Editorial

Citation

Ramage, M., Bissell, C. and Chapman, D. (2013), "Editorial", Kybernetes, Vol. 42 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-10-2013-0229

Editorial

Article Type:

Editorial

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Kybernetes, Volume 42, Issue 8

In this issue, we are pleased to present eight articles, each quite different in style and content, but between them reflecting (again) the variety of approaches, techniques, and application areas relating to this journal.

Massimo Manzin and Cene Bavec discuss the relationship between organizational virtuality (that is, the extent to which organizations are virtual) and financial effectiveness, using a range of financial measures. Their specific focus was on tourist organizations in Slovenia (although their work is more broadly applicable), and they built their model using structural equation modelling.

Jorge Arenas-Gaitan et al. discuss social identity and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), specifically in social network services such as Facebook – the way in which new services can be marketed and shared through online social networks. Their focus is on travel services buyers in Spain and Chile, although they clearly discuss the generalizability of their results. As with the previous paper, they analyse their findings using structural equation modelling (using a slightly different approach).

Jocelyn Chapman discusses online education, and how to make it more relevant through a better sense of its pragmatics and aesthetics (two factors which she suggests exist in cybernetic complementarity). She draws on the conversation theory of Gordon Pask and Bernard Scott for her analysis.

Huimin Li and Peng Li discuss the problem of time-cost optimisation (i.e. creating the best possible balance between time and cost), in particular for construction projects. They model this problem using a form of genetic algorithm, self-adaptive ant colony optimization. Their article discusses the relative merits of different algorithms and presents their model in some detail, before illustrating it with an example.

Jon-Arild Johannessen presents a systemic theory of innovation, through a series of linked propositions relating to innovation in a series of areas (institutional, economic, political, organizational, material and others), in particular derived from Miller’s living systems theory. The article applies the theory especially to credit and insurance, but is applicable to a broad range of institutions.

Ming Li presents a model for group decision making around knowledge management systems. The model extends the widely-used TOPSIS framework (technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution) for use in a fuzzy environment. Although the technique in the article is applied to the selection of knowledge management systems, it has wide applicability in other group decision making situations.

In a pair of linked articles, Josué Antonio Nescolarde-Selva and Jose-Luis Usó-Domenech discuss the concept of Alysidal Algebra, a mathematical technique that addresses “Deontical impure systems” – those concerned with deontic relations between materials and/or energy. The articles extend and complete a series of three articles that appeared in Volume 41 (2012) of this journal. They present a form of logic that is useful for analysing aspects of human societies.

This issue completes the regular issues for Volume 42 (2013). Issue 9/10 is a double special issue with papers arising from the American Society for Cybernetics/Bateson Ideas Group 2012 conference, and is guest-edited by Ranulph Glanville and Dai Griffiths (assisted by several colleagues), and we are grateful to them for their hard work on the special issue.

This also completes our first year as editors of Kybernetes. Taking over as editors, following Brian Rudall’s long and distinguished tenure, has been a steep learning curve. The scale of this journal is simply enormous, both in terms of numbers of papers, the range of academic disciplines and research styles involved, and even the number of countries and cultures connected to the journal. To take just one metric: around 350 articles (and other items such as reviews and editorials) have been submitted to the journal over the past year. And we have also been helping the community of authors and reviewers to learn to use the new online submission system, ScholarOne, which for us as editors (and for the publishers) is extremely helpful but carries its own burdens and has its own quirks.

We are grateful for all those over the past year who have submitted articles and other items to the journal, who have reviewed papers for us, who have guest-edited special issues, who have presented proposals, and who have supported the journal administratively. Thank you all for your co-operation and forbearance with our timescales; apologies when we have taken longer than any of us hoped or wished. We are also grateful to all those at Emerald for their support and assistance, especially Ruth Glasspool, Wendy Lynch, Kieran Booluck, Virginia Chapman and Andrea Watson Lee.

Cybernetics can be defined (among other ways) as the study of feedback processes. We would be grateful for any feedback from authors, reviewers, readers and other friends of the journal.

Kybernetes has a large and very interesting community of scholars connected with it. We are very glad to be working with you, and shaping the journal together as it goes into the future, as one part of building the contemporary fields of systems, cybernetics and management science.

Magnus Ramage, Chris Bissell and David Chapman