Bringing together socio-technical systems theory and autopoietic theory offers insight into the anticipation of risk in emergency management. As socio-technical autopoietic systems, emergency management organizations come into focus as units continually reaffirming their own identity delimited from their environment by a boundary (Maturana & Varela, 1987). Inflows such as funding, information, and technologies enter into the system and are then transformed into outflows through the union of social and technological systems performing work cycles (Trist et al.,1993). As work cycles are completed, they produce outcomes that perpetuate further work cycles, creating a circular process at the heart of identity reproduction. Flowing out of the system are products and services designed to protect communities. Identity reproduction extends beyond these products and services and is tied to their success. The identity of emergency management organizations is constituted by these inflows, work cycles, and outflows, theories about the social and technical systems, and situations that threaten and support identity reproduction (Di Paolo et al., 2017). From this perspective, anticipation is a component of adaptation. By being adaptive, emergency management organizations can move towards conditions that support identity reproduction, away from those that threaten it, and transform the latter into the former (Di Paolo et al., 2017). The temporal horizon of adaptation becomes extended through the addition of anticipation, where signals indicating eventual threats are acted upon in the present. Anticipation is then grounded in an organization’s concern to continually reproduce its identity across time and space. As the organization anticipates, it reaches into the future towards everything that could disrupt the reproduction of identity. It is through this temporal extension that the present becomes intelligible (Stendera, 2015). Recast as an act of finding the future for the purpose of maintaining the identity of socio-technical autopoietic unities, anticipation reveals a landscape where an organization can change inflows, work cycles, and outflows preemptively as it moves across it. Di Paolo, E., Buhrmann, T., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2017). Sensorimotor Life: An Enactive Proposal. Oxford, UK: Oxford. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge. Boston, Massachusetts: New Science Library. Stendera, M. (2015). Being-in-the-world, temporality and autopoiesis. parrhesia, 261-284. Trist, E., Gurth, H., Murray, H., & Pollock, A. (1993). Alternative work organizations: An exact comparison. In E. Trist, H. Murray, & B. Trist (Eds.), The social engagement of the social science: A Tavistock anthology. University of Pennsylvania Press.

1. Autopoietic Socio-Technical
Systems: A new lens for
understanding anticipation
Gregory Vigneaux, M.S.
@gregory_vig
Gregoryvig.com
greg@gregoryvig.com
Photo by Daniel Heuclin

2. Introduction
Socio-Technical Systems
Theory
Autopoietic
Theory
Autopoietic
Socio-technical Systems
Anticipation
 Di Paolo, E., Buhrmann, T., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2017). Sensorimotor Life: An
Enactive Proposal. Oxford, UK: Oxford.
 Klein, G., Snowden, D., & Pin, C. L. (2007). Anticipatory Thinking. In K. Mosier,
& U. Fischer (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth International NDM Conference,
(pp. 1-8).
 Maturana, H. R., & Poerksen, B. (2011). From being to doing: The origins of
the biology of cognition (2nd ed.). (W. K. Koeck, & A. R. Koeck, Trans.) Kaunas,
Lithuania: Carl-Auer.
 Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge. Boston,
Massachusetts : New Science Library.
 Mingers, J. (1995). Self-producing systems: Implications and applications of
autopoiesis. New York, NY: Plenum Publishing.
 Stendera, M. (2015). Being-in-the-world, temporality and autopoiesis.
Parrhesia, 261-284.
 Trist, E. L., & Bamforth, K. W. (1951). Some social and psychological
consequences of the longwall method of coal-getting…. Human Relations,
4(1), 3-38
 Trist, E., Gurth, H., Murray, H., & Pollock, A. (1993). Alternative work
organizations: An exact comparison. In E. Trist, H. Murray, & B. Trist (Eds.),
The social engagement of the social science: A Tavistock anthology.
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Core Literature
RQ: In the context of emergency management and services
organizations, what anticipates and how does it do it?

3. “When we examine a living system, we find a network
producing molecules that interact with each other in such
a way as to produce molecules that, in turn, produce the
network producing molecules, and determine its
boundary. Such a network I call autopoietic “(Maturana &
Poerkson, 2011, pp. 97-98.).
Autopoiesis
Boundary
Network
Molecules
Autopoiesis. A network produces molecules that
produce the network that produces the molecules
and creates a delimiting boundary.
Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com

4.  Autopoiesis critiqued as an all or nothing condition
 With the addition of adaptivity, an autopoietic system
can “appreciate its encounters with respect to this
condition, its own death, in a graded and relational
manner while it is still alive” (Di Paolo, 2005, p.439).
 Improve the conditions of self-production – can do
better or worse
 Adaptivity as a driver to anticipation
Autopoiesis & Adaptivity
Boundary
Network
Molecules
“A system seeking to carry “over a past identity
into the future” (Stendera, 2015, p.276)
Looking ahead of itself and identifying
interactions that will lead to perishing and flourishing.
Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com

5. Autopoietic Socio-Technical Systems
Boundary
Socio-Technical
Work Cycles (Network)
Outcomes (Molecules)
Inflows Outflows
(Di Paolo, Buhrmann, & Barandiaran, 2017, p. 115)
Boundary: Work (of a certain kind
and not another one done by certain
people delimits the system from the
environment
Identity Reproduction
(e.g., incident response, emergency
operations center activation,
mitigation work, public awareness
campaigns)
(e.g., information, personnel,
technologies theories in use,
expertise, knowledge)
Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com

6. Domain of Perturbations
Events trigger only minor shifts within the system.
Interactions between the social and technical component
may briefly change as operations shift but return to normal
afterward. Focus is on fortifying present conditions.
Domain of Changes of State
Events trigger changes within the system while identity is held
constant. Possible changes include shifts in inflows that lead to
shifts in how the autopoietic socio-technical system transforms
inflows into outflows and what those outflows are The core
dynamic is adaptation.
Domain of Disintegrations
Breakdowns.
Events trigger loss of identity. Similar to Domain of Destructive
Interactions, but theorized here as an ephemeral state.
Domain of Destructive Interactions
Loss of identity. Endogenously or exogenously entered, the latter
disastrously.
The domain of either organizational transformation or breakdown.
Emergency management and services organizations are limited
to what they can transform into – parts of their identity need to
remain the same such as overall function. Elements such as
mission, vision, and large-scale technological and social changes
can take place around it.
Making the Future Present