That the present day society profits from research in many areas is evident. This has stimulated a keen desire to emulate similarly advantageous contributions in other areas. It appears to imply not ...only a need to know how to (better) support action in general or any action, but also how to support the act of making "better" itself (better businesses, better houses, better emotions, better objectives, etc.). Developing the latter type of knowledge has proved to pose a major challenge, however. Although the challenge has been taken up in areas such as social policy, economics, therapy, management, architecture, design, and others, leading to a number of responses, a complete characterisation seems still to be lacking. Such a characterisation is attempted in this article. Typical characteristics are the inclusion of non-observational experiences and a simultaneous striving for individual and collective high quality.
Research to support social interventions Social interventions are intended to improve cooperation between two or more mutually productive roles. Examples include relationships between teachers and ...students, clients and social workers, managers and non-managers and police and the policed. A number of approaches have been developed to accelerate the implementation of such interventions, including action research, the evidence-based approach, the soft-systems approach, the Mode 2 form of knowledge production and many others. The status of these approaches as forms of research is contested, even in cases in which the term “research” has become part of an accepted name. Opponents to the notion that these approaches constitute research note that they allow contributions in the form of observations (or reports of observations) as well as judgements. This is in contrast to traditional forms of research, which restrict themselves to observations. Proponents treat both types as observations. The aim of the paper is to identify a form of research that makes use of both types of contributions without ignoring the distinction between them. It is a hybrid. It is argued to show a clear family resemblance to traditional forms of research, however, and to support social interventions in the same way that those forms support technical interventions. A short history is included in order to identify the place of this hybrid within the development of research and to show how it helps to improve the approaches mentioned, as well as others (such as design research) by providing a more exhaustive treatment of judgements than is usual. An academic discipline (andragology) that focuses on this type of research is referenced. The hybrid is recognized as part of the “next area of development” of research. Onderzoek ter ondersteuning van sociale interventies Sociale interventies zijn bedoeld om de samenwerking tussen twee of meer wederzijds productieve rollen te verbeteren zoals die tussen docent en student(en), cliënt(en) en sociale hulpverlener, manager en ondergeschikte(n) en politie en publiek. Er zijn diverse benaderingen ontwikkeld om de realisatie van zulke interventies te versnellen. Voorbeelden omvatten actieonderzoek, evidencebased onderzoek, the “soft system approach”, de Mode 2 vorm van kennisproductie en vele andere benaderingen. De status van deze voorbeelden als onderzoek wordt betwist, ook in die gevallen waar de term onderzoek als deel van de naam wordt geaccepteerd. Tegenstanders van het idee dat deze benaderingen onderzoek vormen, merken op dat ze bijdragen toelaten in de vorm van zowel (gerapporteerde) observaties als van oordelen – anders dan traditionele vormen van onderzoek die zich beperken tot (gerapporteerde) observaties. Voorstanders behandelen beide bijdragen als observaties. In deze bijdrage wordt een type onderzoek geconcipieerd dat gebruik maakt van beide bijdragen zonder het onderscheid daartussen te laten vervallen. Het gaat om een hybride type. Er wordt betoogd dat dit voldoende gelijkenis vertoont met traditionele vormen van onderzoek om als onderzoek te worden erkend en dat het helpt om sociale interventies op dezelfde manier te ondersteunen als traditioneel onderzoek technische interventies ondersteunt. Een korte geschiedenis laat zien hoe dit hybride type past in de ontwikkeling van onderzoek en tevens dat het ontwerponderzoek en benaderingen zoals de al genoemde effectief ondersteunt (via een meer uitputtende behandeling van oordelen dan daarin gebruikelijk). Er wordt gerefereerd aan een academische discipline (“andragologie”) waarin zulk onderzoek centraal heeft gestaan. Dit type wordt gezien als het “naastgelegen gebied van ontwikkeling” van onderzoek.
Purpose - This paper aims to celebrate Felix Geyer's many contributions to the systems movement. He participated from the beginning, with the energy that has become his hallmark. The area of systems ...studies was introduced in The Netherlands in about 1970, mainly through the activities of the Systeemgroep Nederland or Dutch Systems Group, initiated by Ab Hanken. The paper aims to unearth the original message that made the field of systems attractive.Design methodology approach - The aim is achieved on the basis of a re-analysis of von Bertalanffy's systems papers, which he published under the title of "General System Theory".Findings - von Bertalanffy's message was not what is usually thought - that many political leaders treat their problems incompetently and hence make them less solvable or even create messes. He answered a general question about knowledge acquisition, in an area where an answer was sorely needed.Practical implications - von Bertalanffy's answer inspired hope that one day one would be able to acquire the knowledge needed to solve the politicians' problems. He even identified a number of methods to do so.Originality value - The claim of the paper is that von Bertalanffy intended systems thinking to extend methods of knowing. This intention has been obscured by the limited methods he introduced. This claim is argued in an original way.
The search for knowledge has continued to expand to new domains since its start in the seventeenth century. Some of them have proved unusually resistant. Methods have had to proliferate to deal with ...the obstacles, for example in the social domain. There also have been ideological reactions. Surprisingly frequently, methods and activities that appear to be effective in dealing with such domains are classified as "preliminary" or are distinguished by a "point of view" that has yet to be transcended to achieve "true" knowledge. One such activity is the acquisition of high quality experience. It is argued in the paper that it does not deserve being treated as a poor relative. It has a history of its own and can point to many successes, for example in the development of new values and emotions. Its only drawback seems to be that the search for high quality experiences has tended to be heuristic, or if one wishes, artistic. This situation is changing, however. In the paper the differences between the acquisition of knowledge and that of high quality experience are delineated. It is argued that facilitation of the latter's searches requires the development of interactions between entities that generate and structure experiences--i.e., of human collectives that stabilise sufficiently to execute a collective action in their environment. They are characterised by the use of coordinating languages.
Helping others: project or research? De Zeeuw, Gerard
Journal of community & applied social psychology,
11/2003, Letnik:
13, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Knowledge is defined as the result of successful attempts to transfer expected effort in the future to effort spent in the present. The less effort remains to be spent in the future, the more ...knowledge is exhaustive and complete. It is shown that some efforts remain necessary in the future for accidental reasons, e.g. to correct mistakes, to estimate parameters, to act. Some efforts will also be required for fundamental reasons. They are needed to compensate as and when testing for exhaustiveness proves ineffective. It is argued that the need for such additional effort may be met by starting collectives as a form of pre-containment. Such collectives may include non-ordered experiences. They will maintain themselves by striving to serve as equivalents to knowledge. They help in two ways: they indicate what is needed to create which knowledge. The design of collectives serving as knowledge is linked to second-order cybernetics.
Fighting for science de Zeeuw, Gerard
Kybernetes,
03/2004, Letnik:
33, Številka:
3/4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
What deliverables did Stafford Beer envision when he developed his "science of effective organisation"? This paper answers this question as: the organisations that use the distinctions of Beer's ...viable system model. Such organisations are part of daily life, but develop to become knowledge by continuously striving to identify experiences that falsify their existence. They will be irreducible in the sense that any acceptable model of the organisation will be the organisation itself. The notion of knowledge involved is made explicit in the paper as a tribute to Stafford Beer's pioneering work. It allowed Stafford Beer to introduce and develop insights that began to be developed by others only much later.
Gordon Pask developed not only a conversation theory, but also a (less well-known) interaction of actors theory, partly in response to demands during the time he worked in Amsterdam. The paper aims ...to clarify how this theory intended to minimise the effects of use on scientific results, while maximising the help of such results to improve on actions. This would facilitate empirical study of what changes user values, as well as the preferred design of (computer supported) support systems. Results include the material and communicative support of collective and social activities. Three examples are presented.
Immaculateness and Research Practice Dash, D P; Ponce, Héctor R; de Zeeuw, Gerard
Journal of research practice,
01/2006, Letnik:
2, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Notions of purity, perfection, or immaculateness have powered our imagination over the ages. Various images of perfection have held sway in their hallowed times, providing secure streams for ...channelling human energy. Unfortunately, with the unfolding of the human drama on the world stage, all the images of perfection have suffered damage, epoch on epoch. Different responses have emerged to attempt a restoration. Revival of some of the old images is one such response. Production of new images to serve as worthwhile anchors of value and meaning is another common response. For reasons possibly known only to philosophers and historians, the enterprise called modern science has got thickly embroiled in this civilisational process--first, as the culprit behind the decline of some of the established images, then as the producer of new images, and now, perhaps, as a constant reminder of the perpetual lack of purity and immaculateness in all things human.
Various devices have been identified to support research as a way of improving on observations; those in the social sciences appearing to be less effective than those in the physical sciences. To ...make the former more effective, it often is tried to "involve" the user - as a participant observer, as a co-researcher, as a commissioner. A clarification of the multiplicity of such attempts seems in order. Formulates a framework to summarize the most important aspects of research. Explores instances of this framework with regard to their ability to include users. One instance is applied in a "practical" situation, the improvement of a social service. This instance distinguishes sharply between two kinds of users, each using a different language to promote transfer and interaction: users inside a collective and users outside that collective.
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