Reflective Practices in Community Development: a Grounded Analysis

Systemic Practice and Action Research - Reflective practices (RPs) are recognized as fundamental for the conception, development, implementation and improvement of community-based development in...     

模糊社会网络中的位置分析方法

将模糊数学的理论应用到社会网络分析,定义了模糊社会网络分析的基本概念,并结合强度和连通强度的概念构建了模糊社会网络中模糊连通强度矩阵的构造方法,给出了模糊社会网络位置分析的主要步骤及其具体方法。案例部分,以企业技术创新影响因素作为行动者建立了模糊技术创新要素网络,并应用模糊社会网络位置分析方法进行了企业技术创新影响因素分析。     

Social Systems Design as a Vehicle Towards Local Public e-Services for and by Citizens

The need for increased user participation and involvement in the process of designing and developing public e-Services has been emphasized in recent years. User involvement is critical to success in the development and implementation of public e-Services, and many visions and efforts are focused on citizen participation in the design and development process. In this article, concepts of Social Systems Design are analysed in the context of local public e-Services in order to improve potential to meet the requirements for user participation and involvement. Results show that the ideas of Social Systems Design, where applicable, can contribute to user-centred development of local public e-Services, and can form a foundation for the development of methods that utilize user participation and involvement. However, further research requires empirical studies.     

Co-operative Inquiry as a Tool for Professional Development

This article describes my involvement as an external facilitator in separate research projects, with a total of five co-operative inquiry groups. The groups all consisted of social welfare professionals, mainly social workers, who were wanting to explore the development of their practice in a context of competing demands from legislation, policy, and management at an organizational level. The article focuses on process, and how, collectively, we facilitated these as more or less successful inquiries. There is detail about how co-operative inquiry, with professionals, in their organizational context, can work successfully, and the part that an external facilitator can take in ensuring a positive result.     

Community Development and Renaissance Social Humanism: Some Lessons for Systems Science

Starting from the crisis in our communities—research has indicated it to be widely spread—the author explores the scientific tradition preceding the rise of modernism in order to draw out a more humane way of thinking that may help our contemporary societies. He discerns between two types of Renaissance humanism, one characterised by its cleverness, the other by its compassion and desire to restore dignity to the lives of people struggling to escape the clutches of medievalism. The father of the latter is Erasmus of Rotterdam and we follow the development of his conception of a social humanism as it branches out, through the work of his successors, into every scientific discipline, both natural and human. These disciplines are united by an embracing systemic idea of philosophy that unites the mind with the heart and which Erasmus called “Philosophia Christi”. We examine the two main pillars upon which this philosophy is built, love for our neighbour and education as the only legitimate instrument to change society, and the extraordinary impact it had on science and on communities living in the seventeenth century. We contrast this with the idea of power, the chosen instrument of modernity to transform society, and trace some of its tragic outcomes. We conclude by discussing the incorporation of an Erasmian type of social humanism into systems education and the future development of such programmes.     

Social Media as a Mean for Improved Technical Communication

Technical communication (TC) is an important activity in order to provide the users of technical artifacts with necessary information concerning the operation and maintenance of the products they are using. In the current working procedures of TC, however, the users become too passive. They are just receivers of information. Further, there is no effective feedback from the users to the producers of the information. In order to overcome those problems we here propose an application of social media (SM) in future TC. By using SM as a complementary channel for TC it becomes possible for technology firms to boost their competitive advantage and to improve the quality and completeness of their TC. This technique, however, is still more of a potential and less of a reality. Several problems, mostly concerning security and confidentiality remain to be solved. The empirical base for this work comes from TIC, an EU-funded development project involving several Swedish technology companies. Published research results are somewhat scattered but several sources coherently indicate both the need and potential for SM as a vehicle in TC. By scanning the net it is further possible to identify a number of seemingly successful applications of SM in such applications.     

Social Responsibility: Measures and Measurement as a Basis for Organizational Systemic Action

European Union (2011) supports conditions favorable to sustainable growth, responsible business behavior and durable employment generation. Social responsibility (SR) supports this effort; hence EU urges its member states and big enterprises to promote SR to innovate habits of humans, societies and especially decision-makers-towards requisite holism, based on ethics of interdependence, i.e. systemic behavior. Related criteria for measurement of SR of organizations are drafted here. In Slovenia, the ‘Horus award’ promotes public awareness about meaning and importance of SR and encourages it in organizations.     

The Social Network Analysis of Techno-Economic Systems:Comparing Results Based on Binary and Weighted Networks

The network analysis of a technological system combines the interindustry transactions with a matrix of sectoral innovative efforts as measured by R&D investment intensity.The matrixes of interindustry transactions of R&D-embodied products(innovations)are weighted matrixes where the interindustry flows measure the intensity of the innovation diffusion.In the past,studies using this approach in innovation studies have transformed weighted matrixes into binary matrixes of zero and one element where the flows less than a selected threshold value were considered to be zero and the flows greater than the threshold value were counted as one.Such matrix transformation leads to the loss of a great deal of information.In the present study,using degree and clustering coefficients for both binary direct as well as weighted direct techno-economic networks of the manufacturing sector of the German economy,we show that the binary directed network analysis is incapable of refined ranking of interindustry innovation transactions.The total degree index based on the weighted network of the German techno-economic system assigns a unique ranking to each sector,and clustering coefficients show that at least 75%of sectors in the network of Germany have two links with the other industries.However,the same indices based on the binary network are incapable of such refined ranking.     

基于社会网络的城市群结构定量化分析——以长江三角洲城市群资金往来关系为例

随着城市地区社会经济的快速发展，相关的空间经济联系与地域组织优化研究成为研究最活跃、成果最丰富的部分之一。本文目的在于提供一种分析的思路和方法指引。从经济社会学的角度，以长江三角洲城市群中的16个中心城市组成的资金往来网络为例，用社会网络分析方法对该网络的基本网络特征进行分析来探讨城市群的空间层级结构。在今后的发展中城市群要合理规划布局，增强城市间的协调共客性，发挥政府的重要影响作用，营造一个良好的城市发展环境。     

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Messy Problem: Linking Systems and Sensemaking Perspectives

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an essential topic with regard to the relationship between business and the wider society. It is a complex and controversial phenomenon that can best be addressed via systems theory and the sensemaking perspective. This paper proposes a way to link a dialectical systems perspective with communications that includes the sensemaking and dialogic collective approaches, which help to build systems of organised activities that aim to find solutions to complex problems from a holistic perspective. Companies are increasingly aware that if they wish to be successful actors in their business and societal relationships, the traditional sole focus on maximising profit is counterproductive, especially in terms of sustaining their value chains. A holistic approach to CSR and the value chain involves companies integrating their stakeholders along their value chains, especially at the downstream and upstream extremes (their customers and suppliers). This paper illustrates its theoretical perspectives with a case study of JYSK, a multinational company based in Denmark, which demonstrates how the company based its actual management of CSR on its willingness to learn from its own actions and from the actions of others.     

Participatory Sustainability Impact Assessment: Scientific Policy Advice as a Social Learning Process

This paper deals with the development of scientific policy advice by providing a methodology to foster a social learning process. The methodology, called participatory Sustainability Impact Assessment (pSIA), aims to structure complex problem situations, to clarify interests and basic assumptions, to interpret scientific studies, to develop impact assessment, and to explore sensitivity of uncertainty and lack of information. In pSIA workshops the participants are supposed to build conceptual models with different modelling methods, like System Dynamics, Value Chain Analysis, and Morphological Analysis. A case study is presented that describes a workshop series with political as well as academic actors, applying the pSIA approach to an impact assessment of Economic Partnership Agreements between the European Union and the Eastern and Southern Africa Region.

群体特征分析——社会智能的理论基础刍议

针对群体是否具有智能这一问题,从群体特征角度着手进行分析,将群体定义为通过信息共享,在共同目标的作用下,自发或者有组织地联系在一起并且能够相互影响的一群人。在此基础上,通过分析群体的心理特征、情感特征等,发现群体可通过竞争、协作等方法,激发个体的智慧来增长群体知识。群体具备的这种能力可视为群体的智能,即群体智能或社会智能。由于社会智能及其涉及到的群体所拥有的海量数据的复杂性,提出可将从定性到定量的综合集成法作为研究社会智能的方法论的构思,并总结出研究社会智能的两个一般性方法:基于连接模式的方法和基于信息传播的方法,最后指明了后续的工作方向。     

Schools as Communities: Purveyors of Democratic Values and the Cornerstones of a Public Philosophy

Establishing interdependency and community among people may be the solution to reestablishing or creating a tighter fabric of support for childrens' development, for building cultural democracy and a democratic state. This paper attempts to create a bridge between education and the construction of sustainable democratic communities in education, as a basis for building a public philosophy. Ultimately, sustainable democratic educational communities may address the concerns of today and tomorrow and build sustainable democratic communities in the larger global society.     

技术创新网络结构演变模型:基于网络嵌入性视角的分析

技术创新网络是当代技术创新过程组织的主要形式.技术创新网络结构随着外部创新企业的加入、网络内部企业间关系的增加和内部企业间关系的重新生成而发生演变.本文从网络嵌入性的测度出发,考察了技术创新网络的结构变化,导出网络企业合作关系数目变化的微分方程,引入时间刻画,求出了技术创新网络结构特征的演变方程.研究表明：（1）技术创新网络不是缩小而是拉大了企业合作关系数目的差距; （2）技术创新网络结构演变的不均衡性为技术创新提供了更多机会.     

Revitalizing the Public Sphere: The Current System of Discourse and the Need for the Participative Design of Social Action

Public discourse in Western democracies, particularly in the United States, is far from the Habermasian ideal of citizens engaging in a rational discussion of public affairs. Rather than providing an arena for informed deliberation, the growing expertise of the media, lobbyists, and politicians has sub-optimized the current system of discourse to focus on emotional manipulation and the creation of polarized interests, each competing with each other for dominance. Avoiding a potentially disastrous outcome from this unbalancing of public discourse requires a revitalization of the public sphere and a return of the citizen voice in public decision making. To that end, systems thinkers have a tremendous opportunity and can play an important role. This article will explore the current challenges facing public discourse and outline that potential role.     

Designing a Capability-Focused Strategic Management Model for a Turkish Public Hospital: Learning from Failure

This study aims to depict a failed strategic change initiative in a Turkish public hospital by means of an action research and it strives to explain critical factors underpinning the failure, thereby proposing how such factors should be tackled with for similar initiatives elsewhere. The study calls attention to the recent challenges ongoing in the environment of hospitals, which urge them to take on a more strategic focus. In this vein, we discredit accreditation based systems, which emphasize monitoring resources and propose a capability-focused strategic management model for hospitals. A hybrid action research protocol, which combines both traditional and participatory action research methodologies in its design, is employed to formulate and implement the model in a public hospital. The phases of the project and obstacles faced during these phases are discussed. The findings suggest that although the model offers significant potential for competitive success and better resource efficiency, path-dependent characteristics of the public sector governance in Turkey have impeded the adoption of the model in our case. Both macro-systemic characteristics related mainly to the Turkish national culture and management of public institutions and situation-specific characteristics, such as top management’s decision making orientation, professional norms and patronage relationships have blocked the way for the aspired transformation despite positive attitudes of and support from higher order public authorities and internal professional groups.     

Multicriteria Analysis of a Capacity Expansion Problem:Damaturu, Northeastern Nigeria as Case Study

1IntroductionThedecisionmakingprocessinWaterResourcesPlanningandMallagement(WRPM)isapublicplanningprocessandtheoptimumsolutionmustbeacceptedbydecisionmakerswhoinawayrepresentthegeneralPublic(Miloradov,M.etal.,1990).WRPMwithinaMulticriteriaAnalysis(MA)isacomplexanddynamoicprocessinwhichtwodecisionlevelsmaybedistinguished.Theupperleveldefinesthegoals,identifiesthecriteriaandchoosesthefinaloptimumsolution.Thesecondlevelistheengineeringlevelofatechnicalnature;itdefinesalternativesandpoin…     

Through the Eye of a Fly: Action Research as a Support for the South African National Literacy Campaign

Globally and across the African continent, the past decade has seen an increase in the commitment to reducing adult illiteracy, inspired among other things by the Education for All (EFA) drive to halve the incidence of illiteracy among adults and youth by 2015. While literacy campaigns were less common during the 1990s, the last decade saw a new impetus for mass adult literacy campaigns as a way of improving national literacy levels. This paper examines the South African endeavour to meet its EFA target through the implementation of the South African Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign, which was launched by the South African government in 2008 with the aim of enliterating 4,7 million adults who had little or no education as a result of the apartheid legacy. The Campaign was deemed successful receiving a number of South African awards for best practice and its work in rural and impoverished communities including the international UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy (UNESCO 2016). This article focuses on how the campaign utilised action-oriented processes, specifically the methods of participatory action research (PAR), to enhance the achievement of its goals. The methods of PAR were embedded in the campaign structure, comprising clusters of communities of practice (COPs) which provided fora for educators to voice and address challenges. Moreover, since the Campaign was implemented in post-apartheid South Africa, the article shows how the Campaign operations were guided by the ethos of ubuntu as necessary for redress and empowerment.     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">An Engineering View for Social Systems: Agency as an Operational Principle for Designing Higher Education Access Policies</Emphasis>

Access to higher education (HE) has been a persistent concern for governments, practitioners and researchers. Access to HE has been widely studied from scientific perspectives that have focussed on the factors that contribute to the problem; however, authors have highlighted the need for systemic and design perspectives on education systems. The need to connect research with policy remains one of the most challenging issues for education researchers. In view of this gap, this paper argues that engineering thinking and methods represent an opportunity for the design of HE access policies because engineering rationality (distinct from scientific rationalities) matches the concerns and goals of any policymaking attempt. Engineers design artefacts to meet particular goals. These artefacts are artificial systems, tangible or intangible, such as hammers, bridges or whole organizations, which are designed in particular contexts to meet precise goals. Policies for access to HE are good examples of artefacts that seek to fulfil specific needs under concrete constraints inherent to a country or region. More specifically, HE systems are social systems; in other words, they are created and recreated by the interactions and decisions of diverse actors. Hence, to change, redesign or improve such types of systems involves engineering their very interactions that are the outcomes of institutional and human actions. In particular, engineering design requires operational principles. Thus, we propose agency as a fundamental design concept for the improvement of HE systems, which opens new possibilities for a distinct type of policy-making that takes excellent advantage of what engineering can offer, while at the same time expanding on traditional expectations for engineering.