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Different Kinds of Openings of Luhmann's Systems Theory: A Reply to la Cour et al


Kai Helge Becker and David Seidl Organization 2007 14: 939 DOI: 10.1177/1350508407082268 The online version of this article can be found at: http://org.sagepub.com/content/14/6/939

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Volume 14(6): 939944 ISSN 13505084 Copyright 2007 SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)

Different Kinds of Openings of Luhmanns Systems Theory: A Reply to la Cour et al.


Kai Helge Becker
Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

David Seidl
University of Munich, Institute of Strategic Management, Munich, Germany Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Abstract. Various researchers have called for an opening up of Luhmanns systems theory. We take this short paper as an occasion for a critical reection on the necessity, existence and possibilities of such an opening. We start by pointing out the inherent openness of Luhmanns theory, and, based on this, discuss three kinds of openings: the international opening, the theoretical opening and the empirical opening. With regard to the latter, we distinguish three general options of using Luhmanns theory for empirical research. Key words. Luhmann; organization theory; systems theory

To put rst things rst: as researchers interested in exploring the opportunities Luhmanns theory offers for studying organizations, we were happy to read la Cour and his colleagues call for a wider opening of systems theory. It is our conviction that Luhmanns theory deserves to be connected much more tightly with the other discourses in organization studies. Moreover, we believe that this task can be achieved only if systems theory is understood as an inherently open approach and if those researchers who
DOI: 10.1177/1350508407082268 http://org.sagepub.com

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Organization 14(6) Connexions apply it do not avoid contact with other approaches for the mere sake of preserving the purity of the teachings of the master. In their comment, la Cour et al. highlight the need for two types of opening: a theoretical opening and an empirical opening. We agree that especially the latter is overdue. In this respect we consider the note with its description of the three empirical studies as a valuable complement to our special issue. Nevertheless, frankly speaking, we cannot help remarking that la Cour et al. might have easily found a far more suitable object for their criticism than our special issue. In fact, in view of the background of the special issue, we are of the opinion that the criticism of la Cour et al. does not do justice either to the authors or the reviewers or indeed the papers presented. As we share the commentators desire for opening up systems-theoretical research, we would like to reply by taking the criticism as an occasion for reecting on the general problems of opening up Luhmanns systems theory, the background of the special issue, and some related aspects that deserve clarication.

Systems-Theorys Inherent Openness


Systems theory, as a broad and general framework of thinking, has always been a toolset for analysis rather than a closed theory (cf. Jackson, 2003). This aspect sometimes gets lost when dealing with Luhmanns systems theory because he worked mostly on his own to develop a full, mature theory as a unied and coherent body of work. Nevertheless, Luhmann often emphasized that his theory is only one possible approach among several others. More specically, he talked about his theory as one specic type of prejudice among other possible types of prejudices. In his eyes, the only criterion for producing a good theory did not lie in achieving any kind of objective truth, but in delivering a piece of good academic craftsmanship. On the basis of that general attitude, Luhmann often experimented playfully with different theoretical options and made signicant changes to his theory during his lifetime without scrupling about the preservation of any pure theoretical tradition (cf. Luhmann, 2002). Thus, there is no reason (at least no systems-theoretical reason) why those applying Luhmanns theory should not be as playful with his theory as he was, and experiment, as he did, with all those other approaches that he included in his theoretical works, such as phenomenology, cybernetics and post-structuralism, just to name a few.

International Opening
The kind of opening that we primarily had in mind when putting together the special issue was the international opening. While Luhmanns theory is by far the most prominent and widely used home-grown sociological approach in German-speaking countries, until recently, the debate on his

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Different Kinds of Openings of Luhmanns Systems Theory Kai Helge Becker and David Seidl approach had received hardly any attention on the international stage. Apart from the complexity of the theory this had certainly a lot to do with a double linguistic problem (to which our commentators partly refer to): not only was the debate on Luhmann carried out almost entirely in German, but Luhmann, like Heidegger before him, developed a particular style of writing that made translation very difcult (nevertheless, to acknowledge this legacy, we would like to ask the American colleague mentioned by la Cour et al. to refer to this phenomenon as a Heideggerian thing). It was against this background that we felt a particular need for an international opening and organized an international conference on Luhmanns theory in Munich in 2002, from which the special issue in question and a book (Seidl and Becker, 2005) emerged. The main aim of those two projects was to contribute to opening up the German ghetto, as it were, and to set systems theory more visibly on the agenda of the international community.

Theoretical Opening
Our editorial decision regarding a theoretical opening must be placed in the context that we encountered when we started work on the special issue in 2002. Back then, we perceived the eld of Organization Studies to be less open to various approaches based on sociological theorizing than it is today. The voices of rather closely related approaches such as postmodernism and critical management studies were still calling for more acceptance as serious academic work; another related approach, actor-network-theory (ANT), was looked upon with great suspicion. The recent rise of interest in practice-based approaches, many aspects of which overlap with systems theory, had barely begun. Corresponding with this intellectual climate, Luhmanns theory was often criticized for being similar to that postmodern thing (a derogatory comparison that basically meant unscientic mumbojumbo) or for neglecting the human actor as ANT does (which primarily meant: obviously wrong). In contrast to this, representatives of the above mentioned strands of theorizing, which we would perceive as natural allies of systems theory, suspected Luhmanns approach (a systems theory after all) of taking an old-fashioned modernist and technocratic perspective, and of being inherently conservative and primarily interested in stability. In view of the situation, we tried to keep the special issue out of those theoretical conicts and to allow the theory to speak for itself. It did not seem appropriate for us to stand up for one or the other perspective at that early stage of internationalizing Luhmanns theory. Instead, we decided to provide a focal point that we assumed would be of interest to researchers from various theoretical backgrounds. Accordingly, we chose the papers for the special issue on the basis of the general theme organizations as distinction processing and generating entities, which stressed the constructivist and processual approach of Luhmanns theory. The emphasis on such a perspective is shared, for example, by postmodernism and critical management studies (both of which have a specic interest in the questions of what certain distinctions include, or exclude, as well as in the process of

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Organization 14(6) Connexions inclusion and exclusion), actor-network-theory (which focuses on exploring processes of social construction within networks in going beyond the perspective of single human agents) and practice-based approaches (which analyse, among others, the implicit understanding and know-how that shape the routinized patterns of behaviour at the core of certain social practices). We were excited to see that also la Cour et al. seem to agree about the importance of the specic theoretical focus of the special issue. They state that all three examples they have chosen have a common point: they do not take the organization for granted, but instead [...] observe how the organization emerges as such (p. 932). On that basis, with a focus that corresponds perfectly to our unifying theme of the special issue, they present systems as difference-producing entities in their rst example (p. 932), while they highlight the communicative constructions (p. 933) performed by organizations and their environments when these activat[e] certain distinction[s] in their second example (p. 934). Finally, in their third example, they suggest to have a look at the question of how organizations through their [...] processes deparadoxify (p. 935) certain conicting distinctions related to voluntary activities. Given this common ground that we share with our critics, it is difcult to understand why they were not able to see that the contributions in the special issue, apart from our introductory paper and Luhmanns lecture, actually perform a kind of theoretical opening. Martens, one of Luhmanns harshest critics, re-reads Luhmanns theory in his paper in a way that uncovers the inherently cultural perspective of systems theory. In the end, Martenss line of argument turns Luhmanns ideas into a critique against Luhmann, by relativizing as mere cultural phenomena the very fundamental distinctions that Luhmann coined in developing his theory of functional subsystems. Baecker takes up in his own contribution only certain core concepts of Luhmanns work in order to advance well beyond Luhmann in the direction of a difference-theoretical model of the rm. Finally, Coopers contribution primarily refers to the idea of autopoiesis andfar from focusing on a pure Luhmannbrings this together with ideas from other strands of theorizing, which are not related to systems theory at all. Perhaps we ought to have addressed the theoretical opening taking place in the special issue in a more pronounced way, but we honestly wonder: does the special issue really, as la Cour et al. write, iterate the same old tune of systems theory, do the papers really show a take-it-or-leave-it approach that does not accept compromises, and do the authors really avoid engagement with other theories (p. 932)? Are the works of Cooper, Baecker or Martens about closure rather than opening (p. 931)? Frankly speaking, when we, as editors, were putting together the special issue, we were worried that those three papers were opening up the theory to such a degree that readers without prior specialized knowledge would have difculties in seeing the connection with Luhmanns original theory.

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Different Kinds of Openings of Luhmanns Systems Theory Kai Helge Becker and David Seidl

Empirical Opening
The empirical opening of Luhmanns theory is certainly the most difcult task among the types of opening considered here. It is true that Luhmann was involved in empirical investigations at the beginning of his career but later abandoned empirical research in order to concentrate on his theoretical work. Also, it is true that Luhmanns theory mostly attracts other theorists. However, should it really be considered a sign of weakness that his writings are appealing, rather than appalling, to theorists? This point notwithstanding, we fully agree that there is a need for empirical opening. As a constructive step forward, we would like to sketch three general options for using Luhmanns theory for empirical research. First, one could choose a topic for which Luhmann has already provided a rather thoroughly detailed theory and develop it further by investigating the theorys implications for specic empirical questions. If one adopted this approach, one would mainly continue building on Luhmanns theory by using empirical material and, in doing so, extend Luhmanns work. A good illustration of this type of research is Knudsens work (2005), in which Luhmanns organization theory was applied to the analysis of the development of the Danish healthcare system. Second, one could use core elements of Luhmanns theory, complement them with elements from other strands of research, and tailor the resulting framework to empirical work according to the research question at hand. In this case, one would use the theory of social systems as a fruitful heuristic for stimulating new insights into answering particular empirical questions. The empirical examples provided by la Cour et al. seem to fall into this second category. Another example is Nicolais work (2004), in which the relation between organization science and organization practice was analysed empirically. For this purpose he drew on Luhmanns concept of self-reproducing systems and combined it with Wittgensteins notion of language games and other strands of theorizing. Third, one could pick out individual concepts of Luhmanns theory and apply them independently of their wider theoretical context to particular empirical research questions. In this way, one would not be engaging in systems-theoretical work in a strict sense, but would still be beneting from Luhmanns intellectual creativity. Examples of this are the works by Hodgkinson et al. (2006) or by Jarzabkowski and Seidl (forthcoming), who used Luhmanns concept of episodes to analyse strategy workshops and strategy meetings respectively. It is obvious that all three approaches have their own merits and that only a diversity of methods can do justice to the multitude of systemstheoretical concepts and the variety of empirical phenomena related to organizations. Luhmannistic dogmatism would certainly not be a fruitful attitude and would be far from the playful spirit in which Luhmann approached sociological research. We are glad that la Cour et al. suggest taking a non-dogmatic position and are also open to a less puritan and more eclectic approach (p. 930). In the end, apart from new insights into

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Organization 14(6) Connexions the phenomenon investigated, the only justication for choosing one or the other approach among those mentioned above should be, at least from Luhmanns point of view, that of academic craftsmanship. Given the recent rise of interest in the theory of social systems we agree with our critics that the time might be ripe for another special issue, which this time would focus on the empirical opening of Luhmanns theory. For there indeed is, as la Cour et al. have convincingly shown, so much more to explore.

References
Hodgkinson, G.P., Johnson, G., Whittington, R. and Schwarz, M. (2006) The Role of Strategy Workshops in Strategy Development Processes, Long Range Planning 39: 47996. Jackson, M.C. (2003) Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. Chichester: John Wiley. Jarzabkowski, P. and Seidl, D. The Role of Meetings in the Social Practice of Strategy, Organization Studies, forthcoming. Knudsen, M. (2005) Displacing the Paradox of Decision Making, in D. Seidl and K.H. Becker (eds) Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies, pp. 85106. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press. Luhmann, N. (2002) Einfhrung in die Systemtheorie. Heidelberg: Carl-AuerSysteme Verlag. Nicolai, A. (2004) Bridges to the Real World, Journal of Management Studies 41: 95176. Seidl, D. and Becker, K.H., eds (2005) Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press. Kai Helge Becker is a PhD student at the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He received master degrees in Business Mathematics and Sociology, both from Hamburg University, Germany. He works in the elds of Organization Studies and Operational Research and has a special interest in linking these two areas of research, critically as well as afrmatively. He has published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management and in Organization and is co-editor of the book Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies. Address: Department of Management, Operational Research Group, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. [email: k.h.becker@lse.ac.uk] David Seidl is Associate Professor of Organization and Strategy at the University of Munich and Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge. He studied Management and Sociology in Munich, London, Witten/ Herdecke and Cambridge. He earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2001. Current research focuses on corporate governance, organizational change and strategy. He has published in the Journal of Management Studies, Organization, Organization Studies and Human Relations and has (co-)produced several books, including most recently Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies and Organizational Identity and Self-Transformation: An Autopoietic Perspective. Address: Institute of Strategic Management, University of Munich, Ludwigstr. 28, 80539 Munich, Germany. [email: seidl@ bwl.uni-muenchen.de]

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