Systems Thinking Towards Institutional Innovation and Change by Bernard Hubert
•
2 likes•691 views
Humidtropics Integrated Systems Conference
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (14)
Similar to Systems Thinking Towards Institutional Innovation and Change by Bernard Hubert
Similar to Systems Thinking Towards Institutional Innovation and Change by Bernard Hubert (20)
More from Humidtropics, a CGIAR Research Program
More from Humidtropics, a CGIAR Research Program (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Systems Thinking Towards Institutional Innovation and Change by Bernard Hubert
- 1. Systems Thinking toward institutional innovation and change Bernard Hubert (Agropolis International) & Ray Ison (Open Univ., UK & Monash Univ., Australia) International Conference on Integrated Systems Research Ibadan – March 3-6, 20015 Ibadan 03-03-15
- 2. Innovation vs Technology transfer • Innovation is lead by those who are holding stake in a situation to change the situation or their position within this situation … • It could rely on new technology or on new forms of social(/economic) organization or on new understanding of the context based on new knowledge • The role of research is by producing this “new”: by simply changing procedures (“controlled design”) either by exploratory approaches (“innovative design”) • Innovation doesn’t avoid competition among stakeholders if there is any comparative advantage • In case of public goods it has to be collectively managed : Innovation Platforms, Innovation Systems, etc. Ibadan 03-03-15
- 3. The researcher as an agent of change • How to interact better to create knowledge that can engender innovation • The research process is not separable from decision-making: investigation is central to the design of solutions (choices to be made) • Social learning is one way to entail a social dynamic which transforms the perspectives and objects of interest as well as the actors themselves in the collective learning process • …given the inseparability of knowledge and relationships • …a learning system can only be said to exist after its enactment (i.e. upon reflection) • The challenge is not the individual scientist but the determinants of the overall paradigm in which they operate Ibadan 03-03-15
- 4. S1 → S2 → S3 etc Changes in social relations Ibadan 03-03-15
- 5. “Traditional” position of research Politicy actors Research Intermediary bodies Stakeholders Citizens Ibadan 03-03-15
- 6. Policy actors Research Intermediary bodies Stakeholders Citizens CRISIS BREAKING Policy actors Research Intermediary bodies Stakeholders Citizens R1 R2 R3 R4 New relationships based on “knowing and learning” approach Ibadan 03-03-15
- 7. New ways to practice research in complex situations • as researchers external to the process, observing, recording, and analysing methods and processes for the co-creation of inter-active learning (R1), • who are orchestrating invitations to engage in conversations and actions (R2), • and who are looking at the ‘objects’ around which new actions and relationships among IB, SH, and C, are mobilised (R3), • as well as participating in the co-creation of the new actions and relationships (R4). Ibadan 03-03-15
- 8. Ibadan 03-03-15 Organisational learning Second order change Goals & Concepts First order change Rules Third order change Values & Ideas Theories for action (« self evident ») Action strategies implemented Values, theoretical backgrounds, worldviews and conceptions Consequences
- 9. Five ‘variables’ which enhance or constrain transformation towards concerted action Ibadan 03-03-15
- 10. For a transformative praxis • A premise is that it is very useful to view sustainability as an emergent property of stakeholders interaction with their relational domain, and not a technical property of the ecosystem • Understanding adaptation as co-evolution in terms of the conservation of structural coupling (between relational domain & phenomenal domain) • And take on the choice to see a situation as a wicked problem (vs a tame one), depending on our will to face complexity • Build the system of interest as an epistemological device (a way of knowing about a situation) Ibadan 03-03-15
- 11. Two looks of an observer in noting the generative domain, or the resultant phenomenon in a different domain. This figure depicts Maturana’s iconic representation of a living system that remains conserved as such, as long as both autopoiesis and adaptation (structural coupling) persist (Source: adapted from Bunnell 2008, p. xiii) . Ibadan 03-03-15
- 12. Some ‘basics’ about ‘research’ as a form of practice • practice as a relational dynamic • traditions of understanding of the researcher(s) • choices that can be made – theoretical frameworks (F) – about situations (S) – researcher/practitioner (P) modes – about method/methodology (M) • research as an effective (emergent) performance Ibadan 03-03-15
- 13. Understanding research practice …? P = practitioner F = framework of ideas/theory S = situation M = method or methodology T= techniques Ibadan 03-03-15
- 14. Too often the focus is on the M M Ibadan 03-03-15
- 15. Technology is rarely understood in relation to practice Ibadan 03-03-15
- 16. What 30 years of cognitive research suggests? Table 1 Some contrasting features between the traditional Western conception of the disembodied person with that of an embodied person Traditional Western conception of the disembodied person The conception of an embodied person The world has a unique category structure independent of the minds, bodies or brains of human beings (i.e. an objective world). Our conceptual system is grounded in, neurally makes use of, and is crucially shaped by our perceptual and motor systems. There is a universal reason that characterizes the rational structure of the world. Both concepts and reason are independent of the minds, bodies and brains of human beings. We can only form concepts through the body. Therefore every understanding that we can have of the world, ourselves, and others can only be framed in terms of concepts shaped by our bodies. P Ibadan 03-03-15
- 18. Is a concert made up from a collection of different ‘disciplines’ collected in the same room? Bringing multiple perspectives to a joint task? Is it additive, as in a final report? A situation of concern Different theoretical frameworks & assumptions Ibadan 03-03-15
- 20. Some ‘basics’ about ‘Systems’ • the two adjectives from ‘system’ • exploring ‘Systems’ intellectual lineages • choosing ‘system’ or ‘situation’ – a ‘system of interest’ – results from relational thinking • key concepts common to different lineages Ibadan 03-03-15
- 21. Ibadan 03-03-15
- 22. • The systemic, systematic duality Ibadan 03-03-15
- 25. S1 → S2 → S3 etc Changes in social relations Ibadan 03-03-15
- 26. Choices about ‘framings’ for situations S Ibadan 03-03-15
- 27. Levels of organisation Ibadan 03-03-15
- 28. Systemic (epistemologies) Systematic (ontologies) To start with a situation or THE system – a choice to be made Ibadan 03-03-15
- 29. For an aware systems practitioner a system of interest is an epistemological device – a way of knowing about a situation ? of purpose Ibadan 03-03-15
- 30. What narrative can be constructed? • appreciating the nature and scope of the contribution that Systems understandings and practices have already made • Building sustainable rural future: The added value of systems approaches in times of change and uncertainty Ibadan 03-03-15
- 31. 3. Ricefield as an agroecosystem Agro-ecosystems analysis Ibadan 03-03-15
- 33. Agroecosystems as human activity systems: Hawkesbury model Ibadan 03-03-15
- 34. An ethics of practice – opening up more choices • fostering the circumstances for epistemological awareness and researcher responsibility Ibadan 03-03-15
- 35. Heinz von Foerster ‘act always so as to increase the number of choices’ Ibadan 03-03-15
- 36. Institutionalizing systems approaches • recognizing and addressing factors that constrain the flourishing of Systems as a domain of inquiry and practice Ibadan 03-03-15
- 37. Different institutional forms for governing and managing purposeful action as part of an overall process of systemic development through social learning (Source: Ison et al 2008). Ibadan 03-03-15
- 38. In a climate-change world we need greater capability for improvising and sustaining effective performances Ibadan 03-03-15
- 40. Systems thinking and practice which attends to perspectives, multiple partial views, assumptions, framings, traps….and much more… still has much to contribute
Editor's Notes
- Consider being here now in this forum, within this conference as a situation S2. S1, not on this slide, is the situation you were in before arriving here – it is associated with your history and prior context. I assume you have attended this conference for a purpose. And that perhaps you imagine through your participation you may transform your current situation towards some future state, a modified situation S3. Being here is a change in your daily practices I suggest. The conference organisers no doubt have other practices they will invite us to participate in. And you are not alone – look around. You will have many new, perhaps some old, conversations. Though informal and formal conversations you make come to have new insights, accept new explanations and thus it might be possible to claim that your understandings have changed. If you are friendly and open to others than your social relations will also have changed. We have found it useful to understand, particularly in complex and uncertain situations such as how to act in a climate-change world, that the transformation of situations can be understood through changes in either or both understandings and practices of those with a stake or interest in the situation. And in the process social relations also change. With effort concerted action in the situation is also possible.
- We have also found empirically that five variables in particular enhance or constrain the transformation process through changes in understandings and changes in practices. These are the history of the situation – which I have already mentioned. The second is stakeholding – by your presence here you are a stakeholder in this conference. There may be other stakeholders who are not here. Your experience of the conference including what you help to make it, may or may not build your stakeholding in this forum and its ongoing concerns. Stakeholding is more than being a stakeholder – it is how stakes are built or not. Institutions – are the norms and rules of the game – when we have coffee breaks, chairing sessions, speaking to time etc!! Facilitation will be carried out by some key people. But facilitation can also arise through mediating objects such as a program, or an excellent website. The fifth is epistemological constraints. Epistemology is rally about whose knowledge counts or whose knowledge drives or constrains transformation processes. During my talk I will be saying more about History and epistemology than the other variables.
- It is now generally accepted in principle (if not in practice) that participatory research which includes local people is important. But I am not convinced that researchers and advisors always appreciate the conceptual issues that are involved. This slide shows how an agronomist, an ecologist, a sociologist or an animal scientists might form different systems of interest, each only partially engaging with the complexity of the local situation. It was the failure of disciplinary experts to appreciate the full complexity of local rural realities that led to practices such as RRA , PRA and agroecosystems analysis. There is now a generally widespread recognition that local and indigenous knowledges have much to contribute to R&D and that it may not be appropriate to privilege scientific knowledge over other ways of knowing. This has led research practice into multidisciplinary and sometimes interdisciplinary ways of working which may, or may not, include farm families. If you have worked with these approaches, as I have, there is however no guarantee that a richer appreciation of local realities will emerge by forming multi-disciplinary teams.
- Consider being here now in this forum, within this conference as a situation S2. S1, not on this slide, is the situation you were in before arriving here – it is associated with your history and prior context. I assume you have attended this conference for a purpose. And that perhaps you imagine through your participation you may transform your current situation towards some future state, a modified situation S3. Being here is a change in your daily practices I suggest. The conference organisers no doubt have other practices they will invite us to participate in. And you are not alone – look around. You will have many new, perhaps some old, conversations. Though informal and formal conversations you make come to have new insights, accept new explanations and thus it might be possible to claim that your understandings have changed. If you are friendly and open to others than your social relations will also have changed. We have found it useful to understand, particularly in complex and uncertain situations such as how to act in a climate-change world, that the transformation of situations can be understood through changes in either or both understandings and practices of those with a stake or interest in the situation. And in the process social relations also change. With effort concerted action in the situation is also possible.
- Also the notion of hierarchy or layered structure. My perspective on this concept follows Checkland who recognises that different observers recognise different hierarchies which is the same as saying they formulate different systems and sub-systems depending on their interest. For example if my focus is on farming (what) the level above can be regarded as a why - to improve livelihoods and that below - pastoral activity as a how. In this way the activities what to do, how to do it and why to do it can be linked to the the concept of level and boundary recognising that for every what there are always many hows.
- Two days are spent by two national and a set of provincial staff in undertaking the analysis procedures in the manual, producing in the end a set of Key Questions, Guidelines and Working Hypotheses. These guidelines and working hypotheses constitute the problems, issues and opportunities which are the stuff of the extension programs and of Commune Development Plans. In 1985 Rambo and Sajise suggested three conceptual and methodological challenges in the following terms: 1. The need to become self-critical of the conceptual frameworks employed - how for example are agroecosystems to be defined, what are their boundaries, how do they interact with other systems?…. The key properties of rural social systems have yet to be clearly identified although equitability, autonomy and solidarity have been suggested as being of central concern. 2. There is a need for increased quality control in empirical work - this has been echoed subsequently in relation to FSR, RRA and PRA. 3. There is a need to make the results of agroecosystem analysis accessible to a wider audience, both policy makers and the general public. What I found attractive about AEA was that people were clearly not excluded as in this model but in practice are they conceptualised as part of the system? Also the connectivity in a system was explicitly recognised by appreciating the dynamics and flows but not necessarily through people as say occurs in collaborative action. AEA also encompasses a number of other key systems concepts such as ...
- Despite these concerns and the questioning of Prigogine and others many in the farming systems and agroecosystems community have spent a lot of money and effort engaged in classification and assessment of either farming systems types or agroecosystem types. The model shown here was developed I nthe early 1980s at Hawkesbury to convey to students the notion (innovative at that time) that agricultural systems were at the interface of natural and social systems. At that time the inclusion of the social was seen as quite radical. For example the study published as part of the Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (PAGE) study and its follow-up Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Project have invested significant amounts have as their aim the ‘development of ecosystem management scenarios that should allow one to evaluate agroecosystem capacity in specific contexts’. Over twenty years on these authors argue that ‘the science and practice of environmental measurement and valuation in the context of agricultural ecosystems are in their infancy.’ As I will argue later all this effort is an example of what Ison and Russell have termed first-order R&D.
- Building on AEA and Checkland’s concept of human activity systems this model was developed at Hawkesbury and used for teaching and research for many years. It conceptualises a dynamic natural system (agroecology) being managed but managed for a purpose. This conceptualisation enable an exploration of the question of purpose and how purpose for a farming systems is attributed differently by different stakeholders as in this figure.