Systems Theory Research Articles

ABSTRACT Quality is a key concept in the context of lifelong learning. This study contributes to the literature on quality in adult learning and education (ALE) and the efficacy of the implementation of quality management systems (QMS) in ALE organisations in Germany. QMS have been introduced since the 1990s to optimise processes and structures within organisations, aiming to improve interactions between institutionalised supply and individual demand. Although QMS present an established research field, there is limited evidence on their effects on objective outcomes. Furthermore, longitudinal studies aiming at causal inferences are missing. We address these research gaps by investigating treatment-effects of the implementation of QMS on participation counts, longitudinally. Following systems theory, we test the hypothesis that the implementation of a QMS increases participation counts. Empirically, we use wbmonitor survey data (2007–2017) and employ a canonical two-way fixed-effects model to estimate average treatment-effects on the treated. Additionally, we employ a difference-in-differences estimator with regression adjustment to account for the staggered implementation of QMS across organisations and time. Taking different treatment-time cohorts into account, we find that the implementation of a QMS increases participation counts. However, this effect is not significant and characterised by heterogeneity.

Background: Theoretical advancement calls for exploring the drivers for supply chain (SC) innovation. Aim: This study draws on the dynamic capability view, complex adaptive system and contingency theories to explore the effect of market intelligence, internal and supplier adaptability and digital orientation on SC innovation. Furthermore, the study examines the mediating role of internal and supplier adaptability and the moderating role of digital orientation on the association between the driving factors and SC innovation. Setting: Survey data were collected from 224 hotel managers in the Tanzanian tourism industry. Method: The structural equation modelling method was used to analyse data using smart-partial least squares-4 and statistical package for the social sciences softwares. Results: Our findings reveal that market intelligence, internal adaptability and supplier adaptability are significant predictors of SC innovation in the Tanzanian hospitality context. Again, both internal and supplier adaptability partially mediate the relationship between market intelligence and SC innovation. In addition, except for market intelligence, digital orientation amplifies the positive relationship between internal and supplier adaptability and SC innovation. Conclusion: Market intelligence, internal and supplier adaptability and digital orientation are critical for developing SC innovation. Contribution: This study advances SC innovation theory within the hospitality sector by explicating how market intelligence is transformed into innovation through the conjoint and contingent capabilities of internal (intra-firm) and supplier (inter-firm) adaptability. It further establishes digital orientation as the pivotal moderator that conditions these adaptive mechanisms.

Procurement in the body of goods and services of the National Police is currently carried out electronically since the enactment of Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions has been given broad legal space. E-procurement as an information system is a synergy between data, data processing machines (which usually include computers, application programs, and networks), and humans to produce information. This study uses a normative legal approach method with analytical descriptive research specifications. Secondary data comes from primary legal materials, secondary law, and tertiary law, as well as legal expert sources. Data collection through a mixed method between field data and literature. Data processing is carried out qualitatively, then conclusions are drawn using the inductive method. Research problems are analyzed using the theory of legal protection, theory of legal systems, and theory of legal certainty. The results of this study indicate that the effectiveness of the law on procurement of goods and services in the National Police in terms of the effectiveness of its legislation by referring to the organizational perspective on government procurement of goods and services and the role of supervisory institutions in government procurement of goods and services. The data collection was carried out by literature study with legal materials, namely laws and regulations. Data obtained from the literature study were qualitatively analyzed from an empirical perspective. The results of the study show that the law governing the procurement of goods and services has not provided sufficiently strict sanctions, leading to violations still occurring. But with the existence of e-procurement, procurement of goods and services has become more transparent.

Decision number 3/Pid.Pra/2018/PN Pso is a pretrial decision that has permanent legal force because no appeal or cassation can be made, with the following verdict in essence: Declaring the Instruction Letter (P-19) invalid and not binding; declaring the action that stops the prosecution is invalid; ordering the case files to be immediately transferred to the Poso District Court for trial. This thesis aims to study and analyze the authority of the Pretrial Judge in examining and deciding cases regarding the invalidity of the termination of the investigation and the invalidity of the termination of the prosecution based on the Notification Letter of Progress of the Investigation Results; the authority of the Pretrial Judge in ordering the Prosecutor’s Office to immediately transfer the case to trial; legal efforts that can be taken by the Prosecutor’s Office against the verdict ordering the Prosecutor’s Office to immediately transfer the case to trial. It uses a normative juridical method, theory of authority, theory of law enforcement, and theory of criminal justice system. The results of the study show that the Pretrial Judge has exceeded his authority and there has been a judicial error or a clear error in trying the object of the pretrial because the basis for submitting the pretrial application is the Notification Letter of Progress of Investigation Results and there has been no Letter of Termination either at the Investigation or Prosecution level. The Pretrial Judge has exceeded his authority and there has been a judicial error or a clear error in examining and deciding the case to immediately transfer the case files or continue the prosecution of the case to the trial because the one who can determine whether or not a prosecution of a case can be carried out is the Public Prosecutor as dominus litis.

This study investigated the dynamics and pitfalls surrounding home-based caregiving as rendered by male caregivers in the South African City of Tshwane Metro Municipality. An exploratory-descriptive qualitative design was adopted to specifically understand the roles, responsibilities, challenges, and coping strategies of male caregivers who render HBC services in the city of Tshwane Metropolitan municipality. Following the Family Systems and Social Support theories, data was collected through the semi-structured interviews that were supported by an interview guide with ten open-ended questions. Thematic analysis, according to Braun and Clarke (2019), revealed four themes around the general roles and responsibilities of caregivers, the challenges encountered when rendering care as well as the adaptive coping strategies for managing their challenges. Whereas the study help providing an all-encompassing picture of how male caregivers juggle the huge responsibility of caregiving under difficult circumstances, it pointed to the significance of having sensitive policies, availing psychosocial support, and training programmes as well as some advocacy initiatives to dispel some of the myths surrounding caregiving by males. Despite home-based care being characterised by several challenges, male caregivers seem to cope through self-care, training and self-development as well as social support networks.

Despite ongoing efforts to strengthen writing instruction in the Philippines, coherence, the logical organization and flow of ideas, remains a persistent yet underexamined difficulty, particularly in essays written in Filipino. Most existing studies emphasize surface-level issues such as grammar and vocabulary, often overlooking the deeper organizational challenges students face. This study addresses that gap by exploring coherence-related difficulties among 131 Grade 7 and 8 students in a public school in Eastern Visayas, using a quantitative-descriptive design. The researchers applied the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory to understand coherence as an emergent, nonlinear skill shaped by learner characteristics and instructional context. Results revealed a mean coherence score of M = 2.26 (SD = 0.45), indicating poor to fair performance, with “ideas are very difficult to follow” scoring the lowest (M = 1.73). Contrary to common developmental assumptions, older students exhibited more coherence challenges (r = .34), and male students significantly underperformed compared with females (r = –.85). Strong positive correlations were observed between coherence and both general academic average (r = .87) and Filipino subject grade (r = .65). These findings suggest that coherence is not only linguistically demanding but also developmentally fragile, requiring targeted, differentiated instruction. The study offers new insights into how coherence may be better supported in multilingual classrooms and calls for curricular reforms that treat coherence as a core writing outcome in Filipino, not a peripheral skill.

The procurement of government goods and services is an integral part of state financial management, which must be carried out in a transparent, efficient, and accountable manner to support the performance of public services. In the context of law enforcement agencies, such as the National Police, procurement plays an important role in supporting institutional operations, especially in strategic areas such as the Natuna Police in border areas. However, in practice, procurement implementation often faces various administrative, technical, and structural obstacles that have implications for legal certainty. This research aims to analyze the mechanism for implementing the procurement of goods and services at the Natuna Police Station from the perspective of legal certainty, as well as identify inhibiting factors and efforts to strengthen them. This study uses an empirical juridical approach using a qualitative method. The approach used includes a statute approach to analyze applicable regulations, a case approach to procurement practices at the Natuna Police Station, and a conceptual approach to understanding relevant legal principles. Data were obtained through interviews, observations, and the study of documents and regulations related to the implementation of procurement. The theories used as knives for analysis are Sudikno Mertokusumo’s Legal Certainty Theory and Lawrence M. Friedman’s Legal System Theory. The results show that although the Natuna Police has referred to Presidential Regulation No. 16/2018 and internal police regulations, there are still structural constraints, unsynchronized regulatory substances, and a weak culture of legal compliance. Therefore, strengthening the supervisory system, digitizing procurement, and increasing the capacity of human resources are important steps in ensuring legal certainty in the implementation of procurement.

This study investigates the mechanisms, challenges and pathways through which digital technology platforms empower social governance, focusing on the comprehensive administrative law enforcement command and dispatch platform in Mengzi City. Employing the ‘structural adaptation - process collaboration - functional optimization’ framework grounded in adaptive governance theory and sociotechnical systems theory, we analyze operational data from 12,703 cases processed in 2024, supplemented by field interviews and policy document reviews. Our findings reveal that, despite the platform achieving a 95% case resolution rate and improving governance transparency via a unified command system and real-time data dashboards, significant structural disconnections persist. Specifically, a 40% shortage of grassroots personnel is evident, there is a misalignment between standardized work processes and local governance requirements, and cross-departmental incidents continue to depend on manual coordination. Moreover, the emergence of data silos, exacerbated by incompatible standards and policy constraints, has further undermined the ‘trustless collaboration’ mechanism facilitated by blockchain technology. In terms of public participation, the feedback mechanism remains superficial, resulting in citizen involvement being limited to a mere 6.8% of reported cases. Furthermore, This study identifies three paradoxes that impede digital governance in developing jurisdictions. First, advanced platform architectures conflict with under-resourced implementation, creating a techno‑structural friction that undermines system performance. Second, high technical specifications coexist with incomplete data integration, leaving information silos that frustrate decision‑making. Third, participatory interfaces exist alongside constrained public engagement, so opportunities for civic input fail to translate into meaningful participation. Theoretically, we extend the application of adaptive governance theory by showing how institutional inertia impedes technological assimilation in multi‑ethnic border regions. At the practical level, we propose a tripartite solution. Dynamic government-enterprise partnerships can address hardware and capacity gaps at the fron-tline, and algorithmic responsibility‑matching systems automate interagency coordination by routing tasks according to jurisdictional competence and workload. Meanwhile, blockchain-anchored incentive ecosystems stimulate civic participation can be stimulated by establishing blockchain-anchored incentive ecosystems. These strategies offer feasible pathways to reconcile ambitious digital governance goals with the contextual realities in developing countries.

Cyclic sums of comparative indices and oscillation theory of symplectic difference systems

Sexual-economic exchange is a multifaceted phenomenon shaped by biological, psychological, social, and economic factors. This paper examines sexual-economic exchange-including commercial sex and transactional intimacy-through a multidisciplinary lens, integrating perspectives from evolutionary psychology, sexual economics, and the social sciences. Evolutionary models frame these exchanges as adaptive strategies emerging from reproductive asymmetries and resource transfer dynamics. Historically, the institutionalization of private property and male-dominated societies fostered conditions for sex-for-resources arrangements, with prostitution representing an institutionalized and often stigmatized variant. Psychological approaches explore how some individuals arrive at sexual-economic exchange through pathways shaped by early adversity, cognitive patterns, and social marginalization. However, for many, sex work represents a conscious and strategic choice shaped by broader life circumstances and constrained opportunities. Sexual economics theory contextualizes these dynamics within market principles, positing that sexual access functions as a valued resource predominantly regulated by women in heterosexual interactions. Gender asymmetries in sexual desire and resource provision shape mating strategies and intrasexual competition, with societal norms reflecting market dynamics. Efforts to eliminate or liberalize sexual-economic exchange have yielded mixed outcomes, as seen in diverse historical and policy contexts. The persistence of such exchanges underscores the influence of socioeconomic inequality and biopsychological predispositions. This paper advocates for a multiple perspectives approach, integrating the biopsychosocial model, systems theory, and evolutionary psychology to provide a holistic understanding of sexual-economic exchange. This framework is not only conceptually integrative but also practically useful for informing research, improving support services, and guiding evidence-based policy.

The work is devoted to the development of the kinetic theory of the cathode sheath of a low-voltage beam discharge in rare gases at Knudsen numbers of the order of 1. It is under these conditions that this plasma system is promising for creating plasma electronics devices. It is found that the structure of the cathode sheath of such a discharge is fundamentally different from that of a self-sustained glow discharge. In particular, the spatial dependence of the electric field may not be monotonic and may contain a maximum. At the same time, the values of the electric field near the cathode turn out to be significantly lower, the spatial dependences of the electron and ion densities may have a minimum, and the lengths of the quasi–neutral pre-sheath and the cathode part of the perturbed sheath, where quasi-neutrality is significantly disrupted, increase significantly. The reason for these changes is the presence of a beam of electrons emitted by the heated cathode and accelerated from the cathode to the plasma, and electrons with energy of the order of the ionization potential of the plasma–forming gas, which have experienced elastic collisions with atoms and have an isotropic distribution in the directions of motion. It has been found that a decrease in the electric field near the cathode leads to the fact that the average energy of ions bombarding the cathode is several times less than for the same conditions in a glow discharge without an electron beam. The results obtained make it possible to proceed to the development of a kinetic theory of three-electrode plasma systems based on a low-voltage beam discharge.

New stability theory for non-autonomous fractional time-varying order derivative systems and its applications

Principal eigenvalue theory of nonlocal dispersal cooperative systems in unbounded domains and applications

Nonlinear dynamics of two magnetic moments with easy-axis anisotropy and ferromagnetic exchange (modeling coupled spin oscillators) in a magnetic field with damping considered within the classical approach and Landau–Lifshitz equations. Exact solutions of the equations for precession and nutation of moments and (analytically and numerically) dependencies of oscillation frequencies and rotations of moments in the entire range of admissible energies and magnetization of the system are found. The general picture of the nonlinear relaxation of excitations for arbitrary fields and initial conditions is clarified analytically within the framework of the qualitative theory of dynamical systems for averaged equations for relaxation of excitations and numerical integration of the initial equations taking damping into account.

Organizations increasingly face challenges in aligning project management and supply chain management, as project success relies on reliable supply chains while supply chain resilience hinges on effective project coordination. Despite the growing recognition of this interdependence, research remains fragmented, with most studies treating PM and SCM in isolation, limiting systematic theorization and practical guidance for integration. Addressing this gap, this review examines how optimization methods can facilitate PM–SCM integration. Through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis, incorporating co-citation, keyword co-occurrence, and cluster analysis, the study maps the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and diverse applications of optimization within both domains. The findings uncover key trends, showing that optimization provides a methodological foundation for managing complexity and uncertainty across diverse integration scenarios, including project scheduling, resource allocation, and supply chain coordination. It further reveals that emerging technologies extend these optimization approaches by enabling real-time prediction, improved transparency, and adaptive decision-making. Theoretically, the study reframes PM and SCM as interdependent components of an adaptive system, offering a concrete and analytically tractable framework for operationalizing integration. Practically, it outlines strategies for strengthening cross-domain coordination and risk management through optimization-enabled solutions. By consolidating fragmented research, this review not only synthesizes the evolution of optimization in PM–SCM contexts but also identifies critical future opportunities, emphasizing the development of scenario-specific models, technology-driven integration mechanisms, and resilience-oriented strategies to enhance performance in project-intensive settings.

This study examines the role of social and cultural structures as mechanisms in reconstructing and maintaining the religious practices of Hindu Kaharingan amidst the challenges of modernization. As a local belief system of the Dayak community in Central Kalimantan, Hindu Kaharingan functions not only spiritually but also as a guardian of cultural identity. This research uses a descriptive qualitative approach with a phenomenological study design. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document studies to understand the meanings and experiences of the practitioners. The findings reveal that major rituals, such as Tiwah, serve a dual purpose: spiritually, to guide the souls of ancestors, and socially, as a community adhesive that reinforces solidarity through mutual cooperation (handep). Through the lens of Functionalism Theory and Religious Systems Theory, this study reveals that religious ceremonies act as a vital medium for cultural transmission. The active involvement of the younger generation in these rites serves as a non-formal educational mechanism for passing down values, philosophies, and ancestral knowledge within an oral tradition system. Thus, the socio-cultural role of the community functions as an adaptive and resistive strategy that ensures the continuity of the spiritual identity and cultural resilience of Hindu Kaharingan in the contemporary era.

Advancing sociotechnical systems theory: New principles for human-robot team design and development.

Social isolation and its influencing factors among family caregivers of individuals with schizophrenia: A social-ecological systems theory perspective.

Lady and the champ: The shared career experiences and retirement transition of a champion jockey and his partner.

The promise of family systems theory in understanding the emotional and interpersonal dynamics of early-stage entrepreneurial teams