BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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SYSTEMS (Co-operative) 2)4)

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M. JACKSON comments on the co-operative system model introduced (in business management) by C. BARNARD as early as 1938 (2000, p. 108)

Basically, cooperative systems appear when groups of individuals share common goals and are simultaneously submitted to similar constraints. They quickly find out that by sharing resources and harmonizing behaviors it becomes possible to attain their goals more easily and more economically.

"Sharing" and "harmonizing" imply the need and the shaping of differenciated structures and functions and, of course, of a general coordinator and regulator of the subsystems activities as related to the basic goal of the system (which is survival in the most efficient way).

Jackson writes: "Barnard believed his thinking was relevant to all forms and types of organization. His aim was to discover features common to executive functions in all organizations". Obviously, these basic executive functions are precisely coordination and regulation. But the previous and indispensable condition is a sound understanding of the general nature and order of the co-operative systems.

It is useful to note that these functions exist also in a much less specific way in animal and specially insects societies and are now also emerging in robots endowed with reciprocal capacities of communication.

→ Artificial life; Communication; Control; Decision making; Herd effects; Living systems; Management; Robots (Social); Swarm intelligence

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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