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Announcement | Luhmann Conference Programme 2025
The preliminary version of the programme for the Luhmann Conference 2025 at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, is available for download here.
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Release | Purpose and Organisation Studies: On the Limits to Organisational Repurposing
Abstract: The repurposing agenda has become a dominant narrative in contemporary organisation studies, urging firms, universities and public institutions to align their operations with global challenges such as climate change, inequality, and democratic decay. While often framed as an ethical imperative, this article questions the implicit assumption that organisational purpose can and should be expanded…
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Release | Big data insights into social macro trends: Expanding the horizon (1800-2018)
Abstract: This article examines how big data can inform and challenge established theories and future visions of society. Utilising the most recent version of the arguably largest free online corpus, the Google Books corpus (version 20200217), we replicate and enhance Roth et al.’s (2019a) systems-theoretical methodology for analysing macro social trends. Thus extending the sample…
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Inaugural Editorial | Cybernetics and systems Kybernetes theories for the 21st century. Introducing the new aims and scope of Kybernetes
For more than five decades, Kybernetes has provided a scholarly home for pioneering research incybernetics and systems thinking. As the newly appointed co-editors-in-chief, we are honouredto contribute to the legacy of this journal and guide it into a new phase of development. In thiseditorial, we present our renewed vision for Kybernetes, clarify its epistemic and…
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Release | Multifunctional organisation. A systems-theoretical concept and its practical implications
Abstract: Purpose: This Theory Transfer and Impact Article addresses a paradox in how organisations are observed and theorised: while governments are assumed to be political, schools educational, and firms economic, these same organisations often act across multiple functional domains—accumulating capital, performing research, or exercising power. The article proposes the concept of the multifunctional organisation to…
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Release | Special issue of Current Sociology on “Guiding distinctions of social theory. Analogue guidelines or digital transformers?”
Special Luhmann Conference 2024 issue of Current Sociology on the theme of “Guiding distinctions of social theory. Analogue guidelines or digital transformers?” Click here for the issue as published on the Current Sociology website. Contributions: Editorial: Steffen Roth, Steve Watson, Harry Dahms, and Arthur Atanesyan: Guiding distinctions of social theory. Analogue guidelines or digital transformers?…
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Release | What is in Organisation? Contents of a Self-Contained Container
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to resolve the apparent opposition between the container metaphor of organisation and the idea that organisations are constituted by communication. Drawing on works by Niklas Luhmann, George Spencer Brown, and Louis Kaufman, I develop a dynamic, communicative concept of containment, or “continence”. Using this concept, I demonstrate how…
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Membership | Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
I am honoured to be joining Wolfson College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, as a Visiting Fellow today! See you at Wolfson, for instance for our Niklas Luhmann Reading Group meeting in mid-April.
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Release | Virtual special Issue on “Guiding Distinctions of Management and Organisation Research”
Virtual special Luhmann Conference 2024 issue of Management Revue on the theme of “The Guiding Distinctions of Management and Organisation Research” Introduction Steffen Roth, Lars Clausen, Margit Neisig, and Augusto Sales: Guiding Distinctions of Management and Organisation Research. An Introduction, Management Revue, Vol. 36 No. 1, 39357. Contributions This virtual special issue of Management Revue…
