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 European J. International Management, Vol.
1
 , No.
1/2
 , 200
7 
 
81 
Modelling pathologies in social collectives
 Maurice Yolles
School of Business Information,Liverpool John Moores University,John Foster Building, 98 Mount Pleasant,Liverpool, L3 5UZ, UK E-mail: m.yolles@ljmu.ac.uk 
Abstract:
As social collectives operate through more complexity their coherence suffers and their pathologies become more apparent. Genericmodelling of pathologies will be explored in terms of the knowledgecybernetics schema. Two models will develop, one which is transitive in natureand the other lateral. The transitive model distinguishes between differentrealities in autonomous collectives, and an example is the distinction betweenthinking and doing. The lateral model distinguishes between different states of  being within the same reality. Examples of a lateral schema is the distinction between two competing corporate agents in a given frame of reference seekingthe same observable good (e.g., market share), and the more coded example of the interaction between the ideology and ethics of social collectives that affect both the autopathic (endogenous) and sociopathic (exogenous) nature of the pathologies of collectives.
Keywords:
social collectives; complexity; coherence; pathologies; knowledgecybernetics schema; ideology; ethics; autopathology; sociopathology.
Reference
to this paper should be made as follows: Yolles, M. (200
x
)‘Modelling pathologies in social collectives’,
 European J. International Management 
, Vol.
x
, No.
x
, pp.
xxx
 – 
xxx
.
Biographical notes:
Maurice Yolles is Professor of Management Systems inthe Liverpool Business School. He has published two research books:
Management Systems
,
 
and
Organisations as Complex Systems
. He has published more than 180 papers in refereed journals, conferences and book chapters in a variety of related fields. He is co-editor of the
 International  Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change
(OTASC). He isalso the Vice President of the International Society of Systems Science.He has also been involved in various international research and development projects for the EU under various programmes within countries experiencingtransformational change.
1 Pathology and coherence in social collectives
In this paper, the intention will be to develop a generic model that depicts pathologies(conditions of ill-health) in autonomous social collectives. Two approaches will beadopted: a transitive approach that, within a particular context, represents primary causesfor a pathological situation; a more usual lateral approach that can be explored in terms of their primary (causal) and secondary (resultant/symptomatic) aspects. Addressing causes
 
 82
M. Yolles
is likely to create durable improvement in the problems situations of a social collective,while addressing symptoms will not. The basis for considering both models will comefrom the knowledge cybernetics schema (Yolles, 2006): the transitive based pathologymodel derives from the ontological nature of the Social Viable System model thatdistinguishes between different types of reality. Ontology must be seen as an analytic toolthat enables us to distinguish between different types of related reality to enable us asinquirers to have a better understanding of what is going on. While ontology allows us to break down the world we see into manageable bits, it is through epistemology that we areable to gain knowledge about those bits and gain understanding about their natures. As anillustration of this, consider a person as an archetypical, rational, autonomous being whocan be distinguished (into types or categories) for analytical purposes, ontologically, asthree types of reality that can be attributed to:
believing 
,
thinking 
and
doing 
(Figure 1).Every ontological distinction has an epistemological content, so epistemologicallyspeaking,
believing 
is connected to knowledge, while
thinking 
is connected toinformation, and
doing 
is empirically connected and is therefore data related; theseconnections may not be immediate and linear, however. In the archetypical emotional being it may be said that processes of 
thinking 
are made complex by
 feeling,
though thisextension is beyond my interest here. While the natures of the three attributes of Figure 1are all very different, they do have a mutual relationship in the autonomous being.
Figure 1
Elementary relationship between three (ontological) types of reality in an archetypicalhuman being
Laterally based pathologies are epistemological in nature (so that only the knowledgecontent is considered) and can normally be connected with a manifestation of ideologyand ethics, which is itself connected with political culture. Laterally based pathologiescan be distinguished into two forms: primary and representative of the causes of problemsituations that collectives face; and resultant secondary that populate the problemsituations. We can also distinguish between two orientations for collective pathologies:autopathology is endogenously directed and sociopathology is exogenously directed.These terms will be revisited shortly.Pathology influences the capacity of a social collective to be coherent. It does this byimpacting on its ability to operate effectively and efficiently, and interfering with its possibilities to function as a whole according to its needs. Since coherence has referentialsignificance for pathologies, it may be worth exploring this briefly.
 
 
Modelling pathologies in social collectives
83 Coherent social collectives operate through normative processes that encourage thedevelopment of a shared way of thinking and behaving. Coherence can be thought of as ageneral condition that enables a collective to operate as a ‘global’ whole. If the globalwhole can be distinguished into a set of arbitrarily defined local parts, then it is coherentwhen its localities can be described in an orderly and consistent set of definablerelationships that manage to withstand adverse interferences. When such interferencesoriginate internally to the collective it is likely to experience local pathologies that work against the interests of the global whole. These pathologies may inhibit a collective from behaving in a way that enables it to implement its structures, and can limit its capacity toact effectively and efficiently in connection with its perceived interests, intentions, or  purposes.There are a variety of approaches to the notion of coherence, for instance in philosophy (BonJour, 1985) or strategic management (Foss and Christensen, 1996).However, our interest lies more in the tradition that extends from the 1950s work of Talcott Parsons. He produced a theory based on the three ‘systems’ of Culture,Personality and Society, and connected them together in what he referred to as thelifeworld (Schutz and Luckmann, 1974; Habermas, 1987). Lifeworld is the vehicle for coherence, and can be seen as a cultural space of purposeful actors who interact together in order to reach agreement over issues. It is a global place that, within a given context,enables purposeful communications to be undertaken, and where people maintain their  proprietary local worldviews and communicate with intention over a theme. In so doingthey create messages that are knowledge laden. Since the lifeworld comes into being onlythrough its worldviews composition, there is some use in exploring the nature of the latter a little further within the context of the former. It is possible to define worldviews asindependent worldview spaces that interact in the lifeworld through
 semantic
 communication processes that involve the
meaningful 
exchange of messages.Each locality has its own knowledge content that enables it to maintain a capacity todevelop meanings, and through its interaction to create mutual local understanding thatoffers a potential for the formation of common agreements.While it is the lifeworld that enables social collectives to come together as a coherentwhole, it is communication that is its commodity and that is the facilitating global socialconstruct that enables collectives to emerge as a whole. Communication may have aglobal potential, but it also has manifestations that satisfy local purposes and interests.The capacity for a collective to operate as a global whole is limited by the problem of knowledge migration (Yolles, 2006), from which it can be recognised that the knowledgecontent of a message is understood differently in distinct localities of a collective becauseof the knowledge differences in worldview. This is a topic that is at the core of the paper ‘Manageable Inequalities’ by Slawek Megala in this issue of the journal, and is onereason that pathologies usually have a local as opposed to global origin.One of the important consequences of these considerations is that any impact oncoherence must arise through pathologies that permeate the fabric of the lifeworld andresult in communication problems. Whenever problem situations arise in a socialcollective, and communication is cited as one of its secondary pathologies, then the primary cause will be a perforated lifeworld that will indicate that coherence is not possible.
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