Beer's Viable System Model and Luhmann's Communication Theory: 'Organizations' from the Perspective of Metagames; preprint version

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Beer <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2279467> 's Viable
System Model and Luhmann's Communication Theory: 
'Organizations' from the Perspective of Metagames


Abstract:      
Beyond the descriptions of 'viability' provided by Beer's Viable System
Model, Maturana's autopoietic theory or Luhmann's communication theory,
questions remain as to what 'viability' means across different contexts. How
is 'viability' affected by the Internet and the changing information
environments in a knowledge-based economy? For Luhmann, social systems like
businesses are coordination systems that do not 'live' as viable systems but
operate because they relieve human beings from environmental complexity. We
situate Beer's concept of viability with Luhmann's through analyzing the way
that 'decisions' shape organizations in an information environment. Howard's
(1971) metagame analysis enables us to consider the 'viable system' as an
'agent system' producing utterances as moves in a discourse game within the
context of its information environment. We discuss how this approach can
lead to an accommodation between Beer's practical orientation and Luhmann's
sociological critique where the relationship between viability, decision and
information can be further explored.

 


Mark Johnson
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=2076229> 


University of Bolton


 


Loet Leydesdorff
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=819652> 


University of Amsterdam - Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

preprint version available at
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2279467>
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2279467

June 14, 2013; ** apologies for cross-postings

 

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