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Social system
About: Social system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2974 publications have been published within this topic receiving 92395 citations.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the causes and motives for the transition to a communication-based theory of social systems in the late work of Niklas Luhmann and discuss how these ideas may contribute to a "conceptual revolution" in the social and behavioral sciences.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the causes and motives for the transition to a communication-based theory of social systems in the late work of Niklas Luhmann. In the first part of this paper, I present a brief sketch of advances in the field of cybernetics and systems research. I give special attention to some basic concepts introduced by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela: autopoiesis, organizational closure and enaction. In the second part, I discuss how these ideas may contribute to a ‘conceptual revolution’ in the social and behavioral sciences. In the late work of Niklas Luhmann, attempts to incorporate the idea of autopoiesis in his own social theory resulted in the preference for a communication-based, instead of an action-based, theory of social systems. Moreover, given the current transition to the information age or the knowledge society, it can also be argued that structural changes in society nowadays favor the rise of a communication-based theory of social systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
15 citations
Journal Article•
15 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the variations in each typology tend to follow a pattern, and that this pattern can be captured by the broader dimensions of closed versus open systems and technical versus social systems.
Abstract: Numerous typologies have been offered for sorting the major contingencies of organizational functioning. Types of effectiveness, environments, technologies, structures, controls, strategies, goals, decision-making processes, leadership styles, job designs, and cognitive preferences, are just some examples. This paper proposes that the variations in each typology tend to follow a pattern, and that this pattern can be captured by the broader dimensions of closed versus open systems and technical versus social systems. It is argued that greater parsimony and integration of the organizational sciences are achieved by defining, sorting, and researching contingency variations according to the four resulting categories: closed-technical system, closed-social system, open-technical system, and open-social system. This paper concludes with suggestions for new research directions that follow from this metatypology.
15 citations
TL;DR: The authors assesses Luhmann's vision of the economy, summarized mainly in his Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, wherein he addressed basic economic notions: the economic system, money, prices, rationality, and the market.
Abstract: Niklas Luhmann's (1927–1998) ambitious research project was aimed not only at describing society as a global social system, but it also analyzed various subsystems (including an economic one). The article assesses Luhmann's vision of the economy, summarized mainly in his Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, wherein he addresses basic economic notions: the economic system, money, prices, rationality, and the market. I then interpret his ideas in the context of modern discussions in economics (intersubjective structures, complex systems, and evolutionary modeling). I also propose some heuristics implied by Luhmann's economic ontology, which are potentially interesting for methodological and theoretical strategies of modern economics.
15 citations