Intersections of Critical Systems Thinking and Community Based Participatory Research: A Learning Organization Example with the Autistic Community

Critical systems thinking (CST) and community based participatory research (CBPR) are distinct approaches to inquiry which share a primary commitment to holism and human emancipation, as well as common grounding in critical theory and emancipatory and pragmatic philosophy. This paper explores their intersections and complements on a historical, philosophical, and theoretical level, and then proposes a hybrid approach achieved by applying CBPR’s principles and considerations for operationalizing emancipatory practice to traditional systems thinking frameworks and practices. This hybrid approach is illustrated in practice with examples drawn from of the implementation of the learning organization model in an action research setting with the Autistic community. Our experience of being able to actively attend to, and continuously equalize, power relations within an organizational framework that otherwise has great potential for reinforcing power inequity suggests CBPR’s principles and considerations for operationalizing emancipatory practice could be useful in CST settings, and CST’s vocabulary, methods, and clarity around systems thinking concepts could be valuable to CBPR practitioners.     

From Cybernetics and VSD to Management and Action

This paper uses Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Diagnosis (VSD) to suggest that the development of a model for actionable theory in organizations would take the form of a three-step process. The first step involves the definition and explanation of an appropriate theory base, the second theory interpretation into a coherent set of action principles and the third contextual action in organizations. We contend that even for a well-informed and widely read manager gleaning the theoretical basis for this process from the recognized Beer trilogy “Brain of the Firm,” “The Heart of the Enterprise” and “Diagnosing the System” is difficult to justify in terms of time, understanding, and action. We maintain that a sound set of action principles emanating from Beer's primary work must be considered before tackling the noted trilogy. We use Beer's initial text “Cybernetics and Management” to trace some fundamental operational research and the interdisciplinary tripartite science of cybernetics. We commence our action model process with some introductory thoughts into operational research, cybernetics, VSD, and contextual action. Our first step toward action involves some primary definitions and principles of cybernetic theory and the prospect of controlling overwhelming variety. Our second step provides our set of coherent potential action principles fundamental to cybernetic theory. The paper is written in a journalistic rather than academic style reflecting the need to couch the interpretation of the theory in a language that the well-informed manager may readily translate into third step contextual practice.     

Continuous Communication Control Disruptors During Systems Development

This paper presents an open-ended, exploratory study of formal and informal communication and control subprocesses during information systems development (ISD) over an extended period in a large bureaucracy. Using a participant action research strategy, the case study explores the continuous unintended disruptions and barriers to the effective implementation of the ISD project and suggests major variables associated with them. Based on an inductive analysis of the data, the authors suggest some tentatively hypothesized action stages for future research and a broad conceptual model incorporating the process variables. Implications for MIS research, management, and MIS professionals are discussed.     

Action Learning as a Mindset—The Evolution of PICCO

This paper investigates action learning as a maintenance of mindset. It is an account of a personal evolution from a 4-year work in progress Action Research (AR) study exploring organizational viability. That study, involving two separate organizations and four cycles of AR, has seen the researcher and to some extent the organizations develop action-learning mindsets. The paper is an attempt to step outside the study and its associated learning from an organizational perspective and to link the threads of learning from the mindset of an action researcher. The paper suggests that adopting the mindset of an action researcher favors the transfer of learning from one organizational situation to another. Advocating that action researchers do not restart their initial methodologies, it is contended that the second organization has gained advantage of learning from the first. It is concluded that action learning mindsets articulate cumulative wisdom from organizational and methodological perspectives.     

Transforming Self and Society: A "Critical Appreciation" Model

This paper sets out to uncover some relationships between reflection, discourse and action. By challenging and synthesizing some polemical arguments concerning the creation, maintenance, and transformation of self and society, a model of self-society dynamics that operates through reflection, discourse, and action is developed. The model of self-society dynamics brings together aspects of self-reflection and ideology-critique (explored in the paper), which it is suggested are required for any intervention (transformative action) to be grounded in locally meaningful ways. By creating a dialog community in which self- and group assumptions can be subjected to validation through discourse, it is proposed that a dynamic balance between individual needs and broader societal aims may be achieved. If individuals can be open to such discourse (i.e., they can become critically self-reflective), then it is argued that possibilities for achieving sustainable change will be significantly enhanced.     

交易成本与纯交换经济的竞争均衡

研究一个纯交换经济 ,并假定经济中的经济人相互进行商品交易时 ,需要耗费一定量的交易成本 ,因此某些商品的交易市场可能会因为交易成本过高而导致市场关闭 ,这与经典的一般均衡理论中要求市场的完备性形成明显的区别 .文章建立了这样一类纯交换经济的一般均衡模型 ,并在几乎是常规的假设下证明了竞争均衡的存在性 ,这一均衡配置还是有效率的.     

目标时序关系的形式定义和建模算法

多数目标建模方法关注于不同层次的目标关系.针对同一层次上的目标之间的时序关系,给出与目标建模相关的若干形式定义和命题,帮助分析人员判断目标间时序关系、并发及死锁.基于时序关系的传递性,给出目标关系建模的传递闭包算法,帮助分析人员直观地判断目标间的时序关系及其存在问题,科学、合理地标记各个目标的时序等级属性,便于目标精化工作的完成.     

Learning by Action Research: A Policy for School Development

In this article I define a project organization as action research. Thus defined, the approach presents a method for experiential learning among educators who develop as learners in an educational setting. Second, the approach describes a method for focusing on research related to change in classroom didactics brought about by the mediating instruments educators discover and use so as to overcome their own learning anxiety. Third, action research and academic investigation are described as a method for integrating theory with practice. Finally, action research is outlined as an effort for social justice—the way knowledge usually develops by social construction.     

孕灾环境本体构建中的基础逻辑关系研究

应急决策的目的是处理灾害后果, 突发事件的孕灾环境直接影响着灾害后果. 基于本体的孕灾环境形式化建模对于应急决策起到了辅助作用. 当前OWL语言中的基础关系is-a, 在描述孕灾环境中存在一些不足. 本文针对这些不足,提出三种总分关系作为基础关系, 这三种基础关系既可以有效地描述孕灾系统中要素间的整体部分关系, 又可以描述要素之间的相对位置关系. 基于三种基础关系, 本文提出构建孕灾环境本体模型的方法, 并以吉林石化水污染事件为例, 构建了一个元模型. 推理能力是本体方法的优势, 在文章的最后以实例比较了基于三个基础关系复合推理和描述逻辑的相关推理方法, 发现了复合关系推理的优势.     

The Action Research Paradigm: An Alternative Approach in Negotiation

The action research model has been widely used by practitioners in many social science fields as a practical problem-solving method. Unique to the action research paradigm is that it allows research and practice to coexist and cowork simultaneously in problem solving. Due to increasingly complex relationships between governments, organizations, groups, and individuals, scholars and practitioners of negotiation are mandated to address and resolve different types of disputes by using various negotiation models and techniques to thoroughly understand and study the underlying foundations of these conflicts. This paper attempts to investigate the potential applications of the action research model as an appropriate tool for the negotiation as a process of dispute settlement.     

Current Debates in Action Research

Some of the academic debates pertaining to action research have been identified and specified in this paper. These have been traced through the history of development of alternative (action-oriented) research thinking in a number of research areas, namely, the study of human relations, social and organizational studies, educational change, policy studies, psychology, geography, and physics. A number of prevailing approaches to what is generally referred to as action research have been described in a variety of application domains to identify the present home of the current debates in action research as well as the participants in these debates. This excursion has yielded a number of insights pertaining to the problems that constitute the core of the current debates in action research. Some of the proposed solutions available in these debates have been critically examined. A number of open issues have been identified. A speculative section relates the possible futures of action research to possible ways of dealing with these open issues.     

水资源持续利用的多目标分析方法

随着可持续发展战略的发展 ,水资源持续利用成为水资源学科的重要研究领域 .本文在分析水资源持续利用追求的目标和这些目标的基本构造及其在整个持续利用过程中的基本特性和水资源持续利用的支持条件与协调关系的约束表示的基础上 ,建立了水资源持续利用的多目标决策模型 .它为理解水资源持续利用提供了形式化模型 .为了在非劣解集上作进一步的选择 ,本文还分析了目标之间的替代权衡关系的特性和由这种关系表示出的显示决策者偏好的规律性.     

In Search of Resonance

In this paper I explore the possibility of a complementary relationship between action research and the management and systems sciences. A range of purposes that action researchers and management and systems scientists pursue is initially set out. The paper then explores whether this diversity of purposes and the ways they recommend people to proceed may come together in a new whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. A potentially useful realization of this for practice is a reflexive process of critique, choice, and action, which is elaborated on. The paper then investigates what view of holism arises from the preceeding discussions.     

Action Research and the Management and Systems Sciences

In this paper I explore the possibility of a complementary relationship between action research and the management and systems sciences. A range of purposes that action researchers and management and systems scientists pursue is initially set out. The paper then explores whether this diversity of purposes and the ways they recommend people to proceed may come together in a new whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. A potentially useful realization of this for practice is a reflexive process of critique, choice, and action, which is elaborated on. The paper then investigates what view of holism arises from the preceeding discussions.     

城市道路网的可靠性仿真

首先就城市道路网可靠性的定义、影响因素和研究重点进行了措施，然后据此建立起了基于出行时长的路网可靠性模型，通过对该模型进行仿真计算，从而为城市交通的信息化管理提供了可靠依据。最后对需要更进一步进行研究的方向提出了建议。     

基于拟生灭过程的随机支付2×2双矩阵博弈演化模型

引入分位数定义了随机支付值的偏好,并在此偏好的基础上定义带随机支付双矩阵博弈的纳什均衡.建立了有限种群进行带随机支付2×2双矩阵博弈的演化博弈模型,应用有限状态空间的拟生灭过程刻画了在有随机扰动的博弈环境中有限理性个体的学习调整动态,描述了理性演化的不确定性过程,讨论了拟生灭过程的平稳分布与演化模型的长期均衡以及博弈的纳什均衡之间的关系.最后,基于分块矩阵的Guass消去法给出求解模型稳态分布的数值算法,并通过数值实例对演化博弈模型均衡解的实现进行了说明.     

软件可靠性模型及其参数估值技术

软件产品的可靠性评估主要取决于软件可靠性模型及其参数估值技术。本文探讨了六种软件可靠性增长模型的内在关系,提出了一个统一的软件可靠性增长模型,并从数理统计角度介绍了两种可靠性模型参数估值方法:最大似然估值法和最小均方误差估值法。最后,通过实例说明了软件可靠性模型及其参数估值技术在软件产品的可靠性评估方面的具体应用。     

Building in Dialogue Between Consumers and Staff in Acute Mental Health Services

This paper describes some aspects of the methodology, material, and findings from a lengthy participatory action research engagement by a consumer organization in Australia, which was undertaken in collaboration with staff at a major public psychiatric hospital and then went on to involve players throughout the local and national mental health services system. A small first phase established a dialogic methodology for the exchange of experiences and thinking between staff and consumers. The purpose of the second phase of the research was to explore how consumers' voices might be heard, and how staff–consumer communication about that feedback, might be built in to ongoing organizational structure and culture. Systems thinking about defensive routines, silences, and voice-as-discourse is reported as offering a possible way of cracking the puzzle of the closed-loop cycle of claim/ blame-defense-and-counter-claim/blame-defense that has been characteristic to date.     

Petri网的公平性及分析

公平性是反映了在资源竞争时Petri网模型系统中行为的无饥饿性。公平关系分为三个层次,即公平关系、弱公平关系和广义公平关系,并衍生出亚公平关系和准公平关系;对应的系统网模型包括公平网、弱公平网,亚公平网等。同时相对公平网严格要求,系统的Petri网模型存在分组公平和局部公平,反映了网系统局部行为的公平关系。在Petri网模型简化和子网合成时的公平性保性,反映简化和合成后资源共享的保持特性。综述了以上公平性及判定方法,介绍公平性在系统中的应用,并给出公平性的细化定义和同步距离的关系,展望了Petri网公平性在连续系统与离散事件系统中的未来研究方向和应用难点,对公平关系今后的研究具有一定的指导意义。