Social system

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

Bridging the Micro–Macro Divide: A New Basis for Social Science

Abstract: A ‘pervasive’ problem in the social sciences, referred to as the ‘micro to macro problem’ concerns our capacity to explain the relationship between the constitutive elements of social systems (people) and emergent phenomena resulting from their interaction (i.e. organizations, societies, economies). Without a capacity to explain this relationship there is, in effect, no substantive theory of sociality. In this article, we explore the potential of a synthesis between autopoietic and complexity theory for understanding social systems in a way that addresses this issue. It is argued that autopoietic theory provides a basis for understanding the characteristics of the microlevel agents that make up social systems – human individuals, whereas complexity theory provides a basis for understanding how these characteristics influence the range and type of macro-level phenomena that arise from their interaction. The synthesis proposed here provides the basis for a theory of sociality that deals consistently with th...

Society -- a complex adaptive system : essays in social theory

Abstract: Toward a fundamental societal theory basic problems in sociological methodology the nature and evolution of systems - an overview on sociocultural evolution a systems approach to the study of social change society as a complex adaptive system a systems approach to epistemology mind, mead and mental behaviourism towards a systems methodology of social control processes meaning and control in social systems social control - deviance, power and authority the functional theory of stratification science, policy and values - a systems view.

The Social Differentiation of the Educational System

Abstract: In line with a long sociological tradition, Niklas Luhmann has analysed the basic characteristics of modern society in terms of social differentiation. Luhmann has focused on the forms of differentiation, and argued that modern society is differentiated according to subsystems that concentrate on one function (e.g. the economy, law, science, politics, education). In the first part of the article, I explore the backgrounds of this systems-theoretical framework. In the second part, this framework is used to analyse the structural characteristics of the educational system. This system has its basis in the school’s complexes of interaction and organization. But education is also confronted with the consequences of its own autonomy, its own mode of operating. It is suggested that these secondary effects have more impact on the evolution of this system than its societal environment.

Public Policy in Knowledge-Based Economies: Foundations and Frameworks

Abstract: Knowledge is a product of human social systems and, therefore, the foundations of the knowledge-based economy are social and cultural Communication is central to knowledge creation and diffusion, and Public Policy in Knowledge-Based Economies highlights specific social and cultural conditions that can enhance the communication, use and creation of knowledge in a societyThe purpose of this book is to illustrate how these social and cultural conditions are identified and analysed through new conceptual frameworks Such frameworks are necessary to penetrate the surface features of knowledge-based economies - science and technology - and disclose what drives such economiesThis book will provide policymakers, analysts and academics with the fundamental tools needed for the development of policy in this little understood and emerging area

The Diversity of Social Systems of Innovation and Production during the 1990s

Abstract: interactions between actors (firms, researchers, universities, laboratories, etc.) and their environment. Moreover, it is wrong to think that such environments are comprised of nothing more than market price(s), albeit contingent. In reality, they consist of a whole set of rules, forms of organisation, and institutions. The differences in “technological styles” that can be observed at the territorial level (usually a national territory, although this can sometimes cover a region or any wider grouping of countries), or even at the sectorial level, stem from the differences in the institutional configurations that are specific to each of these territories. The expression “technological style” is intentionally vague, given the diversity of the characteristic features of the technical change that is being associated with these institutional particularities: rate of technical change; type of innovation (i.e., radical or incremental); a sectorial specialisation that varies as a function of the level of technological intensity or even the long-term growth rate. This being the case, which types of institutions should be integrated into innovation systems studies ? IS research derives from the economics of technical change, and a large proportion of the work that has been carried out in this field has therefore concentrated on institutions that are directly involved in scientific or in technical activities. 3 This includes scientific systems, research laboratories, scientific institutions of technology, and possibly universities and institutes of higher education – as well as the relationships that such institutions entertain with the corporate sector. However, this minimalist conception of IS is not the only possibility. Other approaches will include a wider range of institutions in their framework,