BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

CONTROL MECHANISMS (Problems in) 2)4)

K. BOULDING states (1952) "In organizations of any degree of complexity there is not a single variable to be controlled but a large num number of variables, and the effectors which affect one may also affect others. If each variable to be controlled has an isolated effector which is capable of controlling it, the multiplicity of variables presents no problem. We do not in general find this to be the case, however. Action which is taken to influence one variable will almost always have some effect on the others. If the effectors are sufficiently confused, the problem of control will become insoluble: in endeavoring to stabilize one variable, we inevitably unstabilize others; acute cycles may be set up and the organization may even desintegrate" (1952, p.389).

These effects appear clearly in the systems dynamics models created later on by J. FORRESTER. Interactions between effectors, simultaneity of effects in different parts of the complex system and time lags (delays) are very difficult to modelize satisfactorily". and to control.

As a result, in L. DOUGLAS KIEL words: "The traditional "engineering" view of public policy interventions intended to produce desired outcomes appear to better represent an abstract Newtonian vision, rather than the uncertainty of actual experience with such efforts. In short, the dynamic and nonlinear relationship between many variables in social systems reveals that policy decisions result in an enormity of unexpected outcomes" (1992, p.38).

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]


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