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This paper marks the centenary year of W. Ross Ashby (1903‐1972), one of the founders of the interdisciplinary subject of cybernetics. Its purpose is to Ashby's cybernetics to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper marks the centenary year of W. Ross Ashby (1903‐1972), one of the founders of the interdisciplinary subject of cybernetics. Its purpose is to Ashby's cybernetics to construct a framework for understanding some of the features that presently characterise British higher education.
Design/methodology/approach
The contents of Ashby's 1956 book, An Introduction to Cybernetics, are outlined. Cybernetic concepts, principles, and laws are then applied to some of the features that presently characterise UK universities: growth in student numbers, the modularisation of curricula, concerns over academic standards, and bureaucracy.
Findings
The paper finds Ashby's writings to be critical to understanding the nature of many of the contemporary debates about UK higher education. A diagnosis and critical evaluation of the policy impetus to increase student numbers and modularise curricula is supplied. A cybernetic analysis in support of the current concerns over academic standards is provided. The paper demonstrates why the current higher education quality assurance regime produces a bureaucratised university.
Research limitations/implications
The paper's framework is supported by an analysis of available national statistics and other secondary evidence, but more detailed, cross‐comparative, longitudinal studies of the UK labour market and educational attainment are required.
Practical implications
Given the economic perspective adopted by policy‐makers – the paper identifies three reasons why the current policy of expanding UK higher education may be flawed.
Originality/value
The paper marks the centenary year of W. Ross Ashby by demonstrating how his writings can supply a framework for understanding the current debates about UK higher education policy.
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Ranulph Glanville has argued that ambitions of strict control are misplaced in epistemic processes such as learning and designing. Among other reasons, he has presented…
Abstract
Purpose
Ranulph Glanville has argued that ambitions of strict control are misplaced in epistemic processes such as learning and designing. Among other reasons, he has presented quantitative arguments for this ethical position. As a part of these arguments, Glanville claimed that strict control even of modest systems transcends the computational limits of our planet. The purpose of this paper is to review the related discourse and to examine the soundness of this claim.
Design/methodology/approach
Related literature is reviewed and pertinent lines of reasoning are illustrated and critically examined using examples and straightforward language.
Findings
The claim that even modest epistemic processes transcend the computational means of our planet is challenged. The recommendation to assume out-of-control postures in epistemic processes, however, is maintained on ethical rather than on quantitative grounds.
Research limitations/implications
The presented reasoning is limited in as far as it is ultimately based on an ethical standpoint.
Originality/value
This paper summarizes an important cybernetic discourse and dispels the notion therein that epistemic processes necessarily involve computational demands of astronomical proportions. Furthermore, this paper presents a rare discussion of Glanville’s Corollary of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety.
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After some critical notes on the long‐term regulation, requisite structure and requisite constitution as discussed by D. Sahal (Kybernetes 7, No. 1, 19–24, 1978), it is pointed…
Abstract
After some critical notes on the long‐term regulation, requisite structure and requisite constitution as discussed by D. Sahal (Kybernetes 7, No. 1, 19–24, 1978), it is pointed out that W. Ross Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety implies a Principle of Variable Structure. Hereafter, a mathematical theory of amplifying regulation is given, and a new Law of Requisite Hierarchy is formulated. It is suggested to be fundamental in the theory of social organization.
Ashby's concept of requisite variety is not a generally applicable law but a limited tautology. Attempts to regard it as an empirical truth ignore a wide class of contradictory…
Abstract
Ashby's concept of requisite variety is not a generally applicable law but a limited tautology. Attempts to regard it as an empirical truth ignore a wide class of contradictory phenomena and may cause options to be missed in designing effective controllers. However, the concept does provide one strategy among others, which may be applicable in certain specific control situations.
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Gordon Pask was the author’s friend and colleague. Here are some comments and reminiscences which help justify the author’s claim that he was a genius.
Abstract
Gordon Pask was the author’s friend and colleague. Here are some comments and reminiscences which help justify the author’s claim that he was a genius.
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SUMMARY An attempt is made to reveal the prospects for an interaction between cybernetics and the natural sciences on the basis of molecular cybernetics, a synthetic discipline…
Abstract
SUMMARY An attempt is made to reveal the prospects for an interaction between cybernetics and the natural sciences on the basis of molecular cybernetics, a synthetic discipline that takes into account both informational and physical aspects of the systems. In this paper: 1) A quantum‐theory‐based concept of organization (concept of a system) is formulated; 2) the unification of a number of concepts of cybernetics, a physics to build the concepts of molecular cybernetics is suggested, and 3) a concept or organization in molecular cybernetics based on concepts of a universal unit of organization, a Bion, of a coherent electron graph system and of electromagnetic natural control, is discussed. Prospects for the implementation of molecular cybernetics' devices for optimization control are also briefly discussed.
In this paper, certain theoretical results due to Porter concerning the probability of stability of a class of linear dynamical systems are generalized significantly. These…
Abstract
In this paper, certain theoretical results due to Porter concerning the probability of stability of a class of linear dynamical systems are generalized significantly. These results are compared with the theoretical results obtained by Porter and also with certain empirical results obtained by Ashby.
Erica du Toit, Ben Marx and Rozanne Smith
The International Integrated Reporting Council introduced the concept of integrated thinking skills to the accounting world overall. This study uses a constructivist approach to…
Abstract
The International Integrated Reporting Council introduced the concept of integrated thinking skills to the accounting world overall. This study uses a constructivist approach to address the development of integrated thinking skills for future professional accountants during higher education. This issue is relevant as many professional accounting bodies expect that integrated thinking skills are developed during the higher education of prospective professional accountants. Despite this expectation, there is limited guidance available to academics in the accounting education field to do so. By means of a literature review as well as an empirical study, this chapter develops a constructivist model that can be used by academics to develop integrated thinking skills during the higher education of prospective professional accountants. The model addresses the foundation, appropriate pedagogies, disciplinarity type, and point of introduction of integrated thinking principles in accounting education.
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The aim of this paper is to advance applied theoretical knowledge on international business (IB) ideation by designing the managing of such ideation as three recursive…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to advance applied theoretical knowledge on international business (IB) ideation by designing the managing of such ideation as three recursive, multi-competence-enabled systems.
Methodology/approach
The core principles of Beer’s (1985) Viable System Model are adopted for this system design task. The Viable System Model consists of five interacting sub-systems that can support a viable IB unit.
Findings
The contribution of this design of the three recursive, multi-competence-enabled systems will be three novel pieces of the applied theoretical knowledge about recursivity and competences that advance the management of an IB unit as a whole and in particular that of IB ideation.
Research implications
For future research, I initially propose that the IB ideation (unit) is being managed the more successfully within its focal contexts, the more extensively the IB ideation is designed as a set of three recursive systems enabled by respective multi-competences. Moreover, the 3-system design may serve as the frame of reference for those compatible theorization initiatives vis-à-vis viable IB ideation management that interested competence-based management scholars will conduct in the future.
Practical implications
I put forth the three templates (coupled with Functions 2–3) to facilitate the enhancement of the IB ideation practices among leading, innovative firms and especially by the pioneering management of IB (ideation) units.