Release | Market therapy? On intervention in the consociation with non-members

Abstract: While the majority of market interventions is concerned with market interventions that are good for particular market participants, this article is interested in interventions that are good for markets. We draw on observations of historical markets as presented by Hamilton Grierson and Max Weber to rediscover markets as forms of communication that systematically transcend […]

New editorial team @Kybernetes

I have recently joined the editorial board of Kybernetes, the official journal of the UNESCO recognized World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC) and The Cybernetics Society, as an Associate Editor. Published by Emerald, the journal is C/ABS-listed and indexed in Scopus as well as in the Thomson Reuters SCI (.637). I kindly invite submissions navigating the interface of social theory and ICT research and, needless […]

Release | Growth strategies for post-growth societies

Abstract: A sharp problem focus sharpens the problem. Sustainably ongrowing bodies of text on degrowth are not the key to post-growth scenarios because evocations of the limits of growth reinforce rather than transcend the economic principle, which is in the observation of scarcity. We therefore focus on alternative forms of growth rather than alternatives to […]

Organizational Behaviour and Theory Track @ASB Conference 2016 in Halifax

Organizational Behaviour and Theory Track @Atlantic Schools of Business Conference 2016 in Halifax, October 21-13, 2016 The Organizational Behaviour and Theory track of ASB is sympathetic to papers that explore the relationship between the behaviour of people in organizations and individual, group and organizational outcomes. It welcomes papers that have a predictive capacity or seek to […]

Release | An Updated Google Ngram View of Trends in Functional Differentiation (1800-2000)

Abstract: Using the updated Google Book corpus dataset generated in July 2012, we analyze the largest available corpus of digitalized books to review social macro trends such as the secularization, politicization, economization, and mediatization of society. These familiar trend statements are tested through a comparative analysis of word frequency time-series plots for the English, French, […]

Release | Trends in functional differentiation

Trends in functional differentiation | Special Issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Vol. 22 No. 4. Guest Editor: Steffen Roth, ESC Rennes School of Business, France Table of content Steffen Roth: Foreword: Trends in Functional Differentiation Articles Steffen Roth and Anton Schütz: Ten Systems: Toward a Canon of Function Systems There is no description of modernity […]

Change is the Only Constant

Originally posted on Organization as Communication:
In organizational studies, we frequently say that change is the only constant. I don’t really know who said this to begin with, and it really doesn’t matter, but change really is the only constant, not least because any communication event or episode is new another next first time (Garfinkel,…

Release | Ten systems. Toward a canon of function systems

Roth, S. and Schütz, A. (2015), Ten systems. Toward a canon of function systems, Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 11-31. Article available for download here. Abstract: There is no description of modernity without functional differentiation. The distinction of function systems such as economy, science, art, or religion, is a key to modernity. Modern science, […]