Introduction: Awakening
In the process of studying the systems, it became increasingly obvious that systems theory meant vastly different things to different groups of people, depending upon their disciplinary and occupational perspectives. After being exasperated to get a handle on what systems theory was exactly, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Stephan Fuchs’s, “The Professional Quest for Truth: A Social Theory of Science and Knowledge (1992) by Professor R. Silverman.
While some might contest that Fuchs introduces the roots of the systems theory in his work to a novice, it provided a direction and introduced a somehow unusual, fascinating and diverse group of notions and individuals exploring the cosmic order in the universe dating back to antiquity.
From this point on, the realm of the systems almost became magnetizing. The notion of looking for patterns of behavior, seeking underlying systemic interrelationships beyond events were something that I knew in my guts but these were never so well articulated before. Starting with Marcus Aurelius' work Meditations, these thoughts were amplified and following words resonated deeply. “Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist” (Marcus Aurelius, 1964).
Driven by this motivation, this paper questions the systems thinking to understand if and how innovation and a collaborative problem solving can be cultivated in a world whose people are becoming rapidly more interdependent, and where the external forces which control them are becoming more centralized.
The Quest for Truth
From the outset, Fuchs’s “The Professional Quest for Truth” almost appears to be a collection of two books, where the first initial chapters assess the field of sociology of science and the remainder sections centers on the theory of scientific organizations. Fuchs intertwines these two discussions by forming a relationship between microsocial studies of science (i.e. the idiosyncratic nature of scientific reasoning, the dynamics of fact production and controversies) and social structural patterns of scientific organizations (i.e. which shapes collective cognitions and cognitive practices whether in ordinary groups or in scientific communities).
In essence, Fuchs argues that the authoritative power of science and its well-respected worldview is based not on its’ superior rationality, but rather on its’ superior organizational capabilities and resources. From this point of view, he approaches the scientific field as a group of social and organizational structures. This scheme allows Fuchs to concentrate on the specific philosophical and epistemological orientation of different scientific fields and to question why and how knowledge production differs in each; e.g. science and facts vs. hermeneutics and conversation; amalgamation vs. fragmentation; relativism vs. positivism.
Although. I found Fuchs's assessment of the field of sociology of science to be informative and insightful; particularly his scientific organizational theory captured my attention, since it can be applied not only to traditional science institutions, but also to other diverse professional groups engaged in knowledge production. For instance, in the arena of the software (SW) industry, product research and development (R&D) efforts are embedded in particular kinds of organizational contexts, social structures, and technologies. More than any other factor, it is these components of the organizational sociology affect and shape the behavior and interaction between the SW architects, strategists and developers, by influencing the kind of R&D discourse, activities and methodologies in this community. On the other hand, too often when the commercial R&D groups adapt this neo-Durkheimian approach of differentiation, pluralism and solidarity (Young, 1999), it ultimately results in a commercial failure. Because, these tightly knitted communities work in a relatively closed system, which generates shared beliefs, enforces right ways of thinking and acting, kills individual creativity and spontaneity, and in due course isolates organizations and minds from competitive market place in exchange of individuals need to affiliate with social solidarity.
Emergence of the Primitive Self-Philosophy
Embryos of the Self-Systems Thinking
In the process of reading “The Professional Quest for Truth”, I was covertly anticipating to learn more about the discipline of the System Inquiry. While Fuchs’s work allowed me to visualize the determinants of scientific production, it has failed to convincingly explain the recursive relationship between philosophy, theory, methodology and application. This gap prompted me to seek answers to number of theoretical and practical questions in the field of systems thinking.
As I am interested in intrepreneurship within seemingly infinite boundaries of the multinational organizations, I seek to understand and develop conscious strategies for transforming the systems inquiry into knowledgeable action that would stimulate pragmatic innovation in open systems. However, since the systems theory by its nature does not have a well-established, precise meaning; it became increasingly obvious that to seek answers to my questions, first I needed to develop my own perspective. As a derivative, I also realized that I needed to find alternative ways of thinking in contrast to my habitual mechanistic approach and rationalist epistemology that have been intensely embedded to my thought process by the education system.
Birth of Intellectual Conception
Following a course of research, I now conceive that systems theory is not actually a theory but a rather high-level abstraction that is a working and evolving hypothesis.
In this most abstract sense, a system is a set of objects together with relationships among the objects. Such a definition implies that a system has properties, functions, and dynamics distinct from its constituent objects and relationships (Burns, 2007). Where the systems theory, attempts to explain the behavior of all systems, whether in the natural world, such as weather systems, or created by humans, such as computer systems. (Harter & Phillips., 2004).
Although, this is how the mainstream literature makes an effort to define the systems theory, works of Austrian-born biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) offers a broader point of view in order to get to the roots of the ‘general system theory’. In the late 1920's motivated by the Aristotelian worldview "the whole is more than the sum of its parts", Von Bertalanffy wrote: “Since the fundamental character of the living thing is its organization, the customary investigation of the single parts and processes cannot provide a complete explanation of the vital phenomena. This investigation gives us no information about the coordination of parts and processes. (Ludwig Von, 1972).
In Aristotelian’s notion of “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”, the “more” is seen in the relations between the parts. According to Drack (2009), the properties and modes of action of the higher levels are not explainable by the summation of the properties and modes of action of their components as studied only in isolation. But if we know all the components brought together and all the relations existing between them, then the higher levels are derivable from their components as studied only in isolation.
In my view, this particular relationship defines the relationship between system and its’ environmental boundaries, meaning by their very nature the systems are not closed entities, but rather must be open organizations in constant exchange with their environment. I visualize this exchange similar to basic economical transaction, where the inputs necessary for survival are traded for the outputs that are in demand by the environment. The economic equilibrium in this equation defines the negotiation point between the system and the larger ecosystem so called environment.
Therefore, in any field of sciences or in the world of commercial R&D, tightly knitted communities living in ivory towers will be destined to perish in isolation. For survival and competitive success, any entity (biological, social, mechanical or digital) must include a feedback loop with its environment to process information, to react to information, and to change or to be changed. I confide in principles of “Cybernetics” to support this hypothesis and reference to Norbert Wiener (considered to be the original cyberneticist): “Feedback is a method of controlling a system by reinserting into it the results of its past performance (Kelly, 1995).
Based on this vindication, if we return to the example of the software industry; today’s most successful commercial companies amalgamate information about their products and services (e.g. which aspects of the features are used the most or least) through explicit feedback from their environment. In return, they improve customer satisfaction; hence stimulate demand and market competitive strength. Those who are left outside of this feedback loop silently fade away from the neon tickers of the stock exchange, which justly or not integrates all the global subsystems of today.
First Self-Cognizant View of the Systems World
Inherently, in classical economic doctrine, society was considered as a sum of human individuals as social atoms. Then, there was a tendency to consider a society, an economy, or a nation, as a whole, which is super-ordinated to its parts. This conception is at the basis of all the various forms of collectivism, the consequences of which are often disastrous for the individual and, in the history of our times, profoundly influence our lives (Bertalanffy, 1950).
Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory takes this notion one step further, which articulates that systems has four important consequences. First, the system is the difference between system and environment; Second, the system can be defined through a single mode of operation; Third, every (social) system observes internally (i.e. within the system) its own system/environment distinction; there is a re-entry of the system/environment distinction into the system. Fourth, every social theory is part of the social domain and as such part of what it describes (Luhmann, 2006).
Grounded on the amalgamation of these abstractions, this is how I conceive the system and system theory - at least for now:
· A system is an entity with a distinctive identity.
· It is defined by a boundary between itself and “multiple” environments.
· By itself, the inner components and workings of the system reduce complexity.
· To survive, system must observe and communicate with the universe.
· Yet, this communication must occur selectively to manage and process infinite information to survive and/or to thrive.
· If a system fails to maintain individuality, and ceases its connection with the environment it simply recedes.
· At the hearth of this current opinion rests isomorphism, where there is a relationship between all objects, without which I imagine no existence.
Without a doubt just as the systems do, my intellectual cognizant and this understanding will be influenced and changed along this journey.
Correlating Systems and Innovation
In a way, the idea of the “isomorphism” conceptualizes the universe as a giant machine composed of intricate but replaceable machine-like parts; where everything is connected and joined together by a web of relations. This also implies that all the human interaction networks, small and large, from the household to global trade, constitute a system, i.e. the world-system, where all of the economic, political, social, and cultural relations among the people of the earth. Thus, the world-system is not just "international relations" or the "world market", but it is the whole interactive system, where the systemic interaction is routinized so that the connected actors come to depend, and to form expectations, based on the connections (Chase-Dunn & Grimes, 1995).
Subsequently, if integrating web of relationships creates emergent properties of the whole and these properties can not be found in any analysis of the parts, then how can we understand, deal, manage and enhance our world?
I envisage, this is where the “Systems Inquiry” comes in as a research model of how things work together to attain wholeness. A Hungarian linguist and systems scientist Bela Banathy explains this reasoning in this extract: “We can look at the world in terms of facts and events in the context of wholes, and we understand them as integrated sets purposefully arranged in systemic relations. In contrast to the analytic, reductionist, linear, single cause-and-effect view of the philosophy of classical science, systems philosophy brings forth a reorganization of ways of thinking and knowing perceived reality, a view manifested in synthetic, expansionist, dynamic, and multiple/mutual causality modes of thinking and inquiring, how things work more than what things are.” (B. Banathy, 1997).
Hence, institutions, academics, scientists, and entrepreneurs functioning in seclusion discard the central meaning of innovation, i.e. changing the values onto which the system is based. An Austrian-American economist and political scientist Joseph Alois Schumpeter rationalizes this point through “Innovation economics” (Schumpeter, 1950). His doctrine suggests that innovation should stimulate growth through knowledge and entrepreneurship at the center of the integrated systems rather than as an independent force that is largely unaffected by the environment. Fundamentally implying that; institutions, academics, scientists, and entrepreneurs must be at the heart of the systems for survival and progression. Therefore, the flow of technology and information among people, enterprises and institutions must be the key to an innovative process.
Reconciling Philosophy- Theory- Methodology-Application: System Inquiry
During the fifties, the basic concepts and principles of a general theory of systems were set forth. The scholars shared and articulated a common conviction: the unified nature of reality. They recognized a compelling need for a unified disciplined inquiry in understanding and dealing with increasing complexities, complexities that are beyond the competence of any single discipline and. As a result, they developed a trans-disciplinary perspective that emphasized the intrinsic order and interdependence of the world in all its manifestations (B. H. Banathy, 2003).
This trans-disciplinary model of system inquiry has four interrelated and internally consistent domains; philosophy (general principles), science (particulars), methodology (planning) and application (action) to analyze, to design, to develop, to address real-world problems and to enact on knowledgeable actions in complex systems. Consistent application of this paradigm as suggested surely will help to foster interaction in the hopes of bringing unity to science; while liberating scientists, institutions, academics, and entrepreneurs operating in their encapsulated private universe.
Growing Pains: Self-Dilemma
This background arouses many provoking questions for an inquisitive mind.
First, the systems thinking arguably legitimizes the existence of a unified model - a principle - a law that can consistently apply across the universe. This notion implicitly supports the potential existence of a supreme creator as the source of “intelligent design”.
Even though, such debate postulates that because certain things in nature are very complicated, therefore they must have been designed; for a person with no previous profound theological thoughts systems thinking spark a compelling self-reflecting argument.
Second, today’s society puts so much emphasis in the individuals. Yet, so far this paper claimed that a single part of a system does not have any significant relevance. Thus, suggesting that individuals and individualism has no place in the world of systems. As a true believer of individualism, initially I thought this to be an absurd notion, until I was introduced to Niklas Luhmann by Stephan Fuchs.
While Luhmann also denies the human being a central role in society, he argues that this is not because of a lack of respect for humans, their bodies, their rights, and their values. But it is rather because of the insight that human being is, in reality, such a complex assemblage that it cannot be adequately understood in terms of a single concept (Moeller, 2006). In another words, Luhmann thought that the previous attempts to use systems theory in the social sciences applied cybernetic concepts too directly and suffered from the residual normative orientation. To be rigorous and consistent, systems theory had to drop all reference to actors and their self-interpretations, which were nothing but ‘psychical systems’ that form part of the environment for other systems. In this way systems theory can be generally applicable to every level of social analysis (Schmidt, Luhmann, Holmes, & Larmore, 1983).
In his work of “The Differentiation of Society” ( 1982 ) Luhmann goes one step further. He conceives society as composed entirely of communication and the subsystems that organize it, rather than as a network of human actors. In Luhmann's terms, human beings are neither part of society nor of any specific systems. That is not to say that people are not a matter, but rather, the communicative actions of people are constituted (but not defined) by society, and society is constituted (but not defined) by the communicative actions of people: society is people's environment, and people are society's environment.
Ever Evolving Conclusion
Initially, I contemplated this knowledge area as any other, i.e. defining, analyzing, evaluating systems thesis, purposes, philosophies, methodology, applications etc. Yet, mysteriously my habitual ways of thinking and ways of being are shaped.
In turn, my sense of interconnectedness to physical, social, professional life is in some way altered. Half way through this study, I formed a preliminary self-definition of the systems thinking. Introduction to Luhmann and others already impelled me to revisit my opinions many times over, which I am sure will continue to do so. With this intellectual growth, my second paper will aim to gain a deeper apprehension of the relationship between systems, functional systems, social systems and systems of communication in the context of today's “inter-national” society to understand the inner and outer workings behind innovation.
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