Showing papers on "Social system published in 1991"

Leadership and social intelligence: Linking social perspectiveness and behavioral flexibility to leader effectiveness

Abstract: This paper examines social intelligence as a quality of effective organizational leaders. Specifically, it is proposed that successful leaders have as individual characteristics two components of social intelligence, social perceptiveness and behavioral flexibility. In essence, leaders are able to ascertain the demands, requirements, and affordances in organizational problem scenarios and tailor their responses accordingly. The qualities of social perceptiveness and behavioral flexibility are based upon well-organized and sophisticated knowledge structures or cognitive representations of the social elements (e.g., organizational members, work behavioral settings, problem scenarios, organizational goals, expected interaction rituals) residing in organizational domains. Five propositions are offered regarding differences between leaders and nonleaders in the nature of these social knowledge structures. Several implications of these arguments are discussed, including (a) viewing leaders as experts in the operations of complex social systems, (b) considering social intelligence as part of a network of leader attributes, and (c) examining differences between leaders and nonleaders in their cognitive qualities and representations.

Crime in the Social Order of Colonial North India

Abstract: The necessary vocabulary has not yet been created to encompass both the ‘informing spirit’ and ‘whole social order’ of British India. In part, at least, this is because research has generally concentrated on either British or Indian realms of action, rather than the interaction between them. But British colonial rule shaped a distinctive social system in India, one that drew on both British and indigenous values as well as notions of authority. This essay analyzes aspects of this colonial social order by focusing on its legal system, particularly that portion designed to deal with what the British identified as ‘extraordinary’ crime. Indeed, criminal law may be among the most revealing aspects of a social order. For, as Douglas Hay has observed for a similar elaboration of the English legal structure, ‘criminal law is as much concerned with authority as it is with property … the connections between property, power and authority are close and crucial.’

The social construction of uncertainty

Abstract: Our theories of human behavior split into largely independent systems of thought: psychology and social science. When we think psychologically, we mostly take the institutional relationships, the economy and culture of society for granted, and attend to the way people manage, successfully or not, the circumstances of life. When we think as sociologists or economists, we treat human beings as if they could be reduced to a definable role in a system of relationships – the rationally self-interested economic actor; the bureaucrat; the mother’s brother – and go on to explore the implications of that system. We rarely explore the interaction between each unique human actor and the social systems of which she or he is part. Yet, surely this interaction ought to be at the foundation of any theory of human behavior. How can we begin to understand ourselves except as creatures of the societies from which we learned the language itself to think about ourselves? And how can we understand society except as a network of patterns of relationship which each of us is constantly engaged in creating, reproducing, and changing? For lack of this crucial theoretical link, we have never developed within psychology a strong tradition of social criticism, while our sociology and economics have often been psychologically naive and insensitive. We need a way of thinking about the interaction between unique human beings and the social relationships they form, not only because our theories are crippled without it, but because without it we cannot articulate clearly many of the gravest causes of social distress.

The effectiveness of office information systems: a social action perspective

Abstract: . The purpose of this paper is to show that a number of basic issues have not been adequately addressed in existing office information systems research. Prominent among these are the nature and role of offices, the goals of office information systems development, and the nature of its organizational and managerial consequences. It is proposed that office information systems should be analysed as social action systems the behaviour of which is strongly affected by socially determined forces and constraints such as the behaviour-channelling influences of authority, norms, customs, habits and precedence. Four types of social action are discussed: instrumental, strategic, communicative and discursive. Three contexts for perceiving and analysing the effects of social action in offices are introduced: technology, language and organization. Office information systems changes affect elements and relationships in these three contexts in different ways. By cross-relating social action types and contexts, nine classes of object systems are identified. Each object system class implies a different category of effectiveness concerns which in turn implies different office information system design requirements. The paper notes that the existing research literature has primarily been concerned with only three of the nine object systems. For more effective office information systems development, however, the other systems also need to be considered. The paper concludes by exploring how this may be done.

Lessons from the Nonlinear Paradigm: Applications of the Theory of Dissipative Structures in the Social Sciences.

Abstract: An emerging scientific paradigm focuses on the behavior of nonlinear systems that reveal complex and unexpected behavior. This new intellectual model has profound implications for modeling social systems. This paper examines the lessons learned from the applications of one of the theories from this new paradigm to evolving social systems. This work examines the challenges of incorporating the dynamics of complex systems, as presented in the theory of dissipative structures, into social science models

Culture and Causal Thinking: Diagnosis and Prediction in a South Indian Fishing Village

Abstract: The research described here is the result of more than four years' fieldwork' among thejalaris, a Telugu fishing-caste people who live on India's southeast coast (see also Nuckolls 1991). Its purpose was to find out how the Jalaris explain the causes of events, using concepts and a methodology synthesized from recent work in culture theory and cognitive science. The findings indicate that the Jalaris, like several African tribes described in the literature (e.g., EvansPritchard 1937; Marwick 1982; Turner 1975), attribute ultimate causes of disruptions to social relations. Contributing to the social science literature on social systems and social explanations was not the project's only aim, however. Of principal interest were these questions: Given a cultural system that links the understanding of social relations with the explanation of events, what situations call

Parsons' Economic Sociology: A Failure of Will*

Abstract: In the Marshall Lectures and in Economy and Society Parsons endeavored to demonstrate that economic theory was a special case in the general theory of social systems. He then attempted to show that the parameters of macroeconomic theory could be analyzed as variables within a general social systems theory. But Parsons’economic sociology failed to redeem its promise. He did not succeed in using macro-economic theory as the basis for the formulation of a propositional macrosociology; nor did he sociologically reconstruct the logic of utilitarian, neoclassical economic theory.

A preliminary inventory of theories available to guide the reform of socialist societies

Abstract: Although at present there is great interest in the reforms now taking place in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China, occasionally one hears that there is no theory of how to transform an authoritarian, centrally planned society into a democratic, free-market society. That may be narrowly true, but much is known about how social systems change. This paper briefly reviews some of the currently available theories. Limiting the discussion to theories of economic, political, and psychological or cultural change, the paper groups the theories into three types. There are theories of how social systems operate, theories of how social systems change, and theories of how one can intervene to change a social system.

Initiations Rituals: Sanctioning Rites of Passage Rituals to Increase Involvement.

Abstract: Anthropologists have documented the importance of rites of passage rituals for marking the successful passage from one position in the social structure to another. The characteristics and importance of rituals and rites of passage to mark the transition high school to college will be presented. It is proposed that colleges and universities utilize this knowledge and establish sanctioned, rigorous, initiation rituals for new students (and some clubs) as rites of passage to increase the students' involvement and sense of belonging and responsibility in their new collegiate community, factors known to affect satisfaction, retention and graduation rates. (Contains 41 references.) (Author) ******************************************************************* Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. *********************************************************************** Initiations Rituals: Sanctioning Rites of Passage Rituals to Increase Involvement American Association for Counseling and Development 1991 Annual Conference Reno-Sparks Convention Center Reno, Nevada 89504 April 21-24, 1991 Edward R. Butler, Ph.D., NCC Associate Professor and Coordinator Student Personnel Graduate Program Emporia State University Emporia, Kansas 66801 Abstract Robert E. Glennen, Ph.D. President and Professor of Counselor Education Emporia State University Emporia, Kansas 66801Robert E. Glennen, Ph.D. President and Professor of Counselor Education Emporia State University Emporia, Kansas 66801 Anthropologists have documented the importance of rites of passage rituals for marking the successful passage from one position in the social structure to another. The characteristics and importance of rituals and rites of passage to mark the transition high school to college will be presented. It is proposed that colleges and universities utilize this knowledge and establish sanctioned, rigorous, initiation rituals for new students (and some clubs) as rites of passage to increase the students' involvement and sense of belonging and responsibility in their new collegiate community, factors known to affect satisfaction, retention and graduation rates.

Educational Testing in Poland.

Abstract: What has been the history of educational assessment in Poland? How are the social system, school system, examination forms, measurement theory, and attitudes toward tests related to each other? How are recent efforts at democratization of political systems likely to influence educational testing in Poland?

From Literary Discourses To the Social System of Literature

Abstract: place in Germany-the region whose development provides the model for this study―from &dquo;premodern&dquo; to &dquo;modern literature&dquo;. This transition can be identified as a movement away from literary discourses (specific to particular social strata)’ and towards the emergence of the self-organizing social system of literature. This transition is unplanned and uncoordinated, and takes place by stages in the context of a restructuring of society as a whole. This is not to say that there are no similarities, points of comparison or continuities of

Meaning, Perspective, and the Social Construction of Reality

Abstract: This paper formulates some ways of thinking about an autonomous social reality that can serve as objective constraint on theorizing and as court of appeal for hypothesis testing. It takes into account various objections leveled against the ideal of a realistic, objective social science – such as those referring to the mechanistic bias of mainstream social science, the openness of social systems, the plasticity of social reality, the contribution of meaning to social reality, the inevitable biases of theoretical and conceptual perspective and the social construction of reality. It is not pretended that ideological deformation can be rooted out of science, but that it can be better brought under control if its sources are better understood.

Die transaktionistische Weltsicht — ein konzeptioneller Impuls für die Humanökologie?

Abstract: In environmental psychology discussions about a new theoretical approach have been going on for some time that may also be of special significance for further development of human ecology. Meanwhile, this “transactionism”, which is characterized by a radical holistic perspective, has grown into a paradigm of its own with interdisciplinary impact. On the basis of a survey by Altmann and Rogoff (1987), the auther refers to some major features of transactionism in comparison with other world views of the social sciences. It may be regarded as a special quality of transactionism that it offers the conceptual possibility to overcome that threefold dichotomy between individual, physical environment and social system which has been typical for various traditional approaches of human ecology.

The Social System of National Health Care and System of Human Society

Abstract: In this paper I continue the considerations of a former one, published in the Proceedings of the Conference on the Operational Research and the Social Sciences /Kun 1989/

Systems education at the fielding institute

Abstract: This is an exposition of the post-graduate program evolving at the Fielding Institute to train professionals in social praxis—ting system theory and methods into programs that effect social change. We illustrate herein how the practice of intervention in social systems calls upon systems praxis, and we argue that the practitioners must have, in addition to a background in the social sciences, a pragmatic access to theories of personal, social and institutional change. The foundation of an education for systems praxis requires intermingling theoretical ideas with skills that can affect the social system. We propose three essential elements for the education of system practitioners: (1) the process of decision-making. (2) processes of inquiry suitable to living systems at personal and at societal levels, and (3) system thinking. Finally, we describe how the whole process requires self-reflection and personal maturity to maintain authentic human engagement