1. Luhmann on school leadership and management
Julián López-Yáñez
ECER Istambul
Faculty of Education
Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)

2. Two parts / targets
Depicting the main features of Niklas Luhmann’s systemic theory of social systems.
Discussing the potential consequences of such features on a theory of leading and managing organizations.

3. A social systems’ systemic perspective
Autopoiesis placed at the centre of the perspective: social systems as self-produced systems
Systemic perspective
Break with the General System Theory and Parson’s structural functionalism
One of the most influential social scientist
Beginning to found resonance in the mainstream organization theory

4. Autopoiesis
A way of operating in which every element is the product of any former elements and a producer of new ones
Operational closure (Maturana & Varela, 1980): the environment cannot directly intervene on system’s processes and structures
Structural or internal determinism
Sensitiveness to an environment that potentially triggers or irritates the system
A theory to explain the radical indeterminism of every social form from interaction to societies

5. Communicative approach
Communication as the basal or primal operation that makes a social system autopoietic
Communicative events as the elements of the system
Communication process carried out on the basis of distinctions / elections
The communicative event as synthesis of three operations:
information elaboration
Information expression
meaning attribution

6. Social systems as observers
Observation: an operation consisting of distinguishing differences
Implies a simplification or reduction of the complexity
Every system is characterised by its specific binary schematisations
Positive/negative social selection as the internal logic of educational systems
Polyphonic organizations (Andersen, 2002)
Distinctions as cultural forms (Martens, 2006)

7. Environment / Interpenetration
Psychic systems as the environment of social systems
Both systems produce meanings although in a different way (consciousness / communication)
Interpenetration: human beings and social systems remain as environment of each other
More than related: predisposition to observe and use each other as stimulus and detonator for its own operations
Advantages of this perspective:
distinguishing between social and psychic processes
system complexity of historic nature (not depending of subject characteristics)

8. Organization
In the case of organizations a particular form of communicational events, namely decisions, constitute the key for the autopoietic process
The paradoxical nature of decisions:
complexity-reducing mechanisms as they suppose an election
complexity-provokers as add a potential reference point for subsequent decision-making
Must autopoietic process in organizations wait formal decisions to unfold?

9. 2nd part: Luhmann’s autopoiesis on a theory of leading and managing organizations
Radical decentring from the subject
Contribution to post-heroic theories of leadership
theoretical support to leadership as a social phenomenon and a widely distributed practice in organization
Intervening from the environment of social systems: a challenge for educational administrators
Principalship: an analytic before a pro-active job

10. Need for deeper analysis
Quite balanced perspective claiming to analyse both processes and structures
Second order observation: understanding social system’s self-descriptions
Understanding structures: binary schematizations, cultural forms, identity
Analysing boundaries: what belongs to and what is excluded from the system
Third order observation: The obligation for the analyst of questioning his/her own schematizations

11. A communicative approach to organizational analysis
Contribution to the communication turn in the theory of social systems
theoretical support for narrative analysis
encounter between CCO perspective (Communication Constitutes Organizations) and Luhmann’s autopoiesis (Blaschke, Schoeneborn & Seidl, 2012)
developing inquiry on communicational networks (Monge & Contractor, 2003)
developing advanced theorizing about Social Network Analysis

12. Organizational knowledge / Innovation
Reinforcing the anti-cognitivist perspective in the field of organizational knowledge
knowledge construction and power circulation as a social rather than a mental or individual process
Innovation theory based on the conceptual framework of the theory of evolution
variation, selection, re-stabilization
novelty produced by the same dynamics of system’s (re)production
decisions represent such an excess of possibilities of (re)production that unexpected courses of become possible and thinkable

13. Selected references 1/2
Alvesson, M. & Robertson, M. (2006) The best and the brightest: the construction, significance and effects of elite identities in consulting firms. Organization, 13 (2)
Andersen, N.A. (2002) Polyphonic organisations. In T. Bakken & T. Hernes (Eds.), Autopoietic organization theory. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's social systems perspective, Oslo: Abstrakt Forlag.
Bakken, T. & Hernes, T. (2003) The macro-micro problem in organization theory: Luhmann's autopoiesis as a way of handling recursivity. In T. Bakken & T. Hernes (Eds.), Autopoietic organization theory. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's social systems perspective, Oslo: Abstrakt Forlag.
Bakken, T., Hernes, T., & Wiik, E. (2009) Innovation and Organization: An Overview from the Perspective of Luhmann’s Autopoiesis. In Autopoiesis in Organization Theory and Practice. Advanced Series in Management, 69–88. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Beech, N. & Johnson, P. (2005) Discourses of disrupted identities in the practice of strategic change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18 (1)
Blaschke, S., Schoeneborn, D., & Seidl, D. (2012) Organizations as Networks of Communication Episodes: Turning the Network Perspective Inside Out. Organizations Studies, 33(7)
Brocklesby, J. (2009) Plugging the Theoretical Gaps: How Autopoietic Theory Can Contribute to Process-Based Organizational Research. In Autopoiesis in Organization Theory and Practice. Advanced Series in Management, 149–167. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Cooren, F., Kuhn, T., Cornelissen, J.P., & Clark, T. (2011) Communication, Organizing and Organization: An Overview and Introduction to the Special Issue. Organization Studies, 32(9) 1149–1170.
Gherardi, S., Nicolini, D. & Odella, F. (1998) Toward a social understanding of how people learn in organizations. Management Learning, 29 (3)
Hernes, T. (2008) Understanding Organization as Process: Theory for a Tangled World. Routledge: London and New York.
Hernes, T. & Bakken, T. (2003) Implications of self-reference: Niklas Luhmann's autopoiesis and organization theory. Organization Studies, 24 (9)
Jabri, M. (2004) Change as shifting identities: a dialogic perspective. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17 (6)
Leydesdorff, L. (2000) Luhmann, Habermas and the theory of communication. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 17,
Leydesdorff, L. (2002) The communication turn in theory of social systems. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 19,
Luhmann, N. (1989) Ecological communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Luhmann, N. (1992) What is communication? Communication Theory, 2,
Luhmann, N. (1996) Introducción a la teoría de sistemas. Barcelona: Anthropos.

14. Selected references 2/2
Luhmann, N. (1998) Sistemas sociales. Lineamientos para una teoría general. Barcelona: Anthropos. [English version: (1995) Social systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press]
Luhmann, N. (2003). Organization. In T. Bakken & T. Hernes (Eds.), Autopoietic organization theory: Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s social systems perspective, 31–52. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.
Luhmann, N. (2005) The autopoiesis of social systems. In D. Seidl & K. Becker (Eds.) Niklas Luhmann and organization studies, 64–82. Copenhagen: CBS Press.
Luhmann, N. (2007) La sociedad de la sociedad. México D.F.: Herder [German version: (1997) Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.]
Luhmann, N. (2010) Organización y decisión. México D.F.: Herder. [German version: (2000) Organisation und Entscheidung. Wiesbaden: Opladen]
Martens, N. (2006) The Distinctions within Organizations: Luhmann from a Cultural Perspective. Organization, 13(1) 83–108.
Maturana, H. & Varela, F. (1980) Autopoiesis and cognition. The realization of the living. Holland: D. Reidel Publishing.
Maturana, H. & Varela, F. (1998) The tree of knowledge: the biological roots of human understanding. London: Shambala.
Mingers, J. (2003) Observing organizations: an evaluation on Luhmann's organization theory. In T. Bakken & T. Hernes (Eds.) Autopoietic organization theory. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's social systems perspective. Oslo: Abstrakt forlag,
Monge, P. R., & Contractor, N. (2003). Theories of communication networks. New York: Oxford University Press.
Morin, E. (1995) Sociología. Madrid: Tecnos [French version: (1994) Sociologie. Paris: Fayard]
Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S. & Yanow, D. (2003) Introduction: toward a practice-based view of knowing and learning in organizations. In D. Nicolini, S. Gherardi & D. Yanow. Knowing in organizations, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Seidl, D. (2003) Organisational identity in Luhmann's theory of social systems. In T. Bakken & T. Hernes (Eds.), Autopoietic organization theory. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's social systems perspective, Oslo: Abstrakt Forlag.
Hernes, T. (2008) Understanding Organization as Process: Theory for a Tangled World. Routledge: London and New York.
Seidl, D. & Becker, K.H (2006) Organizations as Distinction Generating and Processing Systems: Niklas Luhmann’s Contribution to Organization Studies. Organization, 13(1) 9–35.
Taylor, J. R., & Van Every, E. J. (2000). The emergent organization: Communication as its site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Von Foerster, H. (1984) Principles of self-organization in a socio-managerial context. In H. Ulrich & G.J.B. Probst. Self-organization and management of social systems, Berlin: Springer.