Epistemology and pragmatism in the complex systems analysis

Este artículo presenta una reflexión profunda sobre los aportes y debate actual de la complejidad en la actuación investigativa de las ciencias sociales y humanas. Se centra especialmente en el análisis de sistemas complejos y su proceso de abstracción, construcción y estudio en el campo espacial y socioterritorial. El texto se plantea en dos partes principales contextualizando el pensamiento complejo como base fundamental para el análisis de sistemas y luego se diserta sobre aspectos como la causalidad, estructura, evolución y dimensión. Finalmente se constituye en un diálogo práctico para su ejecución en el abordaje del territorio.This article includes a deep reflection about the contributions and current debate on the complexity in the research action of the social sciences and humanities. It is specially focused in the analysis of complex social systems and the process of abstraction, construction and understanding of the social-territorial and spatial field of study. The text is oriented in two main parts by contextualizing the complex thinking as fundamental base for analyzing the systems and then, it discourses on features like causality, structure, evolution and dimension. Finally, it configures a practical dialogue for its application in the understanding of the territory.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Complex System Governance Leadership

The purpose of this research was to develop a systems theory-based framework for leadership in governance of complex systems. Recognizing complexity and uncertainty as norms for the environments in which organizations exist encouraged researchers to suggest complexity theory, complex systems, and complex adaptive systems as appropriate for addressing these conditions. Complex System Governance (CSG), based in systems theory, management cybernetics, and governance, endeavors to provide for the design, execution and evolution of functions that provide control, communication, coordination, and integration at the metasystem level to support operations and continued system existence (viability). From a management cybernetics perspective, CSG leadership has a role in the design of the metasystem that provides governance functions for a complex system. Similarly, leadership assures the existence of conditions necessary for the requisite metasystem functions to be enabled, executed, and evolved sufficiently for continued system viability. In this research, CSG leadership functions were examined from a system theoretic perspective. An extensive body of leadership literature provides insight into leadership from a number of perspectives including leadership as personal traits, leadership as a set of skills, or leadership as a process or relationship. Systems theory conceptual foundations applied to CSG leadership functions are not represented in this literature thus resulting in a gap. This research contributes to addressing that gap by linking systems theory to leadership functions for CSG. The research was a journey of discovery with no pre-established hypotheses that could be tested using deductive approaches, therefore, an inductive approach supportive of exploring, understanding (gaining insight) and discovery was employed. As the purpose was to develop a systems theory-based framework for leadership in governance of complex systems, theory construction was required. As a recognized methodology to discover theory from data, Grounded Theory was chosen as the research methodology. The framework that resulted from this research presents a novel contribution to CSG leadership that is grounded in systems theory and management cybernetics. It also provides practitioners the opportunity to develop novel approaches for facilitating anticipation, identification, and remediation of leadership issues

Competência comunicativa.

The publication of these collections aims to show in an organized way the results of 10 years of research for a critical theorization of information, based on the Theory of Communicative Acting by Jürgen Habermas, investigating and discussing its applications, mainly in the administration of complex organizations such as research institutes , universities and hospitals. It is expected to contribute to the management of organizations, particularly with regard to process improvement and innovation. This work is part of the activities developed as a researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology - IBICT since April 2009. The investigation is based on the assumption that organizations are constituted and function by reducing the complexity of social relations, particularly with regard to the reduction of communication dynamics, in combination with the strategic rationalization of their processes. One of the privileged ways of reducing the complexity of communication is through the structuring of information flows, which reduces communication to the perspective of the external observer. The reduction of complexity may be suitable for organizations and simple production processes. Structured information flows work for the repetition of functions, as in operational procedures. However, they appear to be insufficient and inadequate for improving processes and technological innovations in complex organizations. More complex organizations need a great deal of autonomy from their workers and their users actively participate in the production processes. This is particularly relevant in organizations focused on the production and intensive use of knowledge and technologies. In these cases, it seems necessary to expand the complex dynamics of organizations, in order to strengthen solidarity and collaboration. It is from these assumptions that process improvements and innovation are investigated, analyzed and discussed, relating them to the dynamics of information and communication. The Theory of Communicative Action opens up ethical and political possibilities to go beyond the reproduction of the hegemonic forms of the capitalist economy, constituting ethical and political processes in which the subjects stand out, gain autonomy and can collaborate. It is expected to contribute to a better critical understanding of the new information and communication paradigms, particularly in the context of complex organizations, contextualizing it in the process of building a welfare society. At the same time, a better understanding of process improvement and innovation can contribute to maximize substantive results in efforts to reduce social and economic inequalities in the country and to promote social well-being.      This work shows that the change of perspective from the philosophy of consciousness to the philosophy of language, especially with the use of Habermas' Theories of Communicative Action and Discourse, constitutes a powerful tool for criticizing information work and information management. in organizations. The abandonment of the functionalist and instrumental view can be compensated for by a reconstruction of modes of action in organizational contexts from the resources of the worlds of the life of its participants, which are broader and more complex than the view of the non-participating observer and the non-participating participant. critical. The critical discursive approach can contribute to an expanded rational approach for organizations. The first big question about the use of the Theory of Communicative Acting is exactly the real possibility of this rational communicative approach within organizations. It is worth remembering that in communicative action in a weak sense, mutual understanding only means that the listener understands the content of the declaration of intention or request and does not doubt its seriousness. The basis of effective mutual understanding for the coordination of action is the acceptance of the claim of veracity raised for the declaration of intention or request, a claim authenticated by the recognizable rationality of a decision. Discourse and argumentation are like islands threatened to be submerged by the waves in the ocean of a practice where the model of consensual solution to conflicts of action is by no means dominant. The means of mutual understanding never cease to be displaced by the instruments of violence. Thus, the action that is guided by ethical principles has to deal with the imperatives resulting from strategic impositions. It is in this kind of restrictions on discourse that the power of history comes to bear in the face of the transcendent pretensions and interests of reason. Another relevant question seems to be how the participants in an interaction can coordinate their action plans, avoiding conflicts and the risk of a break in the interaction. In action oriented towards success, the coordination of the actions of subjects that relate depends on the way in which the earnings calculations are made