Showing papers on "Social system published in 2000"

The “Actors” of Modern Society: The Cultural Construction of Social Agency

Abstract: Much social theory takes for granted the core conceit of modern culture, that modern actors—individuals, organizations, nation states—are autochthonous and natural entities, no longer really embedded in culture. Accordingly, while there is much abstract metatheory about “actors” and their “agency,” there is arguably little theory about the topic. This article offers direct arguments about how the modern (European, now global) cultural system constructs the modern actor as an authorized agent for various interests via an ongoing relocation into society of agency originally located in transcendental authority or in natural forces environing the social system. We see this authorized agentic capability as an essential feature of what modern theory and culture call an “actor,” and one that, when analyzed, helps greatly in explaining a number of otherwise anomalous or little analyzed features of modern individuals, organizations, and states. These features include their isomorphism and standardization, their in...

Art as a Social System

Abstract: Through an interdisciplinary approach, Luhmann clarifies the context and contingency of art while elaborating his theory of society. Returning to 18th century aesthetics, the author argues that art is communication that uses perception instead of language. Maintaining that perception and communication are incommensurable, he nonetheless claims that art operates in the boundary between the social system and consciousness, profoundly irritating communication while remaining internal to the social. Circa 860 bibl. ref. Index 20 p.

Luhmann, Habermas and the theory of communication

Abstract: In his critique of Luhmann's sociology, Habermas (1987) argued that individuation and socialization are possible on the basis of linguistic structures. This critique touches the blind spot of sociological systems theory as a meta-biology. Whereas the paradigm shift from action theory towards communication theory was fully reflected in Luhmann's sociology, the difference between the self-organization of social systems and the autopoiesis of biological systems remained underspecified. Social systems allow for communication about observations from within the system and/or from another perspective. Observers are able to participate both in the variation and in the selection; Giddens (1976) introduced in this context the metaphor of a ‘double hermeneutics’. Through language the distinction between uncertainty and meaningful information is communicated reflexively, and the consequent codification may be changed without becoming confused. The implied communicative competences can be specified from the perspective of communication theory. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention: The Human Ecology of Early Risk

Abstract: An ecological perspective on developmental risk directs our attention simultaneously to two kinds of interactions. The first is the interaction of the child as a biological organism with the immediate social environment as a set of processes, events, and relationships. The second is the interplay of social systems in the child's social environment. This dual mandate to look both outward to the forces that shape social contexts and inward to the day-to-day interaction of the child in the family is both the beauty and the challenge of human ecology. It demands much of us intellectually and ideologically, if it is to be more than an academic exercise. Ecology is the study of relationships between organisms and environments. Ecologists explore and document how the individual and the habitat shape the development of each other. Like the biologist who learns about an animal by studying its habitat, sources of food, predators, and social practices, the student of human development must address how people live and grow in their social environment. Whereas all students of animal ecology must understand the purposeful actions of the organism, the human ecologist must go further and seek to incorporate the phenomenological complexity of the organism–environment interaction – the social and psychological maps that define human meaning. We must recognize that the habitat of the child at risk includes family, friends, neighborhood, church, and school, as well as less immediate forces that constitute the social geography and climate (e.g., laws, institutions, and values) and the physical environment.

Understanding and Changing Social Systems

Abstract: A preventive orientation affirms how social systems can be organized to have a positive impact on the development of those individuals who make it up. Here, the authors affirm that an ecological approach to social systems is useful to build a community-based community psychology, a psychology that is attentive to the promotion of competent individuals in responsive social systems

Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education

Abstract: Machine generated contents note: Introduction CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION? THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 1. Getting Started: Understanding Education Through Sociological Theory - Jeanne H. Ballantine and Joan Z. Spade 2. Moral Education - Emile Durkheim 3. The School Class as a Social System - Talcott Parsons 4. Schooling in Capitalist Societies - Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis 5. Conflict Theory of Educational Stratification - Randall Collins 6. Becoming Deviant: The Labeling Perspective - Ray Rist CHAPTER 2: Studying Schools: Research Methods in Education 7. Small Class Size and Its Effects - Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner 8. Moments of Social Inclusion and Exclusion: Race, Class, and Cultural Capital in Family School Relationships - Annette Lareau and Erin McNamara Horvat 9. How to Avoid Statistical Traps - Gerald W. Bracey CHAPTER 3: SCHOOLING IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT: EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS 10. The Structure of Educational Organizations - John W.^

Ecological modernization theory and domestic consumption

Abstract: In the first part of the paper, the theory of ecological modernization is discussed with respect to some of its central assumptions, taking into account a number of the criticisms that have been raised against the theory. It is argued that the focus of the theory on substance and energy flows within social systems does not necessarily imply a resort to some sort of ‘naive realism’ which denies the inherently social and contested nature of environmental problems. It is, however, important for environmental sociologists to take on board indicators and criteria that refer to the material dimension of social systems in order to be able to contribute to the debate on sustainable production and consumption. Furthermore, it is argued that environmental technologies are of crucial importance for bringing about more sustainable ways of industrial production and consumption. It is described how the real or supposed dangers of a central focus on technology would result in a technological-fix scheme of environmental ...

Autopoiesis and socialization: on Luhmann's reconceptualization of communication and socialization.

Abstract: In 1984, Niklas Luhmann published Soziale Systeme in which he applies the idea of autopoiesis (= self-production) to social systems. Abstracted from its biological connotations, the concept of autopoiesis leads to a sharp distinction between different kinds of autopoietic organization, i.e. between life, consciousness and communication. According to Luhmann, the relationship between social systems and human beings cannot be adequately analysed except by taking into account that they are environments for one another. If this theoretical background is accepted, the concepts and theory of socialization need to be revised. Luhmann takes issues with classical notions such as internalization, inculcation, or 'socialization to the grounds of consensus' (Talcott Parsons). After a historical overview of social systems research and general systems theory, it is indicated how communications trigger further communications and realize the autopoiesis of social systems. In the second part of the article, the distinction between social systems and psychic systems is used to discuss issues crucial to socialization theory. Both a revision of the concept of socialization, and lines for an empirical research programme are proposed in accordance with Luhmann's theory of social systems.

The Society of Society: The Grand Finale of Niklas Luhmann*

Abstract: This paper introduces Niklas Luhmann's final work, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (The Society of Society). According to Luhmann, sociologists have failed to produce even a partially adequate theory of society. Epistemological obstacles and humanist concerns for rationality and justice have prevented true progress in the discipline. With his “radically antihumanist, radically antiregional, and radically constructivistic” social system theory, Luhmann intends to bring about a sociological enlightenment. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft focuses on communication as the only genuinely social phenomenon. Social systems differentiate and evolve as they communicate in three separate dimensions: the social, temporal, and functional. The path of evolution results from a history of variation, selection, and restabilization within these dimensions. Communication, bit by bit, produces social structures that, recursively, produce future structures. Society is communication. Sociology, as the science of society, is communication about how different societal systems operate, communicate, evolve, and maintain their boundaries.

Cultures of care: Biographies of carers in Britain and the two Germanies

Abstract: This work compares the experiences of unpaid family carers in three different welfare systems. It is based on narrative interviews in which carers were invited to speak freely about their caring situation, how it unfolded, what support they had, and what caring meant for their lives. The book investigates the inter-relatedness of the personal and the social, how individual lives are shaped by different social systems, and how individual life-paths are forged, even in the most constrained situations. Its purpose is to bring alive and extend abstract models that are used in comparative social policy by: showing how the social relations of caring are structured within and outside the home environment; using separate analyses of "lived" and "told" stories to highlight personal processes of continuity and change in meeting the challenge of caring; and comparing the case links of individual strategies to the structural features of welfare societies.

Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft

Abstract: Luhmann, Niklas. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997. 2 vols. 1164 pp. DM 58.00. According to Niklas Luhmann, who died last November at the age of seventy, older societies had a leg up on modern ones. They had a place for an infallible outside observer-Godthough they conceded that theologians might be fallible in their interpretations of God's infallibility. Sociology, on the other hand, can't observe society from the outside and must formulate its statements about society from within society. Yet it tends to obscure this paradox behind theoretical controversies like structural/procedural, dominance/conflict, affirmative/critical. Systems theory, for its part, unfolds the paradox with the notion that the observer observes society from within a subsystem (in this case: sociology) of a subsystem (science) of the social system. Its descriptions are thus the "society of society." The first of Gesellschaft's five book-length chapters lays out its conceptual apparatus (system and environment, autopoiesis, first and second-order observations, and so forth). Most interesting here is the programmatic methodologische Vorbemerkung (36-43). Unlike an empirical methodology's attempt to establish a continuum between knowledge and reality, for Luhmann, a methodology ought to enable research to "surprise itself" (37). It can do this by stressing comparability. Though there are undeniable differences among, say, the economy, the family, and the education system, can it be mere coincidence that such heterogeneous societal subsystems display homogeneous structures, structures that can be described using the same conceptual instrumentarium? The remaining four chapters are on communication, evolution, differentiation, and self-description. Communication is the operation by which society produces and reproduces itself. Evolution is a process of variation, selection, and restabilization. Society's primary form of differentiation has shifted from segmentary to stratified to functional. These are all corridors that have echoed with Luhmann's footsteps. The virtue of Gesellschaft, in which the system reference is the entire society instead of a single societal subsystem, is that the corridors are all in the same building. Instead of treating in passing, as he does in most of his publications, the evolutionary significance of writing, the printing press, or electronic media, here Luhmann devotes a detailed, apercu-filled section to each. …

Family, Socialization and Interaction Process

Abstract: Family, Socialization and Interaction Process. T Parsons & R. F Bales. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. 1955. Many authors recently have "cited facts such as the very high rates of divorce, the changes in the older sex morality, and ... the decline in birth rates" as evidence that U.S. society is in the process of either rapid disorganization or structural differentiation. Talcott Parsons and Robert E Bales did so in 1955; the above quote comes from the first page of their volume. They come down clearly and forcefully on the side of structural differentiation as the explanation for these trends, thus setting the tone for most of sociology and other social sciences for the remainder of the century. It is interesting to note that they wrote this well before the times we now think of as encompassing the divorce revolution, the sexual revolution, and the birth dearth. Although functional explanations have fallen largely out of favor in contemporary social science, Parsons and Bales make a compelling case in this book that the changes in the family to which they point are natural consequences of broader processes of societal differentiation rather than indications of social disorganization or declining morality. This part of their argument has endured through the much more radical changes in divorce, sexuality, and fertility in the latter half of the decade. Certainly this endurance accounts in part for the lasting impact of the book, as does their functional analysis of the relation between personality and society and the role of socialization in ensuring that these "systems" are homologous: The values that are institutionalized in the social system are internalized in the personality system. Much of the book is concerned with the mechanisms of socialization that produce this happy correspondence of individual and societal values. Nonetheless, this isn't really why we remember the book. Parsons and Bales also revisit the issue of the "isolated nuclear family," raised earlier by Parsons in a 1943 article that produced a flood of research on whether the American nuclear family was really isolated from extended kin. This book is actually rarely cited in that literature, however, because Parsons made it clear that he was using the term "isolated" in a comparative context rather than in some obscure, absolute sense. In this comparative context, the point is much less controversial and much more difficult to attack. This revisitation of Parson's previous work is also not why we remember Family, Socialization and Interaction Process. We remember the book because of its argument that, within the nuclear family, husbands perform instrumental roles and wives play expressive roles. They approach this issue in four ways: (a) the contention that women's role in the feeding of infants creates an expressive bond between mother and child and frees males to perform other tasks; (b) the extension of this distinction via the socialization process; (c) Morris Zelditch's cross-cultural analysis (Chapter 6) showing that this pattern of role differentiation is highly consistent, if not universal, across nonindustrial cultures; and (d) analyses of interaction patterns in small, task-oriented groups consisting of male Harvard undergraduates. The last of these is particularly interesting. …

Emotion management and organizational functions: A case study of patterns in a not-for-profit organization

Abstract: This case study of a not-for-profit organization uses Hochschild's emotion systems theory and Parsons's social systems theory to examine the purposes for which organizational members managed their experience or expression of emotion. The study found that emotion work actions were attributed to all four system functions of Parsons's theory. The study shows that it may be possible to use emotion work actions by individuals to take a distributed view of organization-level phenomena. © 2000 by Jossey-Bass, A Publishing Unit of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Self‐construction of desirable social systems

Abstract: Social systems are produced by people’s interactions. They are by and large the outcome of self‐organising processes, which often produce undesirable properties like corruption, violence and other forms of social malaise. Yet, we want transparent, fair and effective social systems. Explores some of the issues involved in the production of desirable social systems. It is argued that this production requires more than self‐organisation, it requires also the participants’ awareness of the processes grounding their purposes and values in social reality and the use of this awareness to steer their recurrent interactions towards the production of a desirable social system. This is called a process of self‐construction. Understanding this process requires clarifying the role of organisation in the transformation of collectives into social systems. In the end, more than clarification, this paper offers a research agenda.

Metaphor: A Paradigm for Practice-based Research into "Career.".

Abstract: This article describes the development of a practice-based methodology for researching 'career' in constructive and critical terms. It begins by suggesting that 'career' theories, both new and old, continue to be confounded by the dualism of human agency and social structure. An argument is then presented to suggest that metaphor provides a means of understanding the reflexive relationship between human actions and social systems. Based on a synthesis of constructivist and critical theory perspectives, a detailed exposition of metaphor as a paradigm for practice-based research is then provided. The emerging methodological implications for researching 'career' are then considered and an example is given of constructive and critical research in action. The article concludes by relating the methodology to careers guidance practice.

Machine Agency as Perceived Autonomy: An Action Perspective

Abstract: Recent theoretical debates in the literature have taken up the themes of social and technological determinism in the context of actor network theory and structuration theory. This paper explores (computerized) machine agency from an action-based perspective. How is it that information technologies affect our actions, how can we marshal this property, and what can we do about the results if we don’t like them? In order to gain some purchase on these questions, we distinguish between two styles of analysis and between two social systems or networks. Cross-sectional analysis is distinguished from longitudinal analysis. The use system, which enmeshes social practice and IT in our everyday activities is distinguished from the development system, which is responsible for putting the IT in place, maintaining, and updating them. In the majority of workday situations, cross-sectional analysis of the use system leads to the appearance of material agency. However, longitudinal analysis of the development system tends to locate agency in the design decisions of the developers. These analytical distinctions lead to a new conceptualization of machine agency as perceived autonomy from the development system. Unlike previous accounts, this view is consistent with both structuration theory and actor network theory. This allows continued access to these powerful analytical vehicles and enables the strong analysis that is the precursor to effective action.

The effect of process training on process and outcomes in virtual groups

Abstract: Virtual groups meet via the Internet every day. When such groups confront large bodies of information in decision making the group process often becomes confused and chaotic. Process structuration (Giddens, 1979, 1984; Poole, Seibold, & McPhee, 1985) provides a theoretical framework by which we can understand group processes and outcomes. This study examines the effects of process structuration by means of a training video on maintenance behavior and outcomes in 55 different student virtual decision-making groups from two universities. Results show that trained groups had higher levels of social support, greater participation rates, and greater satisfaction with the group; wasted less time and energy; and made significantly more accurate judgments. We discuss implications for the impact of this type of training on virtual groups and suggest further research. Keywords: Group Process, Process Structuration, Process Training, Virtual Groups Organizations around the world are using virtual groups. Such groups are popular because they make greater participation possible in remote locations. Using the Internet, groups can shrink time zones and distance and join decision-makers from around the world to make important organizational decisions (Duarte & Snyder, 1999). A recent article in The Wall Street Journal (Bell, 1999) chronicles the problems that DaimlerChrysler is having getting the correct expertise to the site in the corporation where it is needed. Many global corporations like DaimlerChrysler are finding Internet meetings a necessity to reduce travel costs and to produce the synergy that global mergers and acquisitions promise. However, virtual groups have many of the same problems as face-to-face groups. Steiner's (1972) classic work on the traditional meeting structure notes that meetings are often not at all productive. Virtual meetings are no exception to this rule. Groups may suffer from groupthink (Janis, 1982), groupshift (Clark, 1971), social loafing (Comer, 1995), too much conformity (Asch, 1951), counter-productive cohesiveness (Mullin & Cooper, 1994), and a whole catalog of lesser ills. Since participants in virtual groups don't see each other face-to-face, social loafing seems to be a potentially troubling problem. Process Structuration Theory As the problems virtual groups work on become more complex and intractable, the resulting group process often becomes more chaotic and unmanageable. One theory that has gained popularity in explaining group phenomena is the Theory of Structuration (Giddens, 1979, 1984; Poole, Seibold, & McPhee, 1985; Barley & Tolbert, 1997; Shaila & Bostrum, 1999). Structuration refers to the process of production and reproduction of social systems by the application of generative rules and resources (Giddens, 1979). Structuration Theory distinguishes between system and structure. For example, the status hierarchy of a group can be regarded as a social system. The structure behind this system consists of rules and resources--norms of how superiors and subordinates should interact, superiors' control over budgets and promotions, and subordinates' control over communication access from lower-level subordinates to the highest levels of the organization. In this thinking, structures are both the medium and the outcome of action. They are the medium because structures provide the rules and resources people must draw on to interact meaningfully. They are its outcome because rules and resources only exist through being applied and acknowledged in interaction--they have no existence apart from the social practices they constitute (Poole, Seibold, & McPhee, 1985). Whenever structure is employed in action, the activity reproduces the structure by displaying it and confirming it as a meaningful basis for action. New group members watch the established group members. The behavior of the old members reproduces the group's structure. …

The Continuing Quest for Accountable, Ethical, and Humane Corporate Capitalism: An Enduring Challenge for Social Issues in Management in the New Millennium

Abstract: From their inception, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) field and the SIM Division within the Academy of Management have provided the essential venues to examine the complex, dynamic, two- way relationship between economic institutions of our society and the social systems in which they operate. They have blended the normative with the scientific, the speculative with the empirical, and the philosophical with the pragmatic. The field and the Division have served, perhaps most importantly, as the conscience of management education and the Academy. Their enduring quest and raison d'etre is to foster corporate capitalism that is accountable, ethical, and humane. The fundamental thesis of this paper is contained in its title, "The Continuing Quest for Accountable, Ethical, and Humane Corporate Capitalism: An Enduring Challenge for Social Issues in Management in the New Millennium." From the outset, the Social Issues in Management field (SIM, a.k.a. Business, Government, and Society; Business and Public Policy; Conceptual Foundations of Business; etc, etc.) and the SIM Division of the Academy of Management have blended the normative with the scientific, the speculative with the empirical, and the philosophical with the pragmatic. Our predecessors (including Joe McGuire, George Steiner, Summer Marcus, Walter Klein, and Keith Davis) were impelled to establish the SIM Division in 1971 for reasons other than mere collective security and in-numbers-there-is-strength considerations. Indeed, they were all well established and highly regarded at their respective institutions. What brought them together, I would argue, was a concern that there exist within the Academy a forum for examining what my erstwhile colleagues, Sethi and Votaw, termed "the complex, dynamic, two-way relationship between economic institutions of our society . .. and the social systems in which these institutions now operate and are likely to operate in the future" (Sethi and Votaw in Preston and Post, p. xi). In addition, I submit, these original elders came together to address fundamental value issues raised by that "dynamic, two-way relationship." More specifically, they sought to:

Economic Organizations and Social Systems

Abstract: Originally published in 1967 to stunning reviews, "Economic Organizations and Social Systems" presents one of the few comprehensive visions of the relationship between the economy and other aspects of the social system. Robert Solo endeavors to answer the question of how to describe an actual economy, compare economies, or confront problems where the capacity to mobilize energies and to act as a coherent social force is at issue. The book, with a new preface, will be important reading for economists, sociologists, and law scholars seeking to develop an alternative vision of our economy and society.Robert A. Solo is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Michigan State University.

Community, Caring And Outdoor Education

Abstract: In this article we discuss the close ties that exist between the concepts of community and caring on the one hand, and the teaching and learning strategies which are relevant to these concepts in the area of outdoor education on the other. We begin by gauging the extent of our human need for community. The existence of this need leads into an exploration of the ways in which this need can be met in our Western society, which tends to favour the individual. Caring is identified as a major method for achieving community. Ways of educating for caring and community are then revealed through the literature and these are placed, as one would a template, over the existing view of outdoor education to look for any connections and commonalities. These commonalities are identified. ********** The caring person is one who is genuinely other-regarding, who perceives and responds to the larger ecosystem in an empathic, nonprejudicial way. He or she acts in ways that will strengthen, both in themselves and in others, a developing capacity for the healthy expression of life. (Fuller, 1992, p. 74) Our need for community (and individuality) Human beings have a need for esteem and a need for belonging (Maslow, 1970). Human existence may be described, on one plane, as a balance between these two fundamental human needs: humans have an existential need for community as well as an existential need to be recognized as individuals. We have a need to identify with the larger purpose of the "cosmic process" as well as feeling the urge to be unique (Becker, 1973). These two human needs may create a tension because by meeting one we often feel that we are detracting from our ability to meet the other. A lifelong process seems to exist through which we are attempting to find an appropriate balance between these two needs so as to reduce this tension. The balance point between these two needs will, of necessity, be shifting as we mature through our lives (Fuller, 1992). Contemporary literature is replete with claims that the balance between individuality and community is not supported at its optimal point by Western culture. The use of community as a motivational factor in advertising, and the existence of individuals who experience feelings of alienation, are exemplars of this imbalance (Bellah et al, 1996; Nisbet, 1953; Schwartz, 1997). The Australian context does not go un-noticed, with relevant comment from social researcher Hugh Mackay: The story of Australia in the past 20 years has been a story of declining emphasis on personal relationships; a declining importance attached to being part of a family, a neighbourhood, a community; a declining awareness of shared culture. (Mackay, 1993, p. 271) This perspective on the Australian version of events is further amplified when we consider the young people in our society, as espoused by Richard Eckersley: The three features of modern western [sic] culture that I have discussed--our chosen dominant values, the rate and complexity of change, and the lack of a shared vision of society and its future--all tend to isolate individuals from each other and from society, increasingly leaving people with only their own personal resources to deal with life. These flaws mean young people, who are establishing their identities, values and beliefs, lack a social and spiritual context, a set of clear reference points, to help them make sense of life and their place in the world. (Eckersley, 1995, p. 16) A yearning for community, to complement our emphasis on individuality, seems close to the hearts of many people living in our contemporary society. Searching for a definition of community The concept "community" has been defined in many different ways. It can pertain to a place, a way of living, a social system, a social unit, a condition of relationship, and a territorial unit, (Poplin, 1972; Sanders, 1975) and this list is probably not exhaustive. …

Is the Case for Social Science Laws Strengthening

Abstract: The effectiveness of Kincaid's (1996) and McIntyre’s (1996) cases for the possibility and actual existence of laws in social science is evaluated. The ways in which Kincaid and McIntyre argue against the confounding effects of four long-recognised barriers to the existence of social science laws are assessed. A brief review is presented first of definitions of causal (rather than regularity) laws. The four obstacles undermining causal laws are the non natural or social kind nature of the entities with which social science deals, the nature of mechanisms in social explanation, domain restrictions applying to causal explanation in social science, and the openness of the human systems encompassing socio-economic behaviour. Against the arguments of Kincaid and McIntyre, these four issues constitute fundamental a priori problems that continue to undermine the development of laws in social science, beyond those that can be derived by common sense, and that are potentially effective for policy-making.

Social theory and communication technology

Abstract: This title was first published in 2001. An investigation of new forms of interaction and communication. The essays address theoretical contributions and insights which may assist us in the understanding of modern society inhabited by a wide range of new media. In order to answer questions on this subject, the text suggests a "structural hermeneutic" - a view on the public as agents embedded in their lifeworlds (rather than as consumers and receivers), who play a large part in reproducing structural and distanciated processes of meaning. The essays explore the implications of such daily practices as making a telephone call or sending an email, receiving money from a bank machine using a credit card, or retrieving information from a Web site. Each of these practices reproduce patterns of information and communication practices, which reshape communication processes in society. The essays examine the relationship between media change and social change, with particular emphasis on their contribution to social interaction in everyday life and in the reproduction of social systems.

Social Integration, System Integration and Collective Subjectivity

Abstract: This article argues that Lockwood's piece on social and system integration was quite insightful at the time, but that it failed in correctly solving the issues it raised. More recent versions of th...

The Academic Field of Finance and Paradigm Diversity

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to show that although mainstream academic finance is founded on one paradigm, with some fundamental changes it can gain much by exploiting perspectives coming from other paradigms. This paper crosses two existing lines of literature: philosophy of social science and the academic field of finance. More specifically, its frame of reference is Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Morgan (1984) and applies their ideas and insights to finance. Clearly, a thorough treatment of all the relevant issues referred to in this work is well beyond just one paper. Within such limits, this paper aims at only providing an overview, a review, a taxonomy, or a map of the topic and leaves further discussions of all the relevant issues to the references cited herein. In other words, the aim of this paper is not so much to create a new piece of the puzzle as it is to fit the existing puzzle pieces together. In the paradigm section, the author discusses how any world view can be positioned on a continuum formed by four basic world views or paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. The academic finance section examines theories, Ph.D. programs, journals, and conferences in mainstream academic finance. The paradigm diversity section discusses the principles of paradigm diversity. It notes instances of paradigm diversity in theories, Ph.D. programs, journals, and conferences in finance. Paradigms Any adequate analysis of the role of paradigms in academic fields must recognize the assumptions that underwrite those paradigms or world views. Academic fields can be conceived in terms of four key paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. The four paradigms are founded upon mutually exclusive views of the social world. Each generates theories, Ph.D. programs, journals, and conferences that are different from those of other paradigms. Each academic field can be related to the four broad world views or paradigms. The four paradigms are based on different assumptions about the nature of social science (i.e., the subjective-objective dimension) and the nature of society (i.e., the dimension of regulation-- radical change), as shown in Figure 1.1 The assumptions about the nature of social science translate into assumptions with respect to ontology, epistemology, human nature, and methodology. Assumptions about ontology are assumptions that concern the very essence of the phenomena under investigation. The second set of assumptions is related to epistemology. These are assumptions about the nature of knowledge of how one might go about understanding the world and communicating such knowledge to others. The third set of assumptions is concerned with human nature and, in particular, the relationship between human beings and their environment. The fourth set of assumptions is concerned with methodology, the way in which one attempts to investigate and obtain knowledge about the social world. The Functionalist Paradigm In Figure 1, the functionalist paradigm occupies the southeast quadrant. Schools of thought within this paradigm can be located on the objective-- subjective continuum. From right to left they are objectivism, social system theory, integrative theory, interactionism, and social action theory. The functionalist paradigm assumes that society has a concrete existence and follows a certain order. These assumptions lead to the existence of an objective and value-free social science that can produce true explanatory and predictive knowledge of reality. It assumes that scientific theories can be assessed objectively by reference to empirical evidence. Scientists do not see any roles for themselves within the phenomenon that they analyze through the rigor and technique of the scientific method. It attributes independence to the observer from the observed (that is, an ability to observe what is without affecting it). …

Industrial relations as a social system

Abstract: The article starts with a criticism of John Dunlop's systems theory of industrial relations. The article argues that some of the weaknesses of Dunlop's approach can be overcome by a systems theoretical conceptualisation of industrial relations based on Niklas Luhmann's theory of autopoietic social systems. It discusses five types of social systems that Luhmann's theory offers to characterise industrial relations as a social system: a set of interaction systems, an organisation system, a conflict system, an immune system and a function system of society. The article proposes to adopt a view of industrial relations as a fully-fledged function system operating within the world society. In its last part it sets out the major characteristics of such an autopoietic industrial relations system.

Talcott parsons and the “far east” at Harvard, 1941–48: Comparative institutions and national policy

Abstract: This article traces the involvement of Talcott Parsons in research and teaching about Asian nations, especially China and Japan, in the period of World War II. The data indicate that, in contrast to his Eurocentric image, Parsons worked to develop a global perspective in studies on comparative institutions. This approach, inspired by the sociology of Max Weber, also addressed the practical needs of policy makers in connection with the war effort. Within Parsons’s intellectual biography, it stands between the “voluntaristic” framework of his early treatise, The Structure of Social Action (1937) and the later non-historical formalism of The Social System (1951) for which he is perhaps most famous. An understanding of this relatively unknown phase of Parsons’s work is therefore indispensable for an adequate appreciation of his career as a whole.

Luhmann's General Sociology

Abstract: The article deals with Niklas Luhmann's treatise Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, exposing it to a critique in terms of Luhmann's own criterion: plausibility. It is argued that both Parsons' general sociology and Marxism render more plausible accounts of modern society than does Luhmann's theory of autopoietic systems. It is asserted that the fundamental mistake in Luhmann's theory is his conflation of the concepts of differentiated social systems and autonomous social systems, a conflation that confers a ring of the imaginary to Luhmann's treatise.

Coevolution: Agricultural Practices and Sustainability: Some Major Social and Ecological Issues

Abstract: This paper outlines the major social and ecological issues involved in the coevolution of social and ecological systems by initially reviewing relevant aspects of the recent literature relating to economic development and their implications for agricultural development. Coevolutionary qualitative-type models are presented. There has been a failure among advocates of structural adjustment policies (involving the extension of markets and economic globalisation) to take account of coevolutionary principles and to allow for historical differences in the evolution of communities and their varied circumstances. This lack of sensitivity has had unfortunate social and ecological consequences for some communities in, for example, the Russian Federation and for subsistence agriculturalists in some less developed countries. The evolution of globalised market systems involving industrial/commercial agriculture (largely dependent on inputs external to the farm) under the "patronage" of oligopolistic suppliers is seen to increasingly threaten the balance between social and ecological systems and as undermining the sustainability of both. Capitalistic processes of technological change, such as advances in biotechnology, play a major role in this evolution.