A Note on Knowledge Creation in Open-Source Software Projects: What Can We Learn from Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems?

We use the sociological systems theory proposed by Niklas Luhmann to complement a socially-oriented view of knowledge with the role of technical infrastructure in knowledge creation. We highlight the self-referential character of knowledge creation and draw upon illustrative examples from open-source software. We discuss why knowledge creation processes are often prone to breakdown and propose three conditions that may stabilize knowledge creation processes: perceptibility, systemic memory, and modularity.     

Social or Individual Learning? An Aggregated Solution for Coordination in Multiagent Systems

There are mainly two different ways of learning for animals and humans: trying on yourself through interactions or imitating/copying others through communication/observation. How these two learning strategies differ and what roles they are playing in achieving coordination among individuals are two challenging problems for researchers from various disciplines. In multiagent systems, most existing work simply focuses on individual learning for achieving coordination among agents. The social learning perspective has been largely neglected. Against this background, this article contributes by proposing an integrated solution to decision making between social learning and individual learning in multiagent systems. Two integration modes have been proposed that enable agents to choose in between these two learning strategies, either in a fixed or in an adaptive manner. Experimental evaluations have shown that these two kinds of leaning strategies have different roles in maintaining efficient coordination among agents. These differences can reveal some significant insights into the manipulation and control of agent behaviors in multiagent systems, and also shed light on understanding the social factors in shaping coordinated behaviors in humans and animals.     

Football,Business, and Government—Can Studies of High-Level Teams Across Disciplines Produce Generic Principles for Systems and Management?

This paper describes work in progress which seeks to establish whether there are sufficient similarities between high-level teams operating in the business, government, and sporting environments to justify further research in these areas. It distinguishes strategic and tactical teams and identifies the characteristics of each within their separate disciplines. The paper concludes that there is indeed worthwhile research to be conducted in this field. Such research would not be confined to mere theory because the three areas investigated are already interconnected in a complex manner best investigated by a systemic approach.