Organizational Patterning (Knowledge Cybernetics)

Nature and use of knowledge (stories and "microstorias", narratives and ante-narratives) and its relationship to organizational intelligence is central to social processes. The development of a theory of social knowledge within the framework of knowledge cybernetics exploits the cybernetic perspective and system theory approach. Exploration of a viable complex system (organization, community, institution, network, etc.) requires a point of view lodged in no-man's land between sociology, social psychology, organizational theory and business studies. Researchers should also keep in mind that the proof of their pudding is in managerial and self-managerial eating; it is through informed practice and continuous learning that autonomous organizations function, change and survive. Ultimately, what we are searching for is emergent viable systems theory of intelligent organization and an improvement of social collective viability. Maurice I. Yolles holds a chair in management systems in the School of Business Information at Liverpool John Moores University, UK and his latest book "Organizations as Complex Systems: Social Cybernetics and Knowledge in Theory and Practice" should be out by the time his research seminar takes place or shortly afterwards (2006). His previous book "Management Systems: a Viable approach" has been published in 1999. His main teaching area is change and knowledge management, while his research is focused on viable human activity systems and their related change and knowledge processes. He studies viable systems from the point of their sustainability, adaptability and susceptibility to learning (which makes him venture into culture, ethics, ideology, governance and political processes).

Contact information:

Dicea Jansen 

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