Linking Micro and Macro Description of Scalable Social Systems Using Reference Nets

2005 ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Köhler ◽  
Daniel Moldt ◽  
Heiko Rölke ◽  
Rüdiger Valk
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems

Business: Conceptualizations of Organizational Change Viewed Through the Lens of Power: A Tutorial for the Speech-Language Pathologist/Audiologist Administrator

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Patrick R. Walden
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Organization Level ◽  
Speech Language Pathologist ◽  
Constant State ◽  
Theories Of Change ◽  
Or Organization

Both educational and health care organizations are in a constant state of change, whether triggered by national, regional, local, or organization-level policy. The speech-language pathologist/audiologist-administrator who aids in the planning and implementation of these changes, however, may not be familiar with the expansive literature on change in organizations. Further, how organizational change is planned and implemented is likely affected by leaders' and administrators' personal conceptualizations of social power, which may affect how front line clinicians experience organizational change processes. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to introduce the speech-language pathologist/audiologist-administrator to a research-based classification system for theories of change and to review the concept of power in social systems. Two prominent approaches to change in organizations are reviewed and then discussed as they relate to one another as well as to social conceptualizations of power.

Men in organizations: An approach to social systems analysis

1972 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter L. Wilkins ◽  
Blair W. McDonald ◽  
Allen Jones ◽  
Lee Murdy ◽  
Lawrence R. James ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Social Systems

New research frameworks in the study of chimpanzee and gorilla sociality and communication

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam G. B. Roberts ◽  
Anna Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Evolution ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Social Evolution ◽  
Research Frameworks ◽  
New Research ◽  
Large Groups

Group size in primates is strongly correlated with brain size, but exactly what makes larger groups more ‘socially complex’ than smaller groups is still poorly understood. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) are among our closest living relatives and are excellent model species to investigate patterns of sociality and social complexity in primates, and to inform models of human social evolution. The aim of this paper is to propose new research frameworks, particularly the use of social network analysis, to examine how social structure differs in small, medium and large groups of chimpanzees and gorillas, to explore what makes larger groups more socially complex than smaller groups. Given a fission-fusion system is likely to have characterised hominins, a comparison of the social complexity involved in fission-fusion and more stable social systems is likely to provide important new insights into human social evolution

Keynote

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne LIEDTKA
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Lens Design ◽  
Social Sector ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
The Impact

The value delivered by design thinking is almost always seen to be improvements in the creativity and usefulness of the solutions produced. This paper takes a broader view of the potential power of design thinking, highlighting its role as a social technology for enhancing the productivity of conversations for change across difference. Examined through this lens, design thinking can be observed to aid diverse sets of stakeholders’ abilities to work together to both produce higher order, more innovative solutions and to implement them more successfully. In this way, it acts as a facilitator of the processes of collectives, by enhancing their ability to learn, align and change together. This paper draws on both the author’s extensive field research on the use of design thinking in social sector organizations, as well as on the literature of complex social systems, to discuss implications for both practitioners and scholars interested in assessing the impact of design thinking on organizational performance.

Managing uncertainty in healthcare interpreter-mediated interaction

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-164
Author(s):  
Claudio Baraldi ◽  
Laura Gavioli
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Social Systems Theory ◽  
Intercultural Mediators ◽  
Or History

This paper analyses healthcare interactions involving doctors, migrant patients and ‘intercultural mediators’ who provide interpreting services. Our study is based on a collection of 300 interactions involving two language pairs, Arabic–Italian and English–Italian. The analytical framework includes conversation analysis combined with insights from social systems theory. We look at question-answer sequences, where (1) the doctors ask questions about patients’ problems or history, (2) the doctors’ questions are responded to and (3) the doctor closes the sequence, moving on to another question. We analyse the ways in which mediators help doctors design questions for patients and patients understand and eventually respond to the doctors’ design. While the doctor’s question design aims at obtaining details which are relevant for the patients’ care, it is argued that collecting such details involves complex interactional work. In particular, doctors need help in displaying their attention to their patients’ problems and in guiding patients’ responses into medically relevant directions. Likewise, patients need help in reacting appropriately. Mediators help manage communicative uncertainty both by showing the doctor’s interest in what the patient says, and by exploring and rendering the patient’s incomplete, extended and ambiguous answers to the doctor’s questions.

Complexity and the Art of Public Policy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Colander ◽  
Roland Kupers
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Policy Models ◽  
Benefit Corporations ◽  
Evolving System ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Modern Analytical ◽  
Policy Solutions

Complexity science—made possible by modern analytical and computational advances—is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists’ policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. This book outlines a new, more flexible policy narrative, which envisions society as a complex evolving system that is uncontrollable but can be influenced. The book describes how economists and society became locked into the current policy framework, and lay out fresh alternatives for framing policy questions. Offering original solutions to stubborn problems, the complexity narrative builds on broader philosophical traditions, such as those in the work of John Stuart Mill, to suggest initiatives that the authors call “activist laissez-faire” policies. The book develops innovative bottom-up solutions that, through new institutional structures such as for-benefit corporations, channel individuals’ social instincts into solving societal problems, making profits a tool for change rather than a goal. It argues that a central role for government in this complexity framework is to foster an ecostructure within which diverse forms of social entrepreneurship can emerge and blossom.

Landscape Change in the Steppe of Algeria South-West Using Remote Sensing

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Tayeb Sitayeb ◽  
Ishak Belabbes
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Bare Soil ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Landscape Dynamics ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Stipa Tenacissima ◽  
Steppe Species ◽  
Sparse Vegetation

Abstract Landscape dynamics is the result of interactions between social systems and the environment, these systems evolving significantly over time. climatic conditions and biophysical phenomena are the main factors of landscape dynamics. Also, currently man is responsible for most changes affecting natural ecosystems. The objective of this work is to study the dynamics of a typical landscape of western Algeria in time and space, and to map the distribution of vegetation groups constitute the vegetation cover of this ecosystem. as well as using a method of monitoring the state of a fragile ecosystem by remote sensing to understand the processes of changes in this area. The steppe constitutes a large arid area, with little relief, covered with low and sparse vegetation. it lies between the annual isohyets of 100 to 400 mm, subjected to a very old human exploitation with an activity of extensive breeding of sheep, goats, and camels. Landsat satellite data were used to mapping vegetation groups in the Mecheria Steppe at a scale of 1: 300,000. Then, a comparison was made between the two maps obtained by a classification of Landsat-8 sensor Operational Land Imager (OLI) acquired on March 18, 2014, and Landsat-5 sensor Thematic Mapper (TM) acquired on April 25, 1987. The results obtained show the main changes affecting the natural distribution of steppe species, a strong change in land occupied by the Stipa tenacissima steppe with 65% of change, this steppe is replaced by Thymelaea microphylla, Salsola vermiculata, lygeum spartum and Peganum harmala steppe. an absence from the steppe Artemisia herba-alba that has also been replaced by the same previous steppes species. The groups with Quercus ilex and Juniperus phoenicea are characterized by a strong regression that was lost 60% of its global surface and transformed by steppe to stipa tenacissima and bare soil.

¿Quién soy yo? Reflexiones teórico sistémicas acerca de la indentidad individual

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
Francisco Xavier Morales
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Moral Communication ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

The problem of identity is an issue of contemporary society that is not only expressed in daily life concerns but also in discourses of politics and social movements. Nevertheless, the I and the needs of self-fulfillment usually are taken for granted. This paper offers thoughts regarding individual identity based on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. From this perspective, identity is not observed as a thing or as a subject, but rather as a “selfillusion” of a system of consciousness, which differentiates itself from the world, event after event, in a contingent way. As concerns the definition  of contents of self-identity, the structures of social systems define who is a person, how he or she should act, and how much esteem he or she should receive. These structures are adopted by consciousness as its own identity structures; however, some social contexts are more relevant for self-identity construction than others. Moral communication increases the probability that structure appropriation takes place, since the emotional element of identity is linked to the esteem/misesteem received by the individual from the interactions in which he or she participates.

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