Luhmann's Social Systems Research Articles

Towards the sociology of pets—Social functions of animals in contemporary societies observed from systems theoretical perspective

AbstractThis paper advocates for introducing sociology of pets as a particular field of research as the response of ever growing social relevance of pets in contemporary societies. Though other theoretical approaches are suitable for tackling these complex issues, the article offers viewpoint from Luhmann's social systems theory. Based on Luhmann's writings on ecological communication, the article departs from the system/environment distinction and conceives pets as being part of a society's environment that attained resonance of a social system. Further, entry of pets into a social system is interpreted through differentiation theorem arguing that pets perform highly relevant social functions for all functional subsystems of a society by contributing to their autopoietic reproduction. This is primarily accomplished through communication about pets, emerging specific semantics, usage of binary codes specific for different subsystems, correspondence to their mediums, programs and functions. The major part of work is presenting relations of pets to 10 functional subsystems of a society, as this delineates scope of empirical phenomena of potential interest for sociology of pets. These processes might be observed at systemic, organizational and interaction levels. Despite possessing multiple merits, also, certain limits of Luhmann's account of pets are unfolded, such as incapability to hear authentic voices of animals, but rather distorted semantic codes emerging from consciousness of human psychic systems, afterwards structurally coupled with communication as a medium of social systems. At this point, social systems theory might be complemented by theory of interspecies communication, as taking into consideration other theoretical approaches anchored at ontologies pertinent to include non‐human agents is invocated. The tentative outcome of this introductory discussion is that apparent process of anthro‐morphosization of animals is taking place while the question of relation between humans–humans in the context of building just societies of the 21st century still remains open.

Communicating science addressing contentious environmental issues: utilizing Luhmann's social systems theory

For complex and socially contentious environmental issues, such as climate change and disease prevention, science communication has proven difficult. As many science communication scholars have determined, education is not the only factor impacting the public's willingness to act upon or even accept scientific information. In this study, we propose using Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems as a framework for research in science and environmental communication. We argue that by focusing on the functions of relevant social systems, the occurrence of communication conflicts may be explained, and new approaches to overcome communication obstacles can be developed. In this study, we provide examples of the theory's utility by looking at pertinent studies regarding relevant systems integral to addressing climate change and sustainability issues, as well as propose new subjects for exploration.

Relational positionism: a constructive interpretation of morality in Luhmann's social systems theory

Purpose The purpose of this article is to summarize three Luhmannian critiques on morality, illustrate new roles for morality and add constructive interpretations.Design/methodology/approach Luhmann has recently been described as downright negative toward morality, resulting in a refusal to use ethics as a sociologist, thus leading to a limited use of his theory in moral issues. A constructive interpretation could support a more functional use of morality in social system theory.Findings First, Luhmann signals that morality can no longer fulfill its integrative function in society but also that society has recourse to moral sensitivity. Second, Luhmann describes how anxiety is crucial in modern morality and indicates which role risk and danger could play. The author builds further on this and proposes the concept of “social system attention” that can provide answers to individual and organizational anxiety. The author proposes that institutionalized socialization can support an integrative morality. Third, Luhmann states that ethics today is nothing more than a utopia but also that the interdiction of moral self-exemption is an essential element. The author adds that a relational ontology for social systems theory can avoid ethics as utopia.Practical implicationsThis article is a programmatic plea to further elaborate morality from a system theory perspective in which meaning is relationally positioned.Originality/value This article could potentially provide a more functional application of morality in social systems, thus leading to improvements of attempts of ethical decision-making. The originality of the approach lies in the interpretation of basic assumptions of Luhmann social system theory that are not core to his theory.

Social media, echo chambers and contingency: a system theoretical approach about communication in the digital space

PurposeThere is a growing worry about people possibly isolating themselves in online bubbles and avoiding contact with ideas that differ from their beliefs, creating a scenario of ideological polarization. To investigate into this matter, this work aims for a reflection about the contingency of communication in social media. Does social media make the experience of communication in the digital space more contingent (providing it with more possibilities, with people accessing different contents and ideas) or less contingent (reducing the available possibilities, making people isolate themselves)?Design/methodology/approachThis is a theoretical work, constructed through bibliographical reviews. To reflect about the question that are posed, the author selected Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory to approach the concept of contingency. In addition to that, the author presented the main arguments of the debates about echo chambers and online bubbles. In the end, the author combined the two reviews together using elements of the Luhmannian theory and drew some conclusions about the initial question.FindingsThe study concluded that social media have an ambivalent potential regarding contingency in the digital space: it can both expand or reduce the available possibilities of communication, depending on criteria like topic, potential of diffusion and focus of attention. There is no one-side effect.Research limitations/implicationsThe approach at echo chambers does not reflect “the” form of contingency in social media, but “a” form. Therefore, the study cannot provide any general conclusions about the relation between contingency and social media. The digital space is a large one, and more studies are required to achieve more substantial propositions.Originality/valueThe research has an originality value both for systems theory and social media studies. First, because, as far as the author knows, no other system-theoretical argument has taken the connection between contingency and social media as a primary analysis object. Second, because of a theoretical interpretation effort, the studies of echo chambers indicate mixed results about the phenomenon of online isolation, but no attempt was made to make sense of these mixed results from a specific sociological theory. The author did that by using Luhmann's theoretical framework, which proved to be a good tool for explaining and unifying these different results on a more abstract level.

Deutschlands Ölfelder: Eine Stoffgeschichte der Kulturpflanze Raps (1897–2017)

Deutschlands Ölfelder: Eine Stoffgeschichte der Kulturpflanze Raps (1897–2017)

Musical Vitalities: Ventures in a Biotic Aesthetics of Music by Holly Watkins

Reviewed by: Musical Vitalities: Ventures in a Biotic Aesthetics of Music by Holly Watkins Karen Olson Musical Vitalities: Ventures in a Biotic Aesthetics of Music. By Holly Watkins. (New Material Histories of Music.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. [200 p. ISBN 9780226594705 (hardcover), $40; ISBN 9780226594842 (e-book), price varies]. Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Holly Watkins's Musical Vitalities is a slim volume, but like a carefully packed overnight bag, it holds a surprising amount of material. Combining "roughly equal parts philosophy of music, history of aesthetics, and analytically informed criticism" (p. 2), Watkins explores how twentieth- and twenty-first century studies in biology, cognition, and semiotics can revitalize nineteenth-century aestheticians' struggles to compare humans' experience of music with their experience of nature. In so doing, Watkins refreshes a body of literature and music that might seem worn out while simultaneously addressing many topics of current musicological interest: music and the body, musical cognition, and, of course, ecomusicology—the intersection of music and the natural world. Watkins explains that Musical Vitalities "[explores] how analogies between musical and natural processes, which appear repeatedly in the [nineteenth century] literature on musical aesthetics, encourage us to develop modes of thinking that challenge presumed divisions between cultural artifacts and natural entities" (p. 11). If the emotive excesses of romanticism overstated the music's transcendent qualities, and the countervailing rigidity of musical formalism failed to account for music's bodily effects, how might modern science fill these nineteenth-century gaps? The six chapters of Musical Vitalities function largely as stand-alone essays grouped around this question. As such, the book is difficult to summarize; even the individual chapters are so dense as to resist easy summation. The first chapter tackles organicism in nineteenth-century music criticism—the idea that a composer develops a single motivic seed to form a unified work. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, Watkins explores the self-organization of organicism as expressive of larger systems of composers, performers, and listeners, wherein, just as seeds do not grow without being influenced by their environments, pieces of music are not created in vacuums. In chapter 2, Watkins offers another plant-based analogy, the arabesque, as a way to expand Eduard Hanslick's well-known Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (On the Musically Beautiful; Leipzig: Rudolph Weigel, 1854). Here, the arabesque is not the ballet pose but the stylized leaf design you might see climbing up old wallpaper. Both naturally plant-like and artificially formal, the self-organized repetition displayed in such arabesques is analogous to the self-organized patterns that give structure, purpose, and [End Page 454] vitality to objects and entities in the natural world. In this way, Watkins develops "a mode of criticism attuned to both the formal resemblances between music and other worldly processes and the meanings that arise from that convergence" (p. 44)—that is, the ways the formalist arrangements Hanslick championed as purely human constructions have parallels in the natural world. Watkins's third chapter turns to Arthur Schopenhauer, reworking his oft-maligned analogy between four-part harmony and the natural order, wherein humans are the soprano melody, the stodge of earth is the supporting bass line, and the organisms in between are the inner voices. Watkins finds this analogy unexpectedly useful because it suggests that music "affords listeners aesthetic access to organic and inorganic dimensions of existence which both inform and extend beyond the human" (p. 68). Schopenhauer, she argues, allows for an ecocentric musical experience, situating and attuning the human mind and body within (not apart from) the broader environment. This is a more holistic transcendence than that usually preached in nineteenth-century romanticism. Chapter 4 detours from these philosophical abstractions, offering a more straightforward historical interpretation and contextualization of Robert Schumann's Blumenstück (Flower Piece), op. 19. While the plentiful musical, visual, and literary examples mean this chapter is the most accessible to read, it is also the most difficult to situate within the overall trajectory of the volume. The main connection to the previous chapters is the continued emphasis on plants and music as mutual analogs. Watkins explores how the language of flowers popularized by floral guides largely written...

ASISTED LIVING INSTITUTIONS AS THE BASIS OF ORDER AND A FORM OF BEHAVIOUR CONTROL FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ERVING GOFFMAN’S SYSTEMS THEORY

Assisted living institutions such as nursing homes were established to answer a vital social need. Such services are needed by the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill. The social demand for these institutions is growing due to a deficit of care functions in families, among other factors. Undoubtedly, assisted living institutions play a vital role by providing help and assistance to less-independent individuals, and for many, they are a chance for survival or a dignified life because they offer food and shelter. However, nursing homes as assisted living institutions are not limited to satisfying the needs of their residents. There is something surprising and worrying about their functioning. To use R.K. Merton's terminology, they operate according to latent functions that maintain social order and social control. To better understand the problem, it is worth looking at Erving Goffman' s popular theory of total institutions and Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory.

East of nature. Accounting for the environments of social sciences

At the core of ecological economics is the image of the economy as an open system embedded in the natural environment whose carrying capacity is limited. The present paper revisits this image by drawing upon the constructivist implications of Luhmann's social systems theory. To Luhmann, the modern society consists of a multitude of social systems each bringing forth and observing their own environments. If the Luhmannian vision is accepted, then ecological economics can be said to privilege the observational perspective of natural sciences. The unfortunate consequence of this privileging is the underestimation of a broad range of multidimensional sustainability risks which are foregrounded by the numerous alternative observational perspectives which are just as legitimate. It is argued that, rather than relativizing the sustainability concerns of the modern ecological economics, the Luhmannian perspective generalizes and radicalizes them. In doing so, the latter perspective opens new possibilities not only for navigating these risks but also for envisioning new resources and solutions.

Is a Dramatic Bakhtiyār-nāme Possible? Sketch of a Social Systems Theoretical Adaptation Methodology

AbstractThe abundant literature on adaptation theories and methods stop short of offering an abstract model which suits adaptation across all different literary modes and genres. Instead, they mostly cover the adaptation of one communication system to another, for example, literature to film. To close this gap, I rely on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory and his communication model as well as notions of medium and form. Coupling his theory with the literary theories of Northrop Frye and Mikhail Bakhtin, I not only revive these theories in a new context, but also propose a method for literary adaptation that serves adapting across different modes and genres within the subsystem of literature. To render this theory and its applicability more vividly, I introduce how I applied it to a thirteenth-century Persian-language romance, namely Bakhtiyār-nāme, to adapt it to drama. In doing so, I demonstrate how my suggested methodology serves to determine the mode and genre of the original work as well as those of the adapted work by spotting certain adaptation potentials within the original. These include silenced voices and contradictions that make way for a deconstructive re-reading of it in the form of an adapted work of literature.

The Persistence of Tightly Coupled Conflicts. The Case of Loisaba, Kenya

Contributing to the debate on the multidimensional nature of resource-based conflicts in political ecology, and building upon Niklas Luhmann's Social Systems Theory, we have studied the persistent and shifting nature of conflicts as well as their dependencies on other conflicts in and around Loisaba conservancy. This private conservancy is situated in northern Laikipia (Kenya). For a long time, its management was focused on wildlife conservation, high-end tourism and commercial ranching. Developments and events at neighbouring ranches and community conservation areas shifted this focus. Decades of more or less peaceful regional co-existence has recently transformed into conflictual, sometimes even violent situations. At first sight, these emergent conflicts seem related to recurrent droughts, competing resource dependencies, national elections, or incitements by wealthy and influential politicians. For this study, however, we conceptualise conflicts as particular kinds of discourses that emerge, exist and change. This happens not only according to their own internal logics, but also through their dependencies with other conflict discourses. In this paper, we characterise the relations between conflicts on a range from tight to loose couplings and introduce three related forms of coupling (overpowering, resisting, and resonating) to provide a more detailed understanding of how conflicts may interrelate.

From Complexity Reduction to Moral Character: A Deweyian Reading of Luhmann's Social Systems Theory

Taking account of the widest possible range of consequences of one's action takes centre stage in John Dewey's pragmatist ethics, which likewise acknowledges that the ability to do so depends on the individual moral character. In contrast, Luhmann's theory of complexity‐reducing systems underscores the difficulties that social systems experience in registering the consequences of their operations in the overwhelmingly complex environment. Drawing upon Dewey's concept of moral character, the paper argues that social systems can be infused with an interest in controlling those consequences that pose risks to their sustainability. From an institutional economics perspective, this interest is shown to be implicated in the justification of the firm ownership in Alchian and Demsetz's theory of the firm. From the business ethics perspective, a similar interest is shown to underpin corporate social responsibility activities. Both perspectives acknowledge the effect of the corporate moral character on the predictability, reliability, and orderliness of corporate behaviour. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Young athletes' health knowledge system: Qualitative analysis of health learning processes in adolescent sportspersons.

Recognized side effects on health associated with sports participation in youth include overtraining, doping, and exposure to harassment and violence. Many of these effects originate in contexts where young athletes are beginning to make decisions about their sports practices on their own. This study sets out to explore knowledge and reasoning about health among adolescent athletes and to describe how health knowledge management structures are associated with different social systems. Qualitative data were collected from focus groups involving 65 young Swedish athletes aged 16-17years. The participants' knowledge and reasoning about health were examined using a deductive thematic analysis, categories from Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives, and Luhmann's social systems theory. The meaning of health was found to have a dynamic character for the young athletes, associated with constantly striving to satisfy immediate needs and fulfill short-time life goals. The athletes' thinking about health was associated with a pragmatic "health-as-a-resource" perspective, characterized by group self-comparisons, rapid cognitive processing, and opportunistic substitutions. They expressed a particular interest in experiential learning and personally relevant procedural knowledge, and they perceived that their factual knowledge about health was saturated. The results of this study add emphasis to the importance of involving adolescent sportspersons in the development of health education programs and contextualizing the programs to the athletes' specific age and social environment.

On Human Involution: Posthumanist Anthropology and the Question of Ecology in the Work of Hans Blumenberg and Niklas Luhmann

Scholars in the environmental humanities frequently argue that a clear understanding of humanity's ecological embeddedness is sufficient to dismantle the anthropocentric biases of traditional humanism. Following Hans Blumenberg's interpretation of the Copernican turn, this article argues that the proponents of this view fail to recognize that the desire to overcome anthropocentrism was central to Enlightenment thought. Like the latter, ecological posthumanism accords itself cognitive privileges that presuppose a successful distantiation of the world. According to Blumenberg's anthropology, the need to turn away from the world in order to engage with it is a distinctly human trait. However, second-order cybernetics and Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory offer ways to conceptualize this “involution” as a general feature of living things, whose relative autonomy is predicated on the possibility of operational closure.

Institutional Economics, Social Dilemmas, and the Complexity‐Sustainability Trade‐off (A response to Hielscher and Pies)

Drawing inspiration from Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, the present note argues that the complexity of social systems has the potential to undermine their sustainability and thus to generate social dilemmas. The conceptual construct of the ‘complexity‐sustainability trade‐off’ is invoked to make the point that ensuring sustainability, if at all possible, requires controlling the proliferation of systemic complexity. To some extent, this control is feasible through structural couplings that correspond to the economic concept of the internalization of externalities. If this solution falls short of meeting the sustainability goals, systemic complexity can be alternatively controlled through the dampening of systemic imperatives, which translates, at the individual level, into the weakening of incentives. Williamson's transaction cost theory of for‐profit hierarchy and Hansmann's trustworthiness theory of nonprofit organizations present cases in point.

Diakonie v perspektivě teorie sociálních systémů

This article is devoted to the differentiation of diakonia in modern society based on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. It first addresses the inner differentiation of the religious system, the framework of which is to assign diakonia the task of creating a re¬lationship to other systems of society. Dierk Starnitzke attempts to formulate theologically a diakonia-code which facilitates diakonia in order to receive input from other systems it relates to, while at the same time, maintaining its identity. The article further reflects on the formation of the diaconal work-structures at the three levels where social systems operate: interaction, organization and society. The task of theology is to impart the vision for organized diaconal work which currently prevails. The differentiated approach to diakonia facilitates a more adequate analysis of the problems diakonia faces in modern secularized society and how to relate various conceptions of diakonia to one another.This article is devoted to the differentiation of diakonia in modern society based on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. It first addresses the inner differentiation of the religious system, the framework of which is to assign diakonia the task of creating a relationship to other systems of society. Dierk Starnitzke attempts to formulate theologically a diakonia-code which facilitates diakonia in order to receive input from other systems it relates to, while at the same time, maintaining its identity. The article further reflects on the formation of the diaconal work-structures at the three levels where social systems operate: interaction, organization and society. The task of theology is to impart the vision for organized diaconal work which currently prevails. The differentiated approach to diakonia facilitates a more adequate analysis of the problems diakonia faces in modern secularized society and how to relate various conceptions of diakonia to one another.

Interdisciplinary Analysis of Luhmann’s Sociological Theory on the Euro-Crisis

ABSTRACT. This paper establishes a unique linkage between economic and sociological theories. I study the root causes of the euro crisis from both perspectives. I find that resolving the euro crisis requires economic and sociological insights, particularly in respect to the design of European institutions, rules, and regulations. I develop a new paradigm in attempt to tackle the euro crisis. This paper demonstrates the importance of an interdisciplinary dialogue and how this may safeguard the future of the Economic and Monetary Union.Keywords: Euro-Crisis, Luhmann's Social Systems Theory, Economics.JEL Classification : G12; E65; C58IntroductionThe ongoing 'euro crisis' is often seen as an economic issue and referred to as the European sovereign debt crisis. Admittedly, a comprehensive economic analysis demonstrates that the euro crisis has several origins and is not just a simple debt crisis (Lane, 2012). There are multiple root causes and vulnerabilities, particularly the flawed European economic and fiscal governance (Herzog, 2013). However, as I establish in this paper, the euro crisis has a firm sociological underpinning at the same time. According to Luhmann's 'Social Systems Theory', there is a fundamental problem in functional systems, such as in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In other words, Europe is facing a social-systems problem rather than just an economic crisis. This insight is intuitive under the recognition that the euro crisis is not merely a macroeconomic and monetary issue, and thus, as I will show, relates also to flawed functional systems as studied in sociology.The fundamental dynamics of states, institutions, and humans is predisposed to both group interactions and incentives. Sociological theory studies those group patterns and behaviours and thus do have an impact to resolve the euro crisis in the real world. Economic theory on the other hand lacks a rigorous discussion of group interactions because this is too sophisticated to be subsumed under the assumption of the methodological individualism a la Max Weber (1929).I find that Luhmann's approach precisely reveals this insight, especially in respect to the systemic effects of the macro-economy. The constructivist idea demonstrates - the repeatedly unconnected - linkages between the institutional (legal), economic, and political system. Thus, this interdisciplinary study of the economic and sociological origins of the European sovereign debt crisis appears promising. Indeed any policy recommendation, which tackles the existing flaws in fiscal and economic governance in Europe, requires a thorough understanding of both spheres.Section 2 starts with the economic analysis of the root causes and implications. In section 3, I utilize Luhmann's social systems theory to obtain a new perspective on the euro crisis. Finally, I compare insights and implications of both scientific perspectives, and summarize the policy recommendations in section 4. Section 5 concludes the paper.1. Economic PerspectiveTo make this paper comprehensible to an interdisciplinary community, I shall briefly explain the necessary economic theory and mainstream arguments about the root causes of the euro crisis in this section. There are already excellent overview articles on the economic root causes by Lane (2012), Arghyrou and Kontonikas (2012), Sachverstandigenrat (2012), De Grauwe and Ji (2013) and Geithner (2014).There is no doubt that the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has been in an economic and political crisis since 2010. The first fundamental problem is the current account imbalance across the macro-economy of the euro area member states (Herzog, 2012).Secondly the European institutional structure is unsuitable to tackle this issue. There is a consensus that fiscal and economic governance is a prerequisite for a successful and effective monetary union (Escolano et al., 2012) and this has been identified in economic literature long ago (Beetsma and Bovernberg, 1999; Beetsma and Uhlig, 1999). …

Strategies of Translating Sexualities as Part of the Secularization of Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Russia

Abstract This article considers one of the understudied areas of Russian translation history—the role translation played in introducing works of verbal art with a distinct sexual component as part of the program of westernization of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Russia. The purpose is to look at the broad spectrum of translation strategies that were used in order to introduce sexuality as a literary theme into a new secularized Russia spanning from bowdlerized to faithful renderings, and thereby liberalize social mores and challenge dominant systemic discourse. With the help of Luhmann's social systems theory, translation is shown to be both a means of enriching the nascent Russian literary subsystem with established masterpieces of Greco-Roman antiquity and western European vernacular literatures and, at the same time, not infrequently forcing unpalatable manifestations of sexuality into the target system's set of values. The author analyzes the vicissitudes of translations of Sappho's Second Ode and Pushkin's use of translation text in his attempt to challenge the official religious and state establishment in some of his controversial poetic works, notably An Imitation of the Arabic, Monk, and Gavriiliada.

In search of a network theory of innovations: Relations, positions, and perspectives

As a complement toNelson andWinter's (1977) article titled “InSearch of aUsefulTheory ofInnovation,” a sociological perspective on innovation networks can be elaborated usingLuhmann's social systems theory, on the one hand, andLatour's “sociology of translations,” on the other. Because of a common focus on communication, these perspectives can be combined as a set of methodologies.Latour's sociology of translations specifies a mechanism for generating variation in relations (“associations”), whereasLuhmann's systems perspective enables the specification of (functionally different) selection environments such as markets, professional organizations, and political control. Selection environments can be considered as mechanisms of social coordination that can self‐organize—beyond the control of human agency—into regimes in terms of interacting codes of communication. Unlike relatively globalized regimes, technological trajectories are organized locally in “landscapes.” A resulting “duality of structure” (Giddens, 1979) between the historical organization of trajectories and evolutionary self‐organization at the regime level can be expected to drive innovation cycles. Reflexive translations add a third layer of perspectives to (a) the relational analysis of observable links that shape trajectories and (b) the positional analysis of networks in terms of latent dimensions. These three operations can be studied in a single framework, but using different methodologies.Latour's first‐order associations can then be analytically distinguished from second‐order translations in terms of requiring other communicative competencies. The resulting operations remain infrareflexively nested, and can therefore be used for innovative reconstructions of previously constructed boundaries.

Mutual redundancies in interhuman communication systems: Steps toward a calculus of processing meaning

The study of interhuman communication requires a more complex framework than Claude E. Shannon's (1948) mathematical theory of communication because “information” is defined in the latter case as meaningless uncertainty. Assuming that meaning cannot be communicated, we extend Shannon's theory by defining mutual redundancy as a positional counterpart of the relational communication of information. Mutual redundancy indicates the surplus of meanings that can be provided to the exchanges in reflexive communications. The information is redundant because it is based on “pure sets” (i.e., without subtraction of mutual information in the overlaps). We show that in the three‐dimensional case (e.g., of a triple helix of university–industry–government relations), mutual redundancy is equal to mutual information (Rxyz = Txyz); but when the dimensionality is even, the sign is different. We generalize to the measurement in N dimensions and proceed to the interpretation. Using Niklas Luhmann's (1984–1995) social systems theory and/or Anthony Giddens's (1979, 1984) structuration theory, mutual redundancy can be provided with an interpretation in the sociological case: Different meaning‐processing structures code and decode with other algorithms. A surplus of (“absent”) options can then be generated that add to the redundancy. Luhmann's “functional (sub)systems” of expectations or Giddens's “rule‐resource sets” are positioned mutually, but coupled operationally in events or “instantiated” in actions. Shannon‐type information is generated by the mediation, but the “structures” are (re‐)positioned toward one another as sets of (potentially counterfactual) expectations. The structural differences among the coding and decoding algorithms provide a source of additional options in reflexive and anticipatory communications.

Separation and reconnection episodic organizational arenas in the strategic process

PurposeWithin the strategy as practice field several studies have recently paid attention to organizational arenas like meetings, workshops and away‐days. There has, however, been a tendency to focus on what happens “inside” separated organizational arenas. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the separated organizational arenas and other organizational activities in the strategizing process.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is conceptual. The framework rests on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory and draws on recent empirical studies.FindingsThe main contribution of the article is the presentation of a theoretically well‐founded framework that further specifies and problematizes the relationships of separated organizational arenas. By focusing and conceptualizing the conditions for separation and reconnection, a foundation for analyzing the interconnectedness between different arenas is provided.Practical implicationsThe paper contributes to our understanding of phenomena like meetings and work‐shops in the strategic process.Originality/valueThe framework is in line with, and expands the theorizing that Hendry and Seidl (2003) initiated about strategic episodes and the theorizing about first and second order observations in strategic processes initiated by Schreyögg and Kliesch‐Eberl (2007).