Social system

About: Social system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2974 publications have been published within this topic receiving 92395 citations.

Information, Meaning and Communication: An Autopoietic Approach to Linking the Social and Individual

Abstract: This paper considers the relations between information and meaning, as generated through the interactions of individuals, and communication, at the level of society, from an autopoietic perspective. It draws on earlier work concerning first, the nature of information and its relation to meaning via embodied cognition; and, second, a classification of organizationally closed, or self-referential, systems. The contribution made in this paper is to link these analyses at the level of the individual up to the social system of communication (based on Luhmann's work) utilising structuration theory.

The Social Uses of Alcoholic Beverages in a Peruvian Community

Abstract: The research for this paper was conducted over several years, beginning with intensive investigation in 1960-61 in Huaylas, Ancash, Peru, a bilingual Andean district in the north central highlands. The study focuses upon the traditional social context in which alcoholic beverages are consumed, examines the extent of alcohol consumption and the ritual functions of drinking in certain situations.It is shown that the use of alcoholic drinks is highly patterned and integral to normal social interaction. The drinking ritual itself provides a mechanism which can facilitate social solidarity in a moderately stratified social system by legitimizing social relations between peers and individuals of different social sectors. As such, the drinking behavior served to promote certain community activities, such as public work projects. The dysfunctional aspects of drinking were found to be minimal in this context. With increased involvement of these people in urban-industrial life, however, these traditions assume othe...

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). …

Learning hidden influences in large-scale dynamical social networks: A data-driven sparsity-based approach.

Abstract: Interpersonal influence estimation from empirical data is a central challenge in the study of social structures and dynamics. Opinion dynamics theory is a young interdisciplinary science that studies opinion formation in social networks and has a huge potential in applications, such as marketing, advertisement and recommendations. The term social influence refers to the behavioral change of individuals due to the interactions with others in a social system, e.g. organization, community, or society in general. The advent of the Internet has made a huge volume of data easily available that can be used to measure social influence over large populations. Here, we aim at qualitatively and quantitatively infer social influence from data using a systems and control viewpoint. First, we introduce some definitions and models of opinions dynamics and review some structural constraints of online social networks, based on the notion of sparsity. Then, we review the main approaches to infer the network's structure from a set of observed data. Finally, we present some algorithms that exploit the introduced models and structural constraints, focusing on the sample complexity and computational requirements.

Prefatory Findings in the Sociology of Missions

Abstract: Sociological aspects of missionary activity are analyzed via a review of relevant literature. Two major strategies are identified, one oriented mainly toward social systems and the other toward individuals; the strategies appear to be associated with variations in the parent institution and the congregation of converts. Missionary tactics relate in part to types of "opinion change" postulated social psychologically; tactics also are aimed at dealing with structural conflicts between native and foreign sociocultural systems. Receptivity to religious innovations is found to increase under conditions of disorganization, a finding which fits current theories of value-oriented social movements. Foreign churches often are rejected if their social organization is too dissimilar to native patterns; further, the indigenous social organization, especially the ranking and kinship systems, channels diffusion.