy for Information Systems (Wiley, 2004)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction	1	(8)
1.1 Introduction	1	(3)
1.2 Structure of the Book	4	(5)
Part I: Foundations	9	(92)
Chapter 2: Philosophical Foundations: Critical Realism	11	(22)
2.1 Introduction and Context	11	(1)
2.2 Philosophical Problems within Management Science	12	(2)
2.3 Problems in the Philosophy of Natural Science	14	(5)
Empiricism	15	(2)
Conventionalism	17	(1)
The Relationship between Natural and Social Science	18	(1)
2.4 An Introduction to Critical Realism	19	(7)
2.4.1 Arguments Establishing an Independent Ontological Domain	20	(2)
2.4.2 Critical Realism and Natural Science	22	(2)
2.4.3 Critical Realism and Social Science	24	(2)
2.5 Criticisms of Critical Realism	26	(4)
2.6 Conclusions	30	(3)
Chapter 3: Living Systems: Autopoiesis	33	(32)
3.1 The Essence of Autopoiesis	33	(3)
3.2 Formal Specification of Autopoiesis	36	(5)
3.2.1 Identifying Biological Autopoietic Systems	39	(2)
3.3 The Primary Concepts of Autopoiesis	41	(6)
3.3.1 Structure-Determined Systems	41	(1)
3.3.2 Organisational Closure	42	(2)
3.3.3 Inputs/Outputs and Perturbations/Compensations	44	(1)
3.3.4 Structural Coupling	45	(2)
3.4 Implications of Autopoiesis	47	(5)
3.4.1 Implications for Biology	47	(2)
3.4.2 Other Possible Autopoietic Systems	49	(2)
3.4.3 Epistemological Implications	51	(1)
3.5 The Emergence of the Observer	52	(10)
3.5.1 The Nervous System and Cognition	52	(1)
3.5.2 Characteristics of the Nervous System	53	(2)
3.5.3 The Emergence of Observing and the Observer	55	(2)
3.5.4 Consequences of the Theory	57	(5)
3.6 Conclusions	62	(3)
Chapter 4: Observing Systems: The Question of Boundaries	65	(36)
4.1 Introduction	65	(2)
4.2 Physical Boundaries	67	(4)
4.2.1 Basic Forms of Boundary	67	(2)
4.2.2 Multiple Boundaries	69	(1)
4.2.3 Natural Wholes	70	(1)
4.3. Mathematical Boundaries	71	(4)
4.3.1 Mathematics of Shape	72	(2)
4.3.2 Sets and Operations	74	(1)
4.4 Conceptual Boundaries and Language	75	(8)
4.4.1 Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form	76	(3)
4.4.2 Concepts as Difference and Distinction	79	(1)
4.4.3 The Boundaries of Language	80	(2)
4.4.4 Concepts, Language and Boundaries	82	(1)
4.5 Social Systems Boundaries	83	(3)
4.5.1 Social Membership	83	(1)
4.5.2 Social Systems	84	(2)
4.6 The Problem of the Observer	86	(8)
4.6.1 System Boundaries as Constructs	86	(3)
4.6.2 System Boundaries as Process	89	(4)
4.6.3 Summary	93	(1)
4.7 Self-Bounding through Organisation Closure	94	(4)
4.8 Boundary Setting	98	(1)
4.9 Conclusions	99	(2)
Part II: Knowledge	101	(94)
Chapter 5: Cognising Systems: Information and Meaning	103	(30)
5.1 Introduction	103	(1)
5.2 Foundations for a Theory of Semantic Information	104	(9)
5.2.1 Stamper's Semiotic Framework	104	(2)
5.2.2 An Evaluation of Existing Theories of Semantic Information	106	(7)
5.3 The Nature of Information	113	(5)
5.4 From Information to Meaning	118	(12)
5.4.1 A Typology of Signs	118	(4)
5.4.2 Information and Meaning	122	(3)
5.4.3 Analysis of Some Examples	125	(2)
5.4.4 Meaning and Semiosis	127	(1)
5.4.5 Summary of the Main Implications	128	(2)
5.5 Conclusions	130	(3)
Chapter 6: Knowledge and Truth	133	(16)
6.1 Introduction	133	(1)
6.2 Forms of Knowledge	134	(4)
6.2.1 Propositional Knowledge	136	(1)
6.2.2 Experiential Knowledge	136	(1)
6.2.3 Performative Knowledge	137	(1)
6.2.4 Epistemological Knowledge	138	(1)
6.3 Truth	138	(7)
6.3.1 General Theories of Truth	140	(1)
6.3.2 Critical Realism and Truth	141	(2)
6.3.3 Habermas's Theory of Truth	143	(2)
6.4 Knowledge and Truth	145	(3)
6.5 Conclusions	148	(1)
Chapter 7: Communication and Social Interaction	149	(18)
7.1 Introduction	149	(1)
7.2 The Enactive Individual—Embodied Cognition	149	(8)
7.3 The Social Individual: Action and Communication	157	(4)
7.3.1 Luhmann's Autopoietic Communication	158	(3)
7.4 The Process of Meaning Generation	161	(3)
7.5 Conclusions	164	(3)
Chapter 8: Social Systems	167	(28)
8.1 Introduction	167	(1)
8.2 Social Networks	167	(1)
8.3 The Attractions of Social Autopoiesis	168	(2)
8.3 The Problems of Social Autopoiesis	170	(3)
8.3.1 An "Ideal-Type": Nomic, a Self-Producing Game	172	(1)
8.4 Society as a System of Autopoietic Communication	173	(5)
8.4.1 Society as the Production of Communication	174	(2)
8.4.2 Luhmann's Autopoiesis Evaluation	176	(2)
8.5 Structuration Theory, Critical Realism and Autopoiesis	178	(15)
8.5.1 Giddens and Bhaskar: Similarities	181	(2)
8.5.2 Giddens and Bhaskar: Differences	183	(6)
8.5.3 Autopoiesis and Social Structure	189	(4)
8.5.4 Summary	193	(1)
8.6 Conclusions	193	(2)
Part III: Action and Intervention	195	(64)
Chapter 9: Management Science and Multimethodology	197	(20)
9.1 Introduction	197	(2)
9.2 Introduction to Multimethodology	199	(4)
9.2.1 The Multi-Dimensional World	200	(1)
9.2.2 Intervention as a Process	201	(2)
9.2.3 Triangulation of Results	203	(1)
9.3 Barriers to Multimethodology	203	(5)
9.3.1 Philosophical Feasibility Paradigm Incommensurability	204	(1)
9.3.2 Cultural Feasibility Paradigm Subcultures	205	(1)
9.3.3 Psychological Feasibility—Cognitive Barriers	206	(1)
9.3.4 Practical Barriers	207	(1)
9.4 Other Pluralist Approaches	208	(6)
9.4.1 Statistical Modelling Critique of an Empiricist Methodology	210	(2)
9.4.2 Soft Systems Critique of an Interpretive Methodology	212	(2)
9.5 Conclusions	214	(1)
Glossary	214	(1)
Methodology, method, technique	214	(1)
Paradigm	215	(2)
Chapter 10: The Process of Multimethodology	217	(40)
10.1 Introduction	217	(1)
10.2 The Context of Practical Interventions	217	(1)
10.3 A Framework for Mapping Methods	218	(14)
10.3.1 A Characterisation of Management Science Methods	221	(6)
10.3.2 Mapping Methods	227	(5)
10.4 The Process of Multimethodology Design	232	(6)
10.4.1 Partitioning/Decomposing Methodologies	234	(2)
10.4.2 Using Methods in Non-Standard Ways	236	(2)
10.5 Multimethodology in Practice	238	(2)
10.5.1 Sainsbury's and PowerGen Examples	238	(1)
10.5.2 Survey and Review	239	(1)
10.6 The Nature of Critical Engagement	240	(14)
10.6.1 Intellectual Resource: What is it to be Critical?	241	(4)
10.6.2 The Intervention System: The Agent	245	(2)
10.6.3 The Problem Situation: Constraints and Boundaries	247	(6)
Summary of Section 10.6.3	253	(1)
10.7 Conclusions: Implications for the Critical Practice of Multimethodology	254	(3)
Chapter 11: Reprise	257	(2)
Sources	259	(2)
References	261	(36)
Names Index	297	(6)
Subject Index	303