Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Theorie sozialer Systeme'

Der anhaltende Misserfolg des politikgetriebenen Reformstakkatos verstärkt seit einer Dekade die Tendenz zu einem Reformmodus, der Universitäten höhere Autonomie zuspricht und auf deren Selbstorganisation gegen die teilweise dramatisch diskutierte Entfremdung von der Gesellschaft setzt. Mit Experimentierklauseln oder gar Hochschulfreiheitsgesetzen wird die Möglichkeit zur Selbstreferenz geschaffen – die Universität ist fortan für sich selbst verantwortlich. Diese Möglichkeit ist gleichwohl nur eine der notwendigen Bedingungen für erfolgreiche Selbstreferenz. Die Fähigkeit dazu liefert die „Entfesselung“ nicht. Dazu muss sich die Universität eingebettet in die sie umfassenden Zusammenhänge begreifen und mögliche Wechselwirkungen zwischen Organisation und Umwelt berücksichtigen können. Diesen voraussetzungsvollen Fall, dass eine Organisation die Auswirkungen ihrer Operationen auf ihre Umwelt sowie daraus entstehende Rückwirkungen auf sich selbst reflektiert, kann mit LUHMANN (1984, S.617) rationale Selbstreflexion genannt werden. Die Arbeit widmet sich dem Managementinstrument der Leitbildentwicklung und untersucht, wie es zur rationalen Selbstreflexion der Universität beitragen kann. Mit der Perspektive der Theorie sozialer Systeme werden drei Bedingungen herausgearbeitet, die im Prozess der Leitbildentwicklung zu berücksichtigen sind, um das orientierende und koordinierende Nutzenpotential dieses Managementinstruments zu entfalten
Due to the persisting failure of ever continuing reforms driven by politics a new mode of reform has been established during the last decade: Universities are granted higher autonomie with respect to decisionmaking aiming at strengthening their capability of self-organisation. With flexible clauses in new higher education laws the possibility for self-reference has been created - Universities are responsible for themselves. This possibility is nevertheless just one of the required conditions for sucessful self-reference. The second required condition, the ability for self-reference, is not fulfilled automatically by just "loosening the chains". In order to develop this ability Universities have to recognize themselves as embedded in a tight network of relationships and they have to be able to incorporate reciprocal effects between themselves and its environment into their decisionmaking. This case of an organisation being able to reflect on its impact on its environment as well as on the backlashes created by that, can be termed "rational reflexivity" with LUHMANN (1984, p.617). This paper adresses the management instrument of creating mission statements and analyses, how this instrument can contribute to the rational reflexivity of Universities. Using the theory of social systems three conditions are suggested that should be accounted for when aiming to unreveal the potential of the orienting and coordinating management instrument mission statements

Social Software-Technologien finden immer stärker Einzug in den Intranets der Unternehmen. Insbesondere der Einsatz von Enterprise Wikis hat sich durchgesetzt. In diesem Paper wird untersucht, auf welche Art und Weise Enterprise Wikis eingesetzt werden können. Hierfür wird mittels der Grounded Theory-Methodik eine Untersuchung des Enterprise Wikis „TeamWeb“ der T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH durchgeführt. Auf Basis einer Analyse der TeamWeb-Spaces wird eine Einsatzszenarien-Typologie konstruiert, welche die Typen „Bereichspräsentation und -kommunikation“, „Nachschlagen und Lernen“, „Projekt- und Bereichsorganisation“ und „Kollaborative Konzeption“ unterscheidet. Im Anschluss wurde die der Nutzung zugrundeliegende Motivation mit Hilfe von semi-strukturierten Gesprächen mit den Wiki-Nutzern weiterführend untersucht. Hierbei wurde festgestellt, dass die Nutzungsmotive ausschließlich egoistischer Natur sind. Diese Erkenntnis wird im Paper zu einer allgemeinen Theorie zur Nutzungsmotivation in Enterprise Wikis ausgebaut.

Der anhaltende Misserfolg des politikgetriebenen Reformstakkatos verstärkt seit einer Dekade die Tendenz zu einem Reformmodus, der Universitäten höhere Autonomie zuspricht und auf deren Selbstorganisation gegen die teilweise dramatisch diskutierte Entfremdung von der Gesellschaft setzt. Mit Experimentierklauseln oder gar Hochschulfreiheitsgesetzen wird die Möglichkeit zur Selbstreferenz geschaffen – die Universität ist fortan für sich selbst verantwortlich. Diese Möglichkeit ist gleichwohl nur eine der notwendigen Bedingungen für erfolgreiche Selbstreferenz. Die Fähigkeit dazu liefert die „Entfesselung“ nicht. Dazu muss sich die Universität eingebettet in die sie umfassenden Zusammenhänge begreifen und mögliche Wechselwirkungen zwischen Organisation und Umwelt berücksichtigen können. Diesen voraussetzungsvollen Fall, dass eine Organisation die Auswirkungen ihrer Operationen auf ihre Umwelt sowie daraus entstehende Rückwirkungen auf sich selbst reflektiert, kann mit LUHMANN (1984, S.617) rationale Selbstreflexion genannt werden. Die Arbeit widmet sich dem Managementinstrument der Leitbildentwicklung und untersucht, wie es zur rationalen Selbstreflexion der Universität beitragen kann. Mit der Perspektive der Theorie sozialer Systeme werden drei Bedingungen herausgearbeitet, die im Prozess der Leitbildentwicklung zu berücksichtigen sind, um das orientierende und koordinierende Nutzenpotential dieses Managementinstruments zu entfalten.
Due to the persisting failure of ever continuing reforms driven by politics a new mode of reform has been established during the last decade: Universities are granted higher autonomie with respect to decisionmaking aiming at strengthening their capability of self-organisation. With flexible clauses in new higher education laws the possibility for self-reference has been created - Universities are responsible for themselves. This possibility is nevertheless just one of the required conditions for sucessful self-reference. The second required condition, the ability for self-reference, is not fulfilled automatically by just "loosening the chains". In order to develop this ability Universities have to recognize themselves as embedded in a tight network of relationships and they have to be able to incorporate reciprocal effects between themselves and its environment into their decisionmaking. This case of an organisation being able to reflect on its impact on its environment as well as on the backlashes created by that, can be termed "rational reflexivity" with LUHMANN (1984, p.617). This paper adresses the management instrument of creating mission statements and analyses, how this instrument can contribute to the rational reflexivity of Universities. Using the theory of social systems three conditions are suggested that should be accounted for when aiming to unreveal the potential of the orienting and coordinating management instrument mission statements.

If one takes a snapshot of Romanian migration, the first observation might be that the home villages or communities are very different. This is also the conclusion that Massey et al. (1994) first reach when comparing Mexican communities. However, if one compares migrant communities in a longitudinal manner, it can be seen rather that they are converging towards similar migration patterns rather than diverging. To explore this, I conducted fieldwork research in two villages from different socio-cultural regions of Romania, and for the second phase of the research followed the migrants to their destinations in Spain. In total I conducted more than 50 biographical narrative interviews with migrants and fifteen in-depth interviews with representatives from local authorities and other key informants on rural Romanian life. The biographical narrative interviews allowed me to take a longitudinal perspective on the migration from the two villages. The aim in comparing the two villages was to understand the internal logic of migration and examine to what extent two different villages showed any syncretism through cumulative structural effects. Analysing migrants’ projects, the family migration and the general migration from the two villages – each accounting for different levels of analysis – allowed me to specify the stages of migration. In the thesis, firstly I explain the socio-economic, cultural and geographical context in the origin community which shapes migration. Secondly, I compare the migration patterns of two families from the two villages, and thirdly I abstract three migration projects specific to the two communities. All these allow me to show that the two villages are at different stages in the migration process (Massey et al. 1994) and also to explain the mechanism of passing from one stage to the next. So far, the literature on migration policies has looked at the receiving countries. Few references are made to the origin countries, and these refer to Mexico, the Philippines and some of the Northern African countries, countries which have an active policy of promoting migration. Literature with regard to the European cases – for example Serbia, which has a Ministry of the Diaspora, or Poland, a country with a very long history emigration – is absent. Moreover, topics such as grounded migration policy making or the local dimension of policy making are still new in the reflexion of scholars. The thesis fills this gap with respect to migration policies of bonding migrants and involving them in development in the home community. The theory that holds together all these components is Luhmann’s systems theory (1995), in the way it was adapted to migration research by Bommes (2005) and Bommes and Tacke (2006a, 2006b). Using systems theory allows me to perform a critique of concepts like migration networks and transnationalism, which are very often used in the analysis of migration.

A fundamental change in societal values and economic structures is required to address increasing pressures on ecosystems and natural resources. Transition research has developed in the last decades to analyze the co-dynamics of technological, institutional, social and economic elements in the provision of key functions such as energy, water and food supply. This doctoral dissertation provides conceptual and methodological contributions to the pro-active governance of sustainability transitions. Three research gaps are identified that are addressed in this dissertation. First, a comprehensive conceptualization of learning in sustainability transitions is currently missing that comprises learning at multiple societal levels (ranging from individuals to policy-actors). Learning concepts are often not explicitly discussed in transition research even though learning is considered as fundamental for innovation processes, niche formation and development as well as breakthrough and diffusion of innovations. Second, methods for the analysis and design of transition governance processes are lacking that specify case-specific intervention points and roles of actors in the implementation of innovations. Third, participatory modeling approaches are only applied to a limited extent in transition research despite a high potential for supporting communication and learning. The conceptualization of multi-level learning developed in this doctoral research conceptualizes learning at different societal levels as specific learning contexts ranging from individual and group contexts to organizational and policy contexts. The conceptual framework further differentiates between learning processes, intensity, objects, outcomes, subjects and factors, allowing for a more detailed analysis of learning within and across learning contexts. Thus, learning contexts can be linked by processes that involve actors from different learning contexts (e.g., community groups and policy-makers), as well as exchanges of physical aspects, institutions and knowledge (in the form of ‘learning factors’). This research has also provided a classification of model uses in transition research that supports a purposeful discussion of the opportunities of modeling and promising future research directions. The methodology developed in this doctoral research aims at the analysis and design of transition governance processes by specifying the various opportunities to contribute to sustainability transitions through purposeful action at different societal levels, as well as related roles of stakeholders in implementing such processes of change. The methodology combines different streams of previous research: 1) a participatory modeling approach to identify problem perceptions, case-specific sustainability innovations as well as related implementation barriers, drivers and responsibilities; 2) a systematic review to identify supportive and impeding learning factors from the general literature that can complement case-specific factors; and 3) a method for the analysis and design of case-specific transition governance processes. Three case studies in Canada (topic: sustainable food systems), Cyprus (water-energy-food nexus) and Germany (sustainable heating supply) have been selected to test and iteratively develop the methodology described above. The results for each case study reveal that there are learning objects (i.e., learning requirements) in all learning contexts, which underscores the importance of multi-level learning in sustainability transitions, ranging from the individual to the group, organizational and policy levels. Actors have various opportunities to actively facilitate societal transformations towards sustainable development either directly through actions at their particular societal levels (i.e., context-internal learning) or indirectly through actions that influence learning at other societal levels. In fact, most of the learning factors require cooperation across learning contexts during the implementation process. The comparing of learning factors across case studies underline the importance of several factor categories, such as ‘physical a ‘disturbance or crisis’, ‘information and knowledge’. Of the 206 factors identified by stakeholders, 40 factors are case-specific and not contained in the general, review-based factor list. This underscores the value of participatory research, as general, top-down analyses might have overlooked these case-specific factors. The methodology presented in this dissertation allows for the identification and analysis of case-specific intervention points for sustainability transitions at multiple societal levels. The methodology furthermore permits the analysis of interplay between individual, group, organizational and policy actions, which is a first step towards their coordination. The focus on sustainability innovations links the broad topic of sustainability transitions to a set of opportunities for practical interventions and overcoming their implementation barriers. The methodology presented allows for the analysis and design of these interlinkages between learning contexts. While the methodology cannot provide any ‘silver bullets’ for inducing sustainability transitions, it is flexible enough to identify an appropriate abstraction level for analyzing and designing transition governance processes. The methodology developed in this doctoral research also provides several contributions for the development of participatory modeling methods in transition research. Thus, the participatory method supports an integrated analysis of barriers and drivers of sustainability innovations, and allows application in practice and education. The concepts and methods developed in this research project allow for reflection on transition governance processes from a systemic viewpoint. Experiences in the case studies underline the applicability of the concepts and methods developed for the analysis of case-specific transition governance processes. Despite substantial differences in the geographic location, culture and topics addressed, all case studies include promising sustainability innovations and the engagement of multiple actors in their implementation. The diversity and multitude of initiatives in the case study regions provides an optimistic outlook on future opportunities for large-scale sustainability transitions.