Contributors to the Festschrift

Citation

(2006), "Contributors to the Festschrift", Kybernetes, Vol. 35 No. 3/4. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2006.06735caa.003

Contributors to the Festschrift

Juan Miguel Aguado (Madrid, Spain, 1971). PhD in Communication Studies at the University Complutense of Madrid. Postgraduate in Social Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. 1995-1997, assistant professor of Research Methodology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Wroclaw (Poland). 1998-1999, part-time professor of Philosophy and Sociology of Technology at the European University of Madrid, Spain. 1999-2002, assistant professor of Communication and Culture Theory at the San Antonio Catholic University, Murcia, Spain. Since 2002, full professor and Vice-Dean at the School of Communication and Information Studies, University of Murcia, Spain. Member of the ISA International Research Committee on Sociocybernetics (RC51). Member of the ISA International Research Committee on Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (RC14). Research interests in Sociology of Science and Technology, Sociocybernetics and Communication and Culture Studies.

Kenneth D. Bailey

Kenneth D. Bailey is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is Past President of Research Committee 51, Sociocybernetics, of the International Sociological Association (ISA), and Past President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). He was also elected Vice President (North America) of Research Committee 33, Logic and Methodology, of the ISA, Secretary/Treasurer of ISSS, and Secretary of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP). Professor Bailey is the author of 115 articles, chapters, and books, which have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Italian, Slovene, and Slovak, among others. His principal books are: Social Entropy Theory, State University of New York Press, 1990; Sociology and the New Systems Theory, SUNY Press, 1994; Methods of Social Research, Fourth Edition, Free Press, 1994; and Typologies and Taxonomies, Sage, 1994.

Søren Brier

Søren Brier (MSc, PhD) is an Associate Professor of Copenhagen Business School, Department for Management, Politics and Philosophy, Philosophy group, Copenhagen Business School, Blågårdsgade 23B, DK-København, sbr.lpf@cbs.dk. Born 12 of July, 1951, Copenhagen.

Dr Brier has background in biology with a Master's in Ethology, a gold medal in Psychology and a PhD in Philosophy and theory of science with information science as subject. He is the creator and editor in chief of the quarterly journal Cybernetics & Humans Knowing, a journal on autopoiesis, second order cybernetics and cybersemiotics (Imprint Academic), which he founded 1992. He is a Trustee for the American Society for Cybernetics 1998, Member of the board for RC51 Sociocybernetics in ISA (Int. Sociolog. Assoc), Centre for Ethics and Law, Copenhagen, The Foundations of Information Science group and the following journals. TripleC journal, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, J. of Transformational and Social Change and J. of Biosemiotics. He has an entry in Marquis Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in Science and Technology. He is coordinator of the Foundation of Information Science SIG in ISSS and at the IFSR Fuschl conferences.

Eva Buchinger

Eva Buchinger is Senior Researcher at the ARC systems research GmbH. She studied philosophy, history and sociology and holds a degree in sociology (Mag. Phil.) from the University of Vienna. Since she joined ARCS in 1987 she has been working on technological innovation with a focus on systems related issues such as innovation systems, knowledge flows, social systems theory, technology policy, sustainability and quality of life.

Related to these research efforts, she is among others editorial board member of the sociological journal ÖZS Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie (since 2004), member of the managing-committee of the Austrian Association of Sociology (since 2001), editorial board member of the interdisciplinary journal Wissenschaft & Umwelt (since 1998), coordinator within the European Science and Technology Observatory ESTO network for the ARCS (since 1997) delegated speaker of the section “Sociology of Technology and Science” of the Austrian Association of Sociology (since 1996). Being invited as an expert includes evaluations for the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and European Commission initiatives on multi- and interdisciplinary research. Since 2000, the application of social systems complexity research to technology policy is her main working area.

Michaël Deinema

Michaël Deinema received a MA in history at the University of Amsterdam. He is currently writing his dissertation at the Department of Economic and Social History of the University of Amsterdam. His main research interests concern the interaction between social structures and the behaviour of individuals.

Robert G. Dyck,

Robert G. Dyck, USA, is Professor Emeritus of Urban Affairs and Planning, College of Architecture and Urban studies, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, where he has lived and worked since 1970. Dyck served as a Director of the Virginia Center for Organizational Innovation. His interests are in theory and practice of evolutionary development.

Bernd R. Hornung

Bernd R. Hornung is a Senior Researcher at Marburg University, Germany, and Data Protection Officer of Marburg University Hospital. He is President of the Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association (ISA) and member of the ISA Executive Committee.

As a sociologist he has been involved in systems and cybernetics since his undergraduate studies in Munich and Paris. Later, at the Eduard-Pestel-Institute for Applied Systems Research, Hannover, Germany, he worked on developing computer-based systems for policy-making and on modelling and simulating socio-technical systems.

After three years of practical work in Africa with the UN, he applied these methodologies at Marburg to health care systems and information technology assessment. He participated as a senior scientist and convener in the European EUROCARDS Concerted Action for chip-card systems in health care and in related national activities in Germany. Other research included chip-cards in pharmacies and NATO-sponsored projects with the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in Tashkent about IT, health care, and ecological problems of the Aral Basin.

Moreover, Dr Hornung worked as a consultant for WHO and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation/Asian Development Bank on management information systems. Teaching included guest lectures in Lima, Peru, at Charles University Prague, and Zaragoza University, Spain.

The practical and applied dimension of his work has always been complemented by a strong theoretical component.

Richard Jung

Richard Jung was born 1926 in Czechoslovakia. During WWII he participated in the Czech resistance. His studies were interrupted by his imprisonment from 1944 to 1945 at the Little Fortress Terezin. After he recovered, he completed the gymnasium, obtained a diploma from an agricultural institute and started studying law at Charles University. In 1948 he left Czechoslovakia for exile. He studied philosophy, religion, political science, psychology and sociology at various universities in Europe and the USA. He has doctorates in Law from Charles and in Social Relations from Harvard, did i.a. research at IBM, consulted to various governments and agencies, taught psychology, sociology, political science, and cybernetics in the USA, Canada, Mexico and Europe, and directed the Center for Systems Research at the University of Alberta. After 1989 he returned to Czechoslovakia and for several of years served as president of the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies at the Czech Technical University in Prague and as professor of Political Science at Charles University. He is now professor emeritus of Sociology and Theoretical Psychology at the University of Alberta and Director of the Center for Systems Research in the Czech Republic.

Devorah Kalekin-Fishman

Devorah Kalekin-Fishman, a Senior Researcher at the University of Haifa in Israel, is a member of the Executive of the International Sociological Association, and past president of the ISA committee for Alienation Research and Theory (RC36, 1994-2002). Dr Kalekin-Fishman is the editor of the International Sociology Review of Books and serves on the editorial boards of Current Sociology, Intercultural Education, and the Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies. Apart from many journal articles, her recent publications include a critical analysis of Ideology, Policy, and Practice: Education for Immigrants and Minorities in Israel (Kluwer) and an edited volume, Designs for Alienation: Exploring Diverse Realities (Finland: SoPhi Press). Trauma and the Millennium: the Evolution of Alienation, a book edited together with Lauren Langman, will soon be published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Arne Kjellman

Arne Kjellman, PhD, born in 1938, left his PhD studies at Stockholm University in 1965 and begun his industrial career when he become Head of Quality Control at Granges Aluminium where he continued his research on emission spectroscopy. In 1968, he installed Europe's first computer-assisted quantometer for the purpose of semi-automatic analysis of aluminium alloys. Next he was appointed Head of Computer Control Department with the responsibility to organize and coordinate a joint venture between industry and Chalmer's University of Technology concerning computer control of aluminium electrolysis.

Later he was enrolled to start up one of the first academic courses of Sundsvall and Europe's first course in Computer Process Control. He joined the up and coming Mid-Sweden University where he stayed as a senior lecturer for many years at the Computer Department also doing some research on computer simulation.

In the 1990-ties he took a renewed research interest in computer simulation, perception and conceptual modelling where his lifelong interest in these questions gave him a reason to formulate the Subject-Oriented Approach to Science. This phenomenological approach virtually turns the thinking and conceptualisation of traditional science upside down and means a profound change of scientific paradigm – that also will effect our basic attitudes towards learning and other scientific activities in a revolutionary manner.

Jozica Knez-Riedl

Jozica Knez-Riedl, Slovenia, is Associate Professor of Business Economics, Environmental Economics, and Corporate Social Responsibility at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia, after 20 years of practical experiences as business analyst, researcher, and consultant. She published books also abroad (in Austria, Switzerland, and USA), original scientific papers in international scientific journals and held presentations on 37 international conferences. She is a member of the international research project “Strategic and operating management of enterprises”. She chaired the conference about corporate social responsibility, organized by the European Commission in the frame of activities for promoting the concept of CSR. The conference was held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2004. She is also a lecturer in the International School for Corporate Governance.

Lauren Langman

Lauren Langman is Professor of Sociology at Loyola University of Chicago. He received his PhD at the University of Chicago from the Committee on Human Development and had further training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He has long worked in the tradition of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, especially relationships between culture, politics/political movements and the psychosocial. He is past chairman of the Section on Marxist Sociology of American Sociological Association and is current President of Alienation Research and Theory, Research Committee 36, of the International Sociological association. He served a 5 year term on the editorial board of Sociological Theory, and remains on boards of Current Perspectives in Social Theory and Critical Sociology. Recent publications include Trauma Promise and Millennium: The Evolution of Alienation, with Devorah Kalekin, a special issue of American Behavioral Politics devoted to the presidency in a television age as well as articles and book chapters on alienation, social movements, the body and national character. His forthcoming book, The Carnivalization of America, Sage Publications, Pine Forge Press, looks at the role of the alienation of youth and their embrace of transgressive, yet commodified life styles, identities and popular culture that sustain the dominant culture.

Richard E. Lee

Richard E. Lee is Associate Professor of Sociology and Deputy Director of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University. Professor Lee has published in such journals as Review, Protosociologie, International Review of Sociology, Contemporary Sociology, Journal of World-Systems Research, and Futures. Recent publications included Life and Times of Cultural Studies: The Politics and Transformation of the Structures of Knowledge (2003), and the collections World-Systems Analysis: Contemporary Research and Directions (edited with Gerhard Preyer, 2004) and Overcoming the Two Cultures: Science versus the Humanities in the Modern World-System (edited with Immanuel Wallerstein, 2004).

Loet Leydesdorff

Loet Leydesdorff (PhD Sociology, MA Philosophy, and MSc Biochemistry) reads Science and Technology Dynamics at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR) of the University of Amsterdam. He has published extensively in systems theory, social network analysis, scientometrics, and the sociology of innovation (see for a list of publications at http://www.leydesdorff.net/list.htm). In 2001, he published A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-organization of the Knowledge-based Society at http://www.upublish.com/leydesdorff.htm. He received the Derek de Solla Price Award for Scientometrics and Informetrics in 2003. In 2005, he holds “The City of Lausanne” Honor Chair at the School of Economics, Université de Lausanne.

Czesøaw Mesjasz

Czesøaw Mesjasz – Physics, MSc, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland; Management, MA, PhD and “Habilitation”, Cracow University of Economics; Associate Professor, Cracow University of Economics. Research interests: application of systems thinking in social sciences, project management, international management, conflict and negotiation in management and in international relations, some 150 publications and unpublished papers, book chapters and conference papers in Polish and in English. In 1992-1994 Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Peace & Conflict Research, (later Copenhagen Peace Research Institute – COPRI), Denmark. Management Education & Training at various levels, including international MBA programmes with organizations from The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Visiting Professor lectures at business schools in Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Ukraine, UK, USA.

Vessela Misheva

Vessela Misheva holds a PhD in Sociology from the Department of Sociology, Uppsala University (2000), and has specialized in systems theory with Niklas Luhmann at Bielefeld University (1991-1992). She also has a background in economics, computer science, and the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Misheva is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, where she teaches social psychology, and has lectured in the Division of Media and Communication Science, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University (2001-2003) and served as Director of the International Course in Media and Communication Studies (2002-2003). Her research interests include social psychology, media and communication studies, and sociological systems theory. The theoretical focus of her current work concerns the elaboration of Luhmann's sociological systems theory into a medium/systems theory of society that can be utilized to understand social problems and complex socio-psychological phenomena. Misheva has served since 1997 as Vice-president of the Research Committee on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association (RC51 of ISA).

Matjaz Mulej

Matjaz Mulej, Slovenia, is Professor Emeritus of Systems and Innovation Theories. He is based at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia. He authored Dialectical Systems Theory and Theory of Innovative Business (for industrial latecomers). He published in þ30 countries and worked in six. He published and edited about 40 books. Visiting professor and researcher abroad 13 times, including Cornell U, US. Among other honours he is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg, and European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities in Paris. Among other public services he is Vice-president of the International Federation for Systems Research. He is married, has two children and two grandchildren.

Dr Bernard Scott

Dr Bernard Scott is Senior Lecturer in Electronically-Enhanced Learning, Cranfield University, Defence Academy, Shrivenham. His role is to support flexible learning developments and to liaise with colleagues across the Defence Academy and other CU sites. Previous appointments have been with: the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute, De Montfort University, the Open University and Liverpool John Moores University. Dr Scott's research interests include: theories of learning and teaching, course design and organisational change. He has published extensively on these topics.

Johannes (Hans) van der Zouwen

Johannes (Hans) van der Zouwen (1939) is Emeritus Professor of Social Research Methodology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (NL).

His PhD-thesis (1970) was about the sociology of philanthropy and volunteer work.

Recent teaching topics include: methodology of the social sciences, model simulation, and statistics.

His “daily” research interest is the improvement of data quality in the social sciences, especially of data collected in standardized (survey) interviews.

Main “intellectual challenge”: sociocybernetics, especially the possibilities and limits of the application of ideas and approaches of cybernetics to the analysis of social processes. About this topic he has edited, together with Felix Geyer, the following books: “Sociocybernetics; an actor oriented systems approach”, “Dependence and Inequality”, “Sociocybernetic Paradoxes: Observation, Control and Evolution of Self-steering Systems”, “Self-referencing in Social Systems”, and “Sociocybernetics: Complexity, Autopoiesis, and Observation of Social Systems”.

He is Honorary Fellow of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics and Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Kybernetes.

Cor van Dijkum and Johannes J.F. Schroots

Cor van Dijkum, PhD, is Senior Researcher at the Department of Methodology and Statistics, Utrecht University. His PhD was on Simulation & Gaming. He has published many articles and books, about ActionResearch, Philosophy of Science, Methodology and ComputerSimulation.

Johannes J.F. Schroots, PhD, is Senior Researcher at the Department of Psychology, Free University Amsterdam and Executive Director of ALLEA (European Federation of National Academies of Sciences and Humanities). He received his PhD from the Free University Amsterdam and was a Fellow of the Andrew Norman Institute for Advanced Study in Gerontology, University of Southern California. Dr Schroots' career includes serving as Project Leader of EuGeron (EC concerted action on Gerontology: aging, health and competence) and as Director of the Research Program: Life-course Dynamics.

John Wood

John Wood is Reader in Design Futures at Goldsmiths University of London and co-founder of the “Attainable Utopias” network. He is also a consultant to the “WritingPAD” research project, which is exploring the way that artists and designers write in an academic context. He has practised as an artist, inventor, author, and performer. Before writing several radical, holistic degree courses in design, Wood was Deputy Head of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. His interests include the philosophical and ecological aspects of technology and design in the era of global consumption.

Wood has published over a hundred articles and papers, and a book “The Virtual Embodied” (Routledge, 1998). His band “Deaf School” made five albums (the latest double album “Second Honeymoon” was released in November 2003). Between 1990 and 1994 he developed a software authoring system for designers called “IDEAbase”. As an artist he has exhibited in more than 20 countries, including the Australian Biennial (1988). Between 1973 and 1976, he invented, marketed, and published a series of energy conservation systems.

Gerard de Zeeuw

Gerard de Zeeuw is Professor of Research at the University of Lincoln, Faculty of Business and Law. He is Emeritus Professor of complex social systems in the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam.

He has published widely – mainly concerning matters of research design and knowledge creation. A Festschrift dedicated to his work was published in Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Vol. 19. nr. 2

He is co-founder of the International Federation of Systems Research, the Dutch Systems Group and of various research institutions. He was elected twice as fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies.