The Future of Systems is in the Past: From the Laws of Form to System Storytelling

tl;dr: Form theory as hardware enables systems research to tell formalized system narratives by (1) formalizing systems and their working as well as (2) enable understanding of systems.

The initial promise of systems research, providing a unique conceptual lens for addressing complex real-world problems, is probably more in demand in our age than ever before. Messy and intertwined problems like climate change mitigation and adaptation, managing the digital transformation of economy and society, as well as finding a new global governance framework in a time of resurgent nationalism and authoritarianism, defy classical predict-and-control approaches in the fields of economics or political sciences.

Read more

Management’s undecidable questions and its trivial answers?

After participating in this year’s Academy of Management Annual Meeting in San Antonio, the planet’s largest professional body of management scholars, I gained some puzzling insights to the profound problems of the field. Of course this is mainly due to my distorted worldview I inherit from Heinz von Foerster, Francisco Varela and Niklas Luhmann. However it might be just as valid as any other, and maybe even more so as it stems from a kind of reasoning that embraces paradox rather than run away from it.… Read more