Interaction Mechanisms and the Performance of Production Enterprises as Social Systems: The Truth of The Human Spirit

Abstract

This contribution goes beyond viewing a system as a black box receiving inputs and producing well defined outputs to an external environment. Its purpose is to explain the complementarity between first and second order cybernetics as well as of economic and sustainable performance. It discusses a black box using the notion of eigenform as developed by Heinz von Foerster (2003) wherein a performing object is understood changing overtime with apparent stability. It contemplates the concepts of structural and linguistic recursions and highlights the values of second-order and ontological cybernetics. The outputs of a black box are fed back to its inputs, possibly in real time, in order to manage its performance towards the often-economic requirements of the system’s external environment, but showing signs of change and adaptation. The transformations the social systems perform are adaptive and change over time, making them non-trivial machines. Beyond producing technological transformations, the complexity of social systems emerges from the operational, moment-to-moment- interactions of its participants. Their outcomes are produced by changes in structure and ethical values, necessary for social sustainability and improved (policy) performance. These changes produce adjustments to the system’s outcomes which are the observer driven mechanism of second-order cybernetics.