Management in complexity

The exploration of a new paradigm

Walter Baets, PhD, HDR Associate Dean for Innovation and Social Responsibility Professor Complexity , Knowledge and Innovation Euromed Marseille – Ecole de Management

Flatland: Edwin Abbott, 1884 A. Square meets the third dimension

Wanderer, your footprints are the path, and nothing more; Wanderer, there is no path, it is created as you walk.

By walking, you make the path before you, and when you look behind you see the path which after you will not be trod again.

Wanderer, there is no path, but the ripples on the waters .

Antonio Machado, Chant XXIX Proverbios y cantares, Campos de Castilla, 1917

Taylor’s view on the brain

The computer: attempt to automate human thinking

Manipulating symbols Modeling the brain Represent the world Intelligence = problem solving Simulate interaction of neurons Intelligence = learning 0-1 Logic and mathematics Rationalist, reductionist Approximations, statistics Idealized, holistic

Became the way of building computers Became the way of looking at minds

Ken Wilber: A Brief History of Everything The concept of a holon (part/whole) I Interior-Individual IT Exterior-Individual Intentional Behavioral World of: sensation, impulses, emotion, concepts, vision World of: atoms, molecules, neuronal organisms, neocortex Truthfulness Truth Justness World of: magic, mythic, values Interior-collective Cultural WE Functional fit World of: societies, division of labour, groups, families, tribes, nation/state, agrarian, industrial and informational Exterior-Collective Social ITS

Euromed’s Management Approach: our specificity

Individual •Personal development •Emotional development •Leadership •Making a difference •Self motivation •Joy •Involvement •Responsibility •Respect

Personal Development

(Learner centered)

Mechanistic management approach

Interior •Historic legitimacy •Diversity •Sociology •Humanism •Relativism •Complexity •Social responsibility •Euro-Mediterranean

Euro Mediterranean beliefs, values

(long term perspective) •Sustainable development

& culture

(identity)

Systemic management approach

Collective/ Networked •Quantitative approaches •Control/performance •Management by objectives •Models •Financial orientation •Short term efficiency •Production management Exterior Dynamic system behavior • Management in complexity • Management in diversity • Knowledge management • Community of practices • Ecological management • Ethics in management • Social corporate responsibility • Sustainable development • The networked economy • Emergence, innovation…

Definitions

Epistemology

Views about the nature, the sources and the limits of knowledge (what makes true beliefs into knowledge)

Ontology

Philosophical investigation of existence or being 1. What means ‘being’ 2. What exists An ontology is what philosophers take to exist The ontology of a theory is the things that have to exist for a theory to be true

The essence of science

Pictures science within its contemporary framework (not in the absolute) Provides a framework that allows judgement about the epistemological relevance of a theory (or application) (Philosophy of) science is often embedded in sociology and history (other than philosophy that often develops its own logic)

My taxonomy of philosophy of science

Historical embedding Origin Philosophy Philosophical theories Logical positivism (Wiener Kreis) Critical rationalism (Popper) Kuhn’s paradigm theory Lakatos theory Symbolic interactionism Critical theories Design consequences Deduction Induction Empiricism Hypotheses testing Qualitative research Architecture Arts Usefulness as a criteria Feyerabend’s chaostheory Postmodern theories (Derida, Apostel, Foucault, Deleuze) Design paradigm (van Aken) Social construction of reality Design norms

My taxonomy of philosophy of science/2

Historical embedding Origin Philosophical theories Design consequences Neurobiology Radical constructivism (Maturana, Mingers) Autopoiesis (Varela) Self-reference (Gödel) Dynamic re-creation The emergence of object and subject Local (contextual) validity Cognitive Artificial Intelligence Paradigm of mind (Franklin, Kim) Adaptive systems Implicit learning

The pre-history of philosophy of science

Pre-Cartesian/Pre-Galilean period (before 17th century)

Church is the seat of science Science exists to confirm religion Science is the ‘common sense’ In fact it is holistic

17th to the 19th century

I think,therefor I am Experimentation The role of the researcher as involved subject was not (yet) questioned Absolute Newtonian framework (absolute time and space concept) Measurability The end of holistic thinking in science

The 20th century

Breakthrough of relativity theory (Einstein) (objective measurement can no longer be claimed) and quantum mechanics (it is all interpretation) Comparing the validity of theories (e.g. Lorentz versus Einstein) needs different methods 1931: Gödel’s theorem (general validity of symbolic reasoning can no longer be claimed) Box of Pandora

Self - Reference

Gödel theorem (1931) ‘All consistent axiomatic formulations of the number theory contains propositions on which one cannot decide.’ It all boils down to a ‘loop’ problem (being self-referential) (Esher drawings) Language is self-referential.

Can we make numbers self-referential ?

Number theory

Gödel number is a number that substitutes an expression (about numbers) Gödel’s world contains numbers: Expressions in number theory; Or, expressions about expressions in number theory.

No existing system of numbers, no reference system (of any kind) can be found in which everything can be correct or complete.

Societal consequences of self-reference.

Critical rationalism

Popper: 1902 - 1994 Principle of falsification Knowledge needs continuously improved (=characteristic) Induction is not always valid from ‘all observed A are B’ to ‘all A are B’ Only knowledge as a product is important ‘an epistemology without a knowing subject’ No ‘context of discovery’

Causality is a consequence of the methodology, not a concept in itself (in line with logical empiricism) Scientific discovery leads from the known to the unknown Unity of method in all empirical sciences, including social sciences The idea that the development of a society can be forecasted (and hence is fixed) is for Popper a serious threat for freedom and democracy (political or scientific viewpoint ?) Subject of social sciences is ‘rational choice decisions’

Kuhn’s paradigm theory (1922 - 1996)

Confronted prevailing philosophies with the history of science History of science did not follow its own rules Particularly influential in the social sciences Science always fits within a context, a time-period Science is also a potential act: who fits best the political situation

Not the method makes the difference, but the social acceptance (peer evaluation) Context of discovery and context of justification cannot be subdivided Methodological rules for theories are never mandatory, it are choices Periods of ‘normal sciences’ peer evaluation ‘scientific revolution’ choices (cf Lakatos)

Symbolic interactionism

Developed within the social sciences Opposes logical positivism Opposes the object/subject viewpoint of critical rationalism Cause-effect relationships (Popper) are replaced by reason behavior It attempts to understand, (predict) and influence George Herbert Mead (1863-1932) based on pragmatism of John Dewey (1859-1952)

Pragmatism truth is based on usability (see design paradigm) based only on what can be observed (against metaphysics) No value free science A lot of behavior is rule-based, social context decides the rules Social context is expressed in symbols (signs) Interactionism refers to the dynamics of the process Does this theory re-introduces a holistic view ?

Feyerabend’s Chaos Theory (1924-1994)

Scientific ‘practice’ in contrast with scientific method.

Observation: non-experts identified new developments against prevailing assumptions in the scientific community.

Science is essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.

The only principle that does not inhibit progress is ‘anything goes’.

We may advance science by proceeding counterinductively In fact a postmodern view on science

Self-producing systems, autopoiesis radical constructivism

Maturana, Varela, Gödel, Mingers Biological principle of self-producing systems = Autopoeisis Has been interpreted a lot by different fields, differently In opposition to the focus on species and genes, Maturana and Varela pick out the single, biological individual (e.g.

an amoebae) as the central example of a living system Individual autonomy, self-defined entities within an organism

Philosophical implications of autopoiesis

Epistemological and ontological presuppositions It constitutes a theory about the observer It implies there is no claim to objectivity Beliefs and theories are purely human constructs which ‘constitute’ rather than reflect reality

constructivism

‘Biology of cognition’ (1970): observer is the system in which description takes place