Management in complexity
The exploration of a new paradigm
Walter Baets, PhD, HDR
Associate Dean for Innovation and Social Responsibility
Professor Complexity , Knowledge and Innovation
Euromed Marseille – Ecole de Management
Flatland: Edwin Abbott, 1884
A. Square meets the third dimension
Wanderer, your footprints are
the path, and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no path,
it is created as you walk.
By walking,
you make the path before you,
and when you look behind
you see the path which after you
will not be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no path,
but the ripples on the waters.
Antonio Machado,
Chant XXIX Proverbios y cantares,
Campos de Castilla, 1917
Taylor’s view on the brain
The computer: attempt to automate human thinking
Manipulating symbols
Represent the world
Modeling the brain
Simulate interaction of neurons
Intelligence = problem solving
Intelligence = learning
0-1 Logic and mathematics
Approximations, statistics
Rationalist, reductionist
Idealized, holistic
Became the way of building computers
Became the way of looking at minds
I
Ken Wilber: A Brief History of Everything
The concept of a holon (part/whole)
Interior-Individual
Intentional
World of: sensation, impulses,
emotion, concepts, vision
IT
Exterior-Individual
Behavioral
World of: atoms, molecules, neuronal
organisms, neocortex
Truthfulness
Truth
Justness
Functional fit
World of: magic, mythic, values
Interior-collective
Cultural
World of: societies, division of labour,
groups, families, tribes, nation/state,
agrarian, industrial and informational
Exterior-Collective
Social
WE
ITS
Euromed’s Management Approach:
our specificity
Individual
•Personal development
•Emotional development
•Leadership
•Making a difference
•Self motivation
•Joy
•Involvement
(Learner centered)
•Responsibility
•Respect
Personal
Development
Mechanistic
management
approach
Interior
•Quantitative approaches
•Control/performance
•Management by
objectives
•Models
•Financial orientation
•Short term efficiency
•Production management
Exterior
•Dynamic system behavior
•Historic legitimacy
•Diversity
•Sociology
•Humanism
•Relativism
•Complexity
•Social responsibility
•Euro-Mediterranean
(long term perspective)
•Sustainable development
EuroMediterranean
beliefs, values
& culture
Systemic
management
approach
•Management in complexity
•Management in diversity
•Knowledge management
•Community of practices
•Ecological management
•Ethics in management
(identity)
Collective/
Networked
•Social corporate responsibility
•Sustainable development
•The networked economy
Definitions
Epistemology
Views about the nature, the sources and the limits of
knowledge (what makes true beliefs into knowledge)
Ontology
Philosophical investigation of existence or being
1. What means ‘being’
2. What exists
An ontology is what philosophers take to exist
The ontology of a theory is the things that have to exist
for a theory to be true
The essence of science
Pictures science within its contemporary framework (not in
the absolute)
Provides a framework that allows judgement about the
epistemological relevance of a theory (or application)
(Philosophy of) science is often embedded in sociology and
history (other than philosophy that often develops its
own logic)
My taxonomy of philosophy of science
Historical embedding
Origin
Philosophical
theories
Design
consequences
Philosophy
Logical positivism
(Wiener Kreis)
Critical rationalism
(Popper)
Kuhn’s paradigm theory
Lakatos theory
Symbolic interactionism
Critical theories
Deduction
Induction
Empiricism
Hypotheses testing
Qualitative research
Architecture
Arts
Usefulness as a criteria
Feyerabend’s chaostheory
Postmodern theories
(Derida, Apostel,
Foucault, Deleuze)
Design paradigm
(van Aken)
Social construction of
reality
Design norms
My taxonomy of philosophy
of science/2
Historical embedding
Origin
Philosophical
theories
Design
consequences
Neurobiology
Radical constructivism
(Maturana, Mingers)
Autopoiesis (Varela)
Self-reference (Gödel)
Dynamic re-creation
The emergence of
object and subject
Local (contextual)
validity
Cognitive
Artificial
Intelligence
Paradigm of mind
(Franklin, Kim)
Adaptive systems
Implicit learning
The pre-history of philosophy
of science
Pre-Cartesian/Pre-Galilean period (before 17th century)
Church is the seat of science
Science exists to confirm religion
Science is the ‘common sense’
In fact it is holistic
17th to the 19th century
I think,therefor I am
Experimentation
The role of the researcher as involved subject was not
(yet) questioned
Absolute Newtonian framework (absolute time and space
concept)
Measurability
The end of holistic thinking in science
The 20th century
Breakthrough of relativity theory (Einstein)
(objective measurement can no longer be claimed)
and quantum mechanics (it is all interpretation)
Comparing the validity of theories (e.g. Lorentz versus
Einstein) needs different methods
1931: Gödel’s theorem (general validity of symbolic
reasoning can no longer be claimed)
Box of Pandora
Self - Reference
Gödel theorem (1931)
‘All consistent axiomatic formulations of the number theory
contains propositions on which one cannot decide.’
It all boils down to a ‘loop’ problem (being self-referential)
(Esher drawings)
Language is self-referential.
Can we make numbers self-referential ?
Number theory
Gödel number is a number that substitutes an expression
(about numbers)
Gödel’s world contains numbers:
Expressions in number theory;
Or, expressions about expressions in number theory.
No existing system of numbers, no reference system (of any
kind) can be found in which everything can be correct
or complete.
Societal consequences of self-reference.
Critical rationalism
Popper: 1902 - 1994
Principle of falsification
Knowledge needs continuously improved (=characteristic)
Induction is not always valid
from ‘all observed A are B’ to ‘all A are B’
Only knowledge as a product is important
‘an epistemology without a knowing
subject’
No ‘context of discovery’
Causality is a consequence of the methodology, not a concept
in itself (in line with logical empiricism)
Scientific discovery leads from the known to the unknown
Unity of method in all empirical sciences, including social
sciences
The idea that the development of a society can be forecasted
(and hence is fixed) is for Popper a serious threat
for freedom and democracy (political or scientific
viewpoint ?)
Subject of social sciences is ‘rational choice decisions’
Kuhn’s paradigm theory
(1922 - 1996)
Confronted prevailing philosophies with the history
of science
History of science did not follow its own rules
Particularly influential in the social sciences
Science always fits within a context, a time-period
Science is also a potential act: who fits
best the political situation
Not the method makes the difference, but the social
acceptance (peer evaluation)
Context of discovery and context of justification cannot
be subdivided
Methodological rules for theories are never mandatory,
it are choices
Periods of ‘normal sciences’
‘scientific revolution’
peer evaluation
choices
(cf Lakatos)
Symbolic interactionism
Developed within the social sciences
Opposes logical positivism
Opposes the object/subject viewpoint of critical rationalism
Cause-effect relationships (Popper) are replaced by reasonbehavior
It attempts to understand, (predict) and influence
George Herbert Mead (1863-1932) based on pragmatism
of John Dewey (1859-1952)
Pragmatism
truth is based on usability (see design paradigm)
based only on what can be observed (against
metaphysics)
No value free science
A lot of behavior is rule-based, social context decides the
rules
Social context is expressed in symbols (signs)
Interactionism refers to the dynamics of the process
Does this theory re-introduces a holistic view ?
Feyerabend’s Chaos Theory
(1924-1994)
Scientific ‘practice’ in contrast with scientific method.
Observation: non-experts identified new developments
against prevailing assumptions in the scientific
community.
Science is essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical
anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely
to encourage progress than its law-and-order
alternatives.
The only principle that does not inhibit progress is
‘anything goes’.
We may advance science by proceeding
counterinductively
In fact a postmodern view on science
Self-producing systems, autopoiesis
radical constructivism
Maturana, Varela, Gödel, Mingers
Biological principle of self-producing systems
= Autopoeisis
Has been interpreted a lot by different fields, differently
In opposition to the focus on species and genes, Maturana and
Varela pick out the single, biological individual (e.g.
an amoebae) as the central example of a living system
Individual autonomy, self-defined entities
within an organism
Philosophical implications of
autopoiesis
Epistemological and ontological presuppositions
It constitutes a theory about the observer
It implies there is no claim to objectivity
Beliefs and theories are purely human constructs which
‘constitute’ rather than reflect reality
constructivism
‘Biology of cognition’ (1970): observer is
the system in which description
takes place