Team 3: Exploring the relationship of systems research to systems literacy

In this paper, the Systems Research Team (SRT) details the activities and outcomes of the 2016 IFSR Conversation in Linz, Austria. The 2016 SRT includes: Mary Edson (team leader), Pam Buckle Henning, Tim Ferris, Andreas Hieronymi, Ray Ison, Gary Metcalf, George Mobus, Nam Nguyen, David Rousseau, and Shankar Sankaran, with guest team member, Peter Tuddenham, anchoring the endeavor in Systems Literacy. While the 2014 SRT’s focus was answering the question, “What distinguishes Systems Research from other types of research?” an internal focus intended to provide grounding for researchers new to the Systems Sciences, the 2016 SRT’s focus is on reaching out to a broader community in order to provide a foundation for Systems Literacy. The team’s Conversation revolved around the question, “How can Systems Research be in service to Systems Literacy?” The team’s discussions were directed into two essential aspects, separate and integrated, of this question. First, Systems Research serves Systems Literacy by providing a credible foundation for the principles and practices of Systems Science and Systems Thinking in both systematic and systemic modes. Second, Systems Research provides a neutral frame for development of ethical applications of those principles and practices. The SRT recognizes the exigency in providing foundational principles that can be effectively adopted and disseminated through Systems Literacy. The team’s narrative begins with an understanding the urgency for application of Systems Sciences and Systems Thinking to critical issues. Systems research, as with other types of research, is typically a slow generation of results; however, the body of knowledge gained through this process can be confidently used to address complexity in timely ways. The criticality of the need for salient approaches to complexity is shown in a graphic representation of some possible trajectories of applying or not applying these Systems principles in practice. The choice of how we respond to these issues relates to a process model that can be applied. Through understanding the relationship of the process model to the trajectory, the team directed its focus to developing a MindMap (Eppler, 2006) of eight essential aspects or features of how Systems Research can support Systems Literacy. These include: Systems Science knowledge base, roles and personas, maturity models, role profile, ontology/vocabulary, perspective/framing choice, frameworks, and political ecology. Each of these eight has its own process of unpacking, which was demonstrated to the Conversation participants by delving more deeply into the aspect of knowledge base. The eight relate to unpacking the Systems landscape in a coherent but loosely coupled investment portfolio (economic, social, and relational) for building systemic sensibility in such a way as to be dis/aggregated for different audiences. The week’s work culminated in a plan for “Looking Ahead,” which outlines the intentions of the SRT to continue its activities in support of Systems Literacy in the upcoming months. An example of this continued work is a workshop, “Toward Systems Literacy, the Role of Systems Research,” that was conducted at the 60th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in Boulder, July 25, 2016

Representation and duality of the untyped lambda-calculus in nominal lattice and topological semantics, with a proof of topological completeness

We give a semantics for the lambda-calculus based on a topological duality theorem in nominal sets. A novel interpretation of lambda is given in terms of adjoints, and lambda-terms are interpreted absolutely as sets (no valuation is necessary)

Semantics out of context: nominal absolute denotations for first-order logic and computation

Call a semantics for a language with variables absolute when variables map to fixed entities in the denotation. That is, a semantics is absolute when the denotation of a variable a is a copy of itself in the denotation. We give a trio of lattice-based, sets-based, and algebraic absolute semantics to first-order logic. Possibly open predicates are directly interpreted as lattice elements / sets / algebra elements, subject to suitable interpretations of the connectives and quantifiers. In particular, universal quantification "forall a.phi" is interpreted using a new notion of "fresh-finite" limit and using a novel dual to substitution. The interest of this semantics is partly in the non-trivial and beautiful technical details, which also offer certain advantages over existing semantics---but also the fact that such semantics exist at all suggests a new way of looking at variables and the foundations of logic and computation, which may be well-suited to the demands of modern computer science

Perceptions of research

The term 'research' is rarely questioned. It is a term whose meaning seems to be implicitly understood. Certainly there is an institutional bureaucracy which supports 'research', and academic staff are rewarded for their strength in 'research'. But what is this research? It is likely that there are multiple understandings of 'research', but unless this diversity of understanding is recognised, it is difficult to have meaningful dialogue about it

What does it take for organizations to change themselves? The influences on the internal dynamics of organizational routines undergoing planned change

Accomplishing desired benefits from investments in planned change is problematical for organizations, their leaders and the change agents charged with delivery. This is despite a well-developed literature, replete with advice on how change should be achieved. Examination of this literature shows the primary focus on change agents and their practices. This research widens the focus by observing the influence of change agents, change recipients and line managers on organizational routines undergoing planned change. It examines the interplay between stability and change in organizational routines, adopting a social practice perspective, and the routine intended to change as the unit of analysis (Feldman and Pentland, 2003, 2005). The research builds on claims that to understand the patterns of action within routines requires the internal dynamics – the claimed duality between ostensive (in principle) and performative (in practice) aspects - to be examined. A research method to operationalize the study of this claimed duality was devised following the principles of Strong Structuration (Stones, 2005). This method enabled a unique conceptualization of the study of routine dynamics, focused on planned change from the perspective of multiple, interdependent actors. Two cases of change agents following the advice in the planned change literature were explored. In one case, stability of the routine persisted when change was intended. In the other, change was relatively easy to achieve irrespective of change agent actions. The primary contribution is the demonstration of how the attitudes to change of change recipients, line managers and change agents influence the internal dynamics of routines undergoing planned change. Other contributions pertain to the method of ‘unpacking’ organizational routines and its potential for shaping future practice. This research does not offer new ‘normative’ advice but instead sensitizes planned change practitioners to the level of analysis they need to carry out to ensure that their interventions are suitably designed

The generative routine dynamics of internship/work placements : an exploration of process dynamics facilitating knowledge creating

The role of knowledge in organisations has tended to be considered in the context of its transfer and to a lesser extent its creation. The university-industry relationship is predominantly relied on as an appropriate context for these discussions. However little by way of scholarly attention has focused on the concept of 'knowledge creating' per se or addresses the research question "how can organisational processes facilitate knowledge creating over time?" This research introduces and explores the concept of 'knowledge creating' within an often ignored and under researched theory-practice context - the internship/work placement. Routines theory, and its generative claim, is relied on here to address the processual attribute associated with 'knowledge creating'. Dialogicality has also been identified as an attribute of 'knowledge creating'. This is understood as a sensitivity to otherness that leads to social interaction within dialogical exchanges. Consequently, the objective of this study becomes a question of unpacking process dynamics or generative routine dynamics by using a dialogical theory for knowledge creation. Dialogical exchanges that facilitate continuous articulations and productive relational engagement are assessed with dynamic aspects of routines. By combining routines theory with dialogicality a novel and robust conceptual lens guiding data collection and analysis is provided. Data was collected over four separate internship/placement cycles in Ireland's largest business school during the financial crisis from 2008 to 2014. A plurality of methods was employed for data collection; which included over 60 interviews, 18 hours of direct observation, and 50 separated documentary artifacts. Combined these minimise fragmented descriptions of the internship/placement, while highlighting novel processual dynamics that have previously been overlooked in empirical routines research. The empirical findings highlight three interlinked dualities which contribute to a nuanced understanding of generative routine dynamics; the presence/absence duality; the centrality/peripherality duality and the evaluating/quality duality. When combined these dualities reveal how dialogical exchanges can lead to continuous articulations, which in turn become productive when resulting in action. From this we gain an insight in what we understand as knowledge creating.The role of knowledge in organisations has tended to be considered in the context of its transfer and to a lesser extent its creation. The university-industry relationship is predominantly relied on as an appropriate context for these discussions. However little by way of scholarly attention has focused on the concept of 'knowledge creating' per se or addresses the research question "how can organisational processes facilitate knowledge creating over time?" This research introduces and explores the concept of 'knowledge creating' within an often ignored and under researched theory-practice context - the internship/work placement. Routines theory, and its generative claim, is relied on here to address the processual attribute associated with 'knowledge creating'. Dialogicality has also been identified as an attribute of 'knowledge creating'. This is understood as a sensitivity to otherness that leads to social interaction within dialogical exchanges. Consequently, the objective of this study becomes a question of unpacking process dynamics or generative routine dynamics by using a dialogical theory for knowledge creation. Dialogical exchanges that facilitate continuous articulations and productive relational engagement are assessed with dynamic aspects of routines. By combining routines theory with dialogicality a novel and robust conceptual lens guiding data collection and analysis is provided. Data was collected over four separate internship/placement cycles in Ireland's largest business school during the financial crisis from 2008 to 2014. A plurality of methods was employed for data collection; which included over 60 interviews, 18 hours of direct observation, and 50 separated documentary artifacts. Combined these minimise fragmented descriptions of the internship/placement, while highlighting novel processual dynamics that have previously been overlooked in empirical routines research. The empirical findings highlight three interlinked dualities which contribute to a nuanced understanding of generative routine dynamics; the presence/absence duality; the centrality/peripherality duality and the evaluating/quality duality. When combined these dualities reveal how dialogical exchanges can lead to continuous articulations, which in turn become productive when resulting in action. From this we gain an insight in what we understand as knowledge creating

Ambidexterity as practice : individual ambidexterity through paradoxical practices

Following the turn to practice in organization theory and the emerging interest in the microfoundations of ambidexterity, understanding the role of individuals in realizing ambidexterity approaches becomes crucial. Drawing insights from Greek philosophy on paradoxes, and practice theory on paradoxes and ambidexterity, we propose a view of individual ambidexterity grounded in paradoxical practices. Existing conceptualizations of ambidexterity are largely based on separation strategies. Contrary to this perspective, we argue that individual ambidexterity can be accomplished via paradoxical practices that renegotiate or transcend boundaries of exploration and exploitation. We identify three such paradoxical practices at the individual level that can advance understanding of ambidexterity: engaging in “hybrid tasks,” capitalizing cumulatively on previous learning, and adopting a mindset of seeking synergies between the competing demands of exploration and exploitation

Stone-Type Dualities for Separation Logics

Stone-type duality theorems, which relate algebraic and relational/topological models, are important tools in logic because -- in addition to elegant abstraction -- they strengthen soundness and completeness to a categorical equivalence, yielding a framework through which both algebraic and topological methods can be brought to bear on a logic. We give a systematic treatment of Stone-type duality for the structures that interpret bunched logics, starting with the weakest systems, recovering the familiar BI and Boolean BI (BBI), and extending to both classical and intuitionistic Separation Logic. We demonstrate the uniformity and modularity of this analysis by additionally capturing the bunched logics obtained by extending BI and BBI with modalities and multiplicative connectives corresponding to disjunction, negation and falsum. This includes the logic of separating modalities (LSM), De Morgan BI (DMBI), Classical BI (CBI), and the sub-classical family of logics extending Bi-intuitionistic (B)BI (Bi(B)BI). We additionally obtain as corollaries soundness and completeness theorems for the specific Kripke-style models of these logics as presented in the literature: for DMBI, the sub-classical logics extending BiBI and a new bunched logic, Concurrent Kleene BI (connecting our work to Concurrent Separation Logic), this is the first time soundness and completeness theorems have been proved. We thus obtain a comprehensive semantic account of the multiplicative variants of all standard propositional connectives in the bunched logic setting. This approach synthesises a variety of techniques from modal, substructural and categorical logic and contextualizes the "resource semantics" interpretation underpinning Separation Logic amongst them