Law Of Requisite Variety Research Articles

Polysubjectivity as a Factor of Social Development in the Context of Dialogization and Differentiation of Center–Region Relations in the Federal State

The article explores the phenomenon of polysubjectivity as a factor of social development from the perspective of post-non-classical scientific methodology. The author proposes conceptualizing polysubjectivity (multiple subjectivity) as a category describing the multifaceted nature, diversity, and dynamics of the social environment. This environment is formed through the dialogue of managed subjects who are bearers of diverse value-goal structures, possess certain resources, and are interconnected with other subjects of social action. Attention is drawn to the dual nature of poly-subjectivity. On one hand, it is viewed as the subjectivity of multiple individuals and social groups united within a localized social environment, for example, in the context of interactions between government and business, authorities and the population, or the federal center and regions. On the other hand, polysubjectivity is interpreted as the multifaceted and plural subjectivity of an individual. The author draws upon the methodology for analyzing sociocultural modernization of regions (N.I. Lapin), the activity-structural paradigm (A.V. Tikhonov), concepts of mediation and sociocultural dialogue (A.S. Akhiezer, A.P. Davydov), and the subject-oriented approach in social systems management (V.E. Lepskiy). Special attention is given to the role of the polysubjective approach in the context of differentiation among Russian regions and the implementation of their socio-economic development strategies. The article argues that the objective complexity of the Russian Federation's regional composition and the unevenness of modernization necessitate a polysubjective approach to structuring relations between the center and regions. Invoking W.R. Ashby’s law of requisite variety, it is demonstrated that effective management of regional system diversity requires a corresponding diversity of management approaches at the central level. Barriers to the formation of polysubjectivity are analyzed, particularly the absence of genuine dialogue between the center and regions. The conclusion posits that polysubjectivity can serve as a key characteristic of a certain stage in the institutionalization of post-industrial type management and as a form of interaction that ensures an adequate measure of collaboration among representatives of government, business, science, and various communities.

Practicing acroyoga in the space of possibilities: Complexity profile as a heuristic device in sport and exercise research

ABSTRACT This article explores the application of complexity science in sports and exercise research, introducing Ashby’s law of requisite variety, Boisot’s and McKelvey’s law of requisite complexity, and Bar-Yam’s complexity profile. These frameworks emphasize the role of complexity in system functionality and shed light on the delicate balance between complexity and scale. Utilising acroyoga as a novel research context, an interpretivist study was conducted to delve into the activity’s complexity profile, revealing the intricate interplay between fostering creativity and maintaining essential regulations. Examining acroyoga practitioners’ and influencers’ perspectives through the complexity profile underscores the sport’s complexity over scale, offering diverse physical, cognitive, affective, and social benefits. However, the limited emphasis on scaling might confine acroyoga to the fringes, hindering widespread acceptance. This study demonstrates the complexity profile as a heuristic tool, challenging assumptions and encouraging innovative perspectives. Acroyoga serves as a compelling case study, highlighting the complexity-scale balance and paving the way for further exploration and sports-related policy formulation.

Measuring Adaptive Team Coordination in an Enroute Care Training Scenario

Teams must adapt and coordinate in high-stress environments in response to challenging situations. Communication is vital to coordination and can provide insights into effective team adaptation. We analyzed communication speaker data, consisting of a physician, nurse, and respiratory therapist, from a critical care simulation. We analyzed speaker flow data and quantified continuous reorganization of team communication states using entropy, which measures variety, and determinism, which measures repeatability of patterns. Using Ashby’s law of requisite variety, we hypothesized that higher performance would be correlated with greater variety: higher entropy and lower determinism. We further hypothesized that relationships would be stronger during times containing perturbations than during times without perturbations. Results supported the first hypothesis, effectiveness was correlated with greater communication variety. The correlation was numerically larger for perturbation segments, but the difference from non-perturbation segments was not statistically significant. We discuss potential applications and implications for dynamic measures of team effectiveness.

Law of requisite variety in practice: Assessing the match between risk and actors' contribution to resilient performance

The law of requisite variety (LRV) posits that the variety of the regulated process should match the variety of the controller. However, the LRV is hardly operationalized and lacks empirical scrutiny. Our study addresses this gap by introducing an approach for assessing the match between the risk of the regulated process and the actors' (i.e., controller) contribution to resilient performance. The approach was applied to an intensive care unit (ICU), in which staff members answered a questionnaire composed of two main sections. Initially, respondents answered a social network analysis survey, indicating their peers most frequently contacted for advice-seeking. Results gave rise to a resilience score for each actor, calculated as the product of three variables related to the actor's network centrality and two related to the actor's availability and reliability. Next, respondents were presented with the list of ICU tasks and assigned scores for the frequency of carrying them out and the probability and severity of unwanted outcomes. We then calculated an average risk score for each actor. Actors' resilience scores were used as input in cluster analysis, leading to a best solution with two clusters of first-order (higher scores) and second-order (lower scores) resilience actors. Clusters did not significantly differ regarding actors' risk scores. Considering that the ICU performance is more often than not successful, our findings suggest that even the second-order resilience actors reach a minimum threshold of effective social interactions.

Онтологическая кибернетика как интегратор организационных систем в средах гибридной реальности

Our purpose in this paper is to clarify ontological approaches to the development of cybernetics based on epistemological and methodological propositions grounded in the concepts of scientific classical, non-classical, post-non-classical rationality – as proposed by V.S. Stepin (2005). We need to increase our under­standing of the subject-oriented approach to the analysis of cybernetic interac­tions: “subject – object” in first-order cybernetics, “subject – subject” in second-order cybernetics and “subject – metasubject” in the cybernetics of self-develop­ing reflexive-active environments, third-order cybernetics. The ideas of three or­ders of cybernetics, first, second and third have the potential of integrating a strong ontological approach to the social sciences. For this integration we pro­pose Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM), Espejo’s Viplan Methodology and Lepskiy’s self-developing reflexive-active environments. This ontological cyber­netics corresponds to the development of the philosophical and methodological foundations of cybernetics and systems towards subject-oriented approaches, grounded on Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety. We expect them to contribute to achieving adequate responses to the challenges of the 21st century at all struc­tural levels. They should be focused on adequate performance to achieve desir­able outcomes for sustainability and viability on the grounds of socio-humanitar­ian innovative criteria, using today’s digital technologies, converging with the increasingly powerful ontologies of artificial intelligence. We are offering on­tologies for organizing hybrid reality environments. Our aim through this paper is creating new ontologies adequate to the effective use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence to improve the control and communication mechanisms of social systems.

Examining the resiliency of intertwined supply networks: a jury-rigging perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the salience of different supply networks merging together to provide critical products in short supply. The automotive supply network and the medical device supply network, for instance, became intertwined to meet rising demands for ventilators. As such, coming to the fore is a search mechanism, based on recombination of multiple components, conceptualized as jury-rigging behavior. Designing and changing the interdependencies across firms/supply chains become relevant. Drawing on complex adaptive systems and Ashby's law of requisite variety, we use a computational model to examine these mechanisms’ isolated and combined effect on supply chain network resiliency. Our results show statistically significant difference in the adaptiveness and mortality rate between a jury-rigged supply chain network and a non-jury-rigged one. In particular, the effect of jury-rigging is diminished by the level of coupling among the supply chains.

Data science in organizations: Conceptualizing its breakthroughs and blind spots

The field of data science emerged in recent years, building on advances in computational statistics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data. Modern organizations are immersed in data and are turning toward data science to address a variety of business problems. While numerous complex problems in science have become solvable through data science, not all scientific solutions are equally applicable to business. Many data-intensive business problems are situated in complex socio-political and behavioral contexts that still elude commonly used scientific methods. To what extent can such problems be addressed through data science? Does data science have any inherent blind spots in this regard? What types of business problems are likely to be addressed by data science in the near future, which will not, and why? We develop a conceptual framework to inform the application of data science in business. The framework draws on an extensive review of data science literature across four domains: data, method, interfaces, and cognition. We draw on Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety as theoretical principle. We conclude that data-scientific advances across the four domains, in aggregate, could constitute requisite variety for particular types of business problems. This explains why such problems can be fully or only partially addressed, solved, or automated through data science. We distinguish between situations that can be improved due to cross-domain compensatory effects, and problems where data science, at best, only contributes merely to better understanding of complex phenomena.

Ethical Regulators and Super-Ethical Systems

This paper combines the good regulator theorem with the law of requisite variety and seven other requisites that are necessary and sufficient for a cybernetic regulator to be effective and ethical. The ethical regulator theorem provides a basis for systematically evaluating and improving the adequacy of existing or proposed designs for systems that make decisions that can have ethical consequences; regardless of whether the regulators are humans, machines, cyberanthropic hybrids, organizations, or government institutions. The theorem is used to define an ethical design process that has potentially far-reaching implications for society. A six-level framework is proposed for classifying cybernetic and superintelligent systems, which highlights the existence of a possibility-space bifurcation in our future time-line. The implementation of “super-ethical” systems is identified as an urgent imperative for humanity to avoid the danger that superintelligent machines might lead to a technological dystopia. It is proposed to define third-order cybernetics as the cybernetics of ethical systems. Concrete actions, a grand challenge, and a vision of a super-ethical society are proposed to help steer the future of the human race and our wonderful planet towards a realistically achievable minimum viable cyberanthropic utopia.

Agentic Misfit: An Empirical Demonstration of Non-Matching Human Agency amid Complexity

Alignment of organizations with external imperatives is seen as a sine qua non of proper organizing and strategizing by many fit and complexity scholars. Any deviation from this management mantra engenders organizational decline and, ultimately, mortality. We put this axiomatic principle under empirical scrutiny and use the law of requisite variety as our organizing principle to do so. The law is an iconic cornerstone of this matching contingency logic and it has served to legitimize a wide range of fit decisions in, e.g., leadership, organizational learning and corporate governance. Inspired by organizational vignettes inhabiting antithetical complexity regimes, we introduce a novel concept, which we label ‘agentic misfit’. In this way, we deconstruct deterministic assumptions related to environmental fittingness, we challenge teleological orientations in the fit literature, and we flesh out the viability of non-matching human agency amid complexity.

Life Cycle Engineering 4.0: A Proposal to Conceive Manufacturing Systems for Industry 4.0 Centred on the Human Factor (DfHFinI4.0)

Engineering 4.0 environments are characterised by the digitisation, virtualisation, and connectivity of products, processes, and facilities composed of reconfigurable and adaptive socio-technical cyber-physical manufacturing systems (SCMS), in which Operator 4.0 works in real time in VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) contexts and markets. This situation gives rise to the interest in developing a framework for the conception of SCMS that allows the integration of the human factor, management, training, and development of the competencies of Operator 4.0 as fundamental aspects of the aforementioned system. The present paper is focused on answering how to conceive the adaptive manufacturing systems of Industry 4.0 through the operation, growth, and development of human talent in VUCA contexts. With this objective, exploratory research is carried, out whose contribution is specified in a framework called Design for the Human Factor in Industry 4.0 (DfHFinI4.0). From among the conceptual frameworks employed therein, the connectivist paradigm, Ashby’s law of requisite variety and Vigotsky’s activity theory are taken into consideration, in order to enable the affective-cognitive and timeless integration of the human factor within the SCMS. DfHFinI4.0 can be integrated into the life cycle engineering of the enterprise reference architectures, thereby obtaining manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 focused on the human factor. The suggested framework is illustrated as a case study for the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) methodology, which transforms it into PERA 4.0.

Transcomputability, (Glanville’s corollary of) Ashby’s law of requisite variety and epistemic processes

Purpose Ranulph Glanville has argued that ambitions of strict control are misplaced in epistemic processes such as learning and designing. Among other reasons, he has presented quantitative arguments for this ethical position. As a part of these arguments, Glanville claimed that strict control even of modest systems transcends the computational limits of our planet. The purpose of this paper is to review the related discourse and to examine the soundness of this claim. Design/methodology/approach Related literature is reviewed and pertinent lines of reasoning are illustrated and critically examined using examples and straightforward language. Findings The claim that even modest epistemic processes transcend the computational means of our planet is challenged. The recommendation to assume out-of-control postures in epistemic processes, however, is maintained on ethical rather than on quantitative grounds. Research limitations/implications The presented reasoning is limited in as far as it is ultimately based on an ethical standpoint. Originality/value This paper summarizes an important cybernetic discourse and dispels the notion therein that epistemic processes necessarily involve computational demands of astronomical proportions. Furthermore, this paper presents a rare discussion of Glanville’s Corollary of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety.

Catalyzing capacity: absorptive, adaptive, and generative leadership

PurposeOrganizations increasingly operate under volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) conditions. Traditional command-and-control leadership can be ineffective in such chaotic environments. The purpose of this paper is to outline an alternative model to help leaders and organizations navigate effectively through VUCA environments. By developing three fundamental capacities (absorptive, adaptive and generative), leaders can cultivate organizations capable of continuous synchronization with their fitness landscapes. Central tenets of the framework include diversity, slack, learning, humility, reflection in action and abductive logic.Design/methodology/approachThis framework is designed based on literature insights, conceptual analysis and experts’ judgment. The paper integrates knowledge from a variety of disciplines and interprets them through the lens of complex adaptive systems.FindingsThis paper argues for a process centered, contemplative approach to organizational leadership and development. By providing the underlying rationale for the proposed interventions (e.g. Ashby’s law of requisite variety), the paper also reorients busy leaders’ mental models to show why these time investments are worth implementing.Practical implicationsThis actionable framework can help leaders and organizations be more effective operating in a VUCA context.Originality/valueThis paper provides a historic context as to why prediction and certainty are favored leadership strategies, why these approaches are no longer suitable and specific steps leaders can take to develop absorptive, adaptive and generative capacities to transform their organizations. Its scholarly contribution is the synthesis of disparate bodies of literature, weaving those multiple academic perspectives into a practical roadmap to enhance organizational leadership.

Complexity of Information Society Prevents Achievement of Satisfactory Decision Making

Current society is characterised by increasing number of complex situations which require the prompt and efficient decisions. It has repeatedly been proved that humans confronted with complex situations fail to perform decision making at the desired level of quality. This study searches for understanding how the current information society influences decision making, which is not always as successful as we expect. The main research question of this paper aims at the identification of the factors limiting the outcomes of decision-making processes based on three case studies. The methodology includes the repetitive semi-structured interviews with domain experts and the consequent creation of three scenarios. The main finding, the set of characteristics of decision-making processes, is provided to consider more issues related to those situations and to eliminate their threats and bottlenecks. In addition to this, mutual relationships among characteristics are outlined with the help of the causal-loop diagram. Altogether, twelve characteristics of complex decision making typical for information society are identified in this study. This study reveals that due to growing complexity the decision-makers in the current information society have to deal with issues that are associated with the Law of Requisite Variety. This confirms that growing complexity of information flows represents an inevitable trait of the information society.

DISCUSSION OF: Economic Analysis of Proposed PCAOB Standards: Finding a Path Forward

SYNOPSISFor organizing my discussant response, I use the “input-process-output-outcomes” framework, where the PCAOB is part of the standard-setting infrastructure (input), the processes are its standard-setting activities, the standards eventually developed and approved by the SEC (the output), and assessing the outcome(s) refers to evaluating how well the PCAOB is achieving its mission and vision. From this perspective, Nolder and Palmrose's (2018) critique of the PCAOB's standard-setting pace as being “glacial” can only be regarded an “operational criticism.” In fact, viewed in light of the recently released Monitoring Group's (2017) Consultation paper, the PCAOB actually appears to be ahead of the IAASB as a much more independent and active standard-setter. Expanding the PCAOB's “economic analysis” to incorporate behavioral disciplines could certainly make the rationale more grounded and stronger, but will likely further slow down the pace of standard-setting—a result that goes against the authors' preference. Beyond just behavioral approaches, I consider the even broader perspective of “political economy” in this context and highlight the relevance of Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby 1956) as an overarching framework. Toward the end, I support certain arguments made by Nolder and Palmrose (2018), and in particular commend their suggestion that the PCAOB develop a conceptual framework for standard-setting going forward.

Effect of graphic element type on visual perceptions of curvilinear and rectilinear flow diagrams

This study replicated a study conducted by Branch, Rezabek and Cochenour (1998) who contended that perception and interpretation can be influenced by the type of graphic elements used to compose a diagram. Because instructional design conditions resemble complex situations that require learning development systems sufficient to address the diversity and variety of actions required for the successful operation of intentional learning environments. The idea of matching the concomitant complexity of a process with the inherent complexity within a specific context is consistent with the law of requisite variety, which contends that in order to properly facilitate the quantity and diversity of a situation, you must have the ability to generate an equal quantity and diversity of responses. Instructional designers who utilize process models to generate teaching and learning materials will find the results of this study valuable as they consider effective ways to visualize flow diagrams intended to convey complex content. This study is relevant and important to the visual literacy as it seeks to answer the question: Do varieties of flow diagrams conveying similar content stimulate similar viewer perceptions? This study confirmed the results of the original 1998 study indicating that diagrams conveying similar flow patterns elicit similar adjectives.

Marco de trabajo basado en Cibernética Organizacional para el Alineamiento de Incentivos en Cadenas de Suministro Colaborativas

El potencial de la colaboración en cadenas de suministro para mejorar el rendimiento de las mismas es ampliamente aceptado tanto por profesionales como por académicos. Sin embargo, también es de sobra conocido que esta mejora exige hacer frente a desafíos importantes. Uno de ellos es la necesidad de alinear incentivos entre los diferentes miembros de la cadena de suministro. Este trabajo aplica la Cibernética Organizacional de Beer con el objetivo de diseñar un marco conceptual para el alineamiento de incentivos en cadenas de suministro colaborativas. Nuestra aproximación emplea la Ley de la Variedad Requerida de Ashby, Redes de Petri y el Doble Ciclo de Aprendizaje Organizacional de Espejo serán necesarios. Como resultado, las complejas asimetrías entre los eslabones de la cadena de suministro son balanceadas, lo cual incrementa la confianza de éstos en la solución colaborativa.

Organizing Care Integration. A Social Systems Based Approach

In 2013, a 4-year research project on integrated care in Flanders (Belgium) was launched: “Care Organisation: a Re-Thinking EXpedition in search for Sustainability” (CORTEXS). The multidisciplinary research team focuses on the challenge of how to organize care integration. Numerous studies convincingly demonstrate the need for care integration, and several conceptual models and evaluation frameworks have been published. However, far less is known about systematic approaches to organizing care integration. CORTEXS developed a social systems based approach for redesigning care systems. A system consists of components that relate to each other, and has a certain openness to its environment. A care system is a social system, of which the elements are activities. Grouping and linking those activities forms the central focus of redesigning care systems. Splitting up care processes in specialized activities, grouped in specialized sectors, organizations, organizational units and occupations, leads to highly fragmented care systems. The number of interactions and dependencies between the many care processes and activities then becomes so high that delivering integrated care becomes virtually impossible. The mere introduction of additional coordination mechanisms leaves the underlying fragmentation untouched, and risks to increase complexity even more. From a social systems perspective, the far-driven fragmentation of processes and activities itself must be tackled. The ‘law of requisite variety’ (Ashby 1957) posits that variety can only be managed with variety. In other words: the variety a care system offers must be equal to or greater than the variety of care demands. The enormous variety of individual care demands can be reduced to a manageable range of groups of people with comparable care needs. Then, the variety of the care system can be increased by clustering activities in parallel streams for each target group. In order to further reduce the complexity of care systems, it is important to avoid ending up interlinking everything again at the end. The objective is to vest the decision-making power at the level where it is most needed, facilitating that any problems can be resolved as soon as they arise. We can assume that a care system for people with chronic care needs will often consist of multiple care organizations and professionals. In line with the reasoning developed above, such an organizational network should always be focused on achieving concrete added value for the identified target group, by being built around the care processes and activities that are needed for that target group. It should also be noted that people with a chronic care need are not regarded as passive users of the care system. Not only is it appropriate for them to be involved in the redesign exercise, but also to become an active part of the care processes, as co-managers and potential carriers of activities. Evidently, the opportunities for redesigning care systems are limited by the environment in which they operate. We discuss contextual preconditions in terms of legislation, financial incentives, information technology and competence development. The main priority of the redesign is to ensure that care systems can address the chronic care needs of their target groups, and contribute to the well-known Triple Aim. In addition, it is advisable that the redesign also contributes to improving the quality of working life of the care professionals. We will demonstrate how the proposed redesign approach could contribute to this Quadruple Aim. This social systems based approach already offers a theoretical and empirically substantiated framework for the redesign of care systems for people with chronic care needs. Further steps include the application of this generic approach to specific challenges in the field of policy and practice.

CEO Affective Ambivalence and Acquisition Premiums

This study examines the role of CEO affective ambivalence in reducing the size of premiums paid for acquisitions. Based on the law of requisite variety, this study proposes that CEO affective ambiv...

Variety, Constraint, and the Law of Requisite Variety

Variety, Constraint, and the Law of Requisite Variety

Is There Any ‘Law of Requisite Variety’ in Construction of Indices for Complex Systems?

The issue of design of indicators for complex socio-economic systems, described by multiple characteristics (variables) is considered in this paper primarily from the point of view of the purpose, for which the indicators are developed and used, and the available instruments, which can be used to achieve this purpose. Hence, the paramount importance is assigned to the correspondence between the space of observed variables and the space of possible actions or instruments, as potentially leading to the design of the “optimum indicators”. The close association between the design of indicators and the available (or also designed) policy instruments is justified in the framework of the classical decision making feedback loop. The proposal is illustrated with the case of a group of models from the modelling project that was carried out at the Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, in close collaboration with the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, also of the Academy, devoted to the development and implementation of a system of forecasting models for a series of variables, characterising the socio-economic situation of the capital province of Masovia, and its particular administrative units.