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Complexity approaches to self-organisation: A case study from an

Irish eco-village

Article in Kybernetes · May 2011

DOI: 10.1108/03684921111133737 · Source: DBLP

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K
40,3/4 Complexity approaches to
self-organisation: a case study
from an Irish eco-village
536
A. Espinosa and P.P. Cardoso
Hull University Business School, Hull, UK, and
E. Arcaute and K. Christensen
Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Imperial College London, London, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on results of recent research about the
self-organisation (SO) of communities that aim to regenerate and/or improve their sustainability, also
to reflect upon methodological and epistemological issues related to the application of complexity
approaches to support SO in communities and in general, social enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarises recent research findings on SO and
self-transformation in communities using a combination of complexity approaches. It describes the
methodological framework used to conduct action research about the self-transformation and learning
of a European eco-community and reflects about the approaches used and lessons learned.
Findings – This research confirms the complementarity between two approaches to complexity
management: the viable systems model from S. Beer, a pioneering approach to managing complexity
in institutions, and complex adaptive systems, a more recent approach to deal with SO in
organisations. Mapping the organisational dynamics and the structural changes decided by the
community members shows interesting insights about emergence and SO. This is a state-of-the-art
research on multi-methodological approaches to support complexity management in organisations.
Originality/value – As in many action research projects, early findings are limited to one particular
organisation. Nevertheless, the theoretical frameworks of the broader research are useful for a wide
variety of organisations, both in terms of guiding organisational transformations and supporting
networking management of networks collaborating to create more sustainable evolutionary pathways.
Keywords Cybernetics, Ireland, Systems analysis, Social networks, Communities
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
We present recent research on self-organisation (SO) in communities working on
regeneration and/or sustainability projects. We address the possibilities that different
approaches within complexity science offer, as a way to support SO. In particular, we
summarise a recent action research project where contributions from both organisational
cybernetics and complex systems approaches have proved useful for supporting SO and
improving self-governance skills in an Irish eco-community. Through a staged learning
approach, the community has self-adjusted their structure and tasks and have developed
an increased ability for self-governance. The background research project happened in the
Kybernetes context of a wider EPSRC funded project exploring the question: “Defying the rules: how
Vol. 40 No. 3/4, 2011
pp. 536-558 self-regulatory social systems works”. The example illustrates core issues of learning and
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0368-492X
adaptation emerging from cybernetic and complexity approaches and highlights their
DOI 10.1108/03684921111133737 differences and complementarities.
Research background Complexity
Over the past decades, the European Union has supported community-based research approaches to
projects. A number of varied methodologies, mostly inspired in traditional management,
have been used to support such type of projects. However, more recently, there has been self-organisation
a growing interest in alternative management and organisational schemes inspired
by SO and the understanding that communities are viable and complex adaptive
systems (CAS). 537
The research project described here adopts the latter approach. It is supported by
the EPSRC funded UK research network “Emergence and Complexity” and in
particular by a project exploring the question: “Defying the rules: How self-regulatory
social systems work”[1]. Here, we present an action research-case study where one of
the authors has been involved as academic consultant and PhD supervisor (AE)[2];
another as a PhD student doing his research (PPC); and the other authors (EA/KC)
have supported the design and development of analytical tools inspired by complexity
theory.
The case study described here was originally undertaken in the context of a
consultancy, which had been running for about a year using the viable systems model
(VSM) to deal with organisational issues in an Irish eco-village (www.TheVillage.ie/)
(The Village). In 2007, J. Walker and A. Espinosa were invited as academic consultants
to support the village’s members to improve their organisation, as several situations
had threatened its viability and the organisation had failed to respond quickly enough.
Following an action research approach – over the last three years (still ongoing) – the
intervention has facilitated the villagers’ learning processes. Through workshops, they
learnt to self-diagnose their current organisation and performance, by using VSM
distinctions to reflect, discuss and design ways to improve and put into practice agreed
actions. Members have and continue to review their working practices, as the basis to
decide on new issues for further development. For a detailed account on the VSM
project (methodology, approach and staged learning) (Espinosa and Walker, 2011,
Chapter 5).
The umbrella project (defying the rules) aimed to deepen our understanding of SO
within the context of division of labour in social systems by combining insights
coming from different understandings of complexity – specifically within physics,
mathematics, biology, robotics and management sciences. We developed common
analytical tools to observe and quantify SO within the context of division of tasks in
three experimental realms; an ant colony, a robots society and a human society.
Here, we report the findings of experimental research practiced in a particular human
community, who accepted being observed and supported in its ongoing efforts to
develop according to self-organising principles.
We describe here the case study, the methodological approach used in the research
and some of the analytical results. On the basis of these results, we finally reflect on
analytical issues related to the application of complexity approaches to support SO in
communities and in general, social enterprises. We also highlight interesting research
paths opened by this research project.

Research approach and development

The research project started in 2007 with an in-depth literature review of SO and its
applications in (rural) regeneration programs. The review showed an increasing interest in
K holistic approaches to community SO, and specifically in using ideas coming from
40,3/4 pioneers in complexity sciences (i.e. organisational cybernetics and socio-cybernetics) to
support organisational and community transformations. Table I presents a summary of
systemic tools that have been used in the context of regeneration programs.
Complementarily, we studied different theories on SO in different contexts, such as
complexity science, CAS, networks, cybernetics, socio-cybernetics and synergetics, as
538 well as related methodologies and tools, as summarised in Table II. Owing to their
contributions to the understanding of SO in social systems, the core theories chosen
were the VSM (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985) and CAS (Bar-Yam, 2000; Rihani, 2002;
Mitleton-Kelly, 2003; McMillan, 2004; Richardson, 2008). An intrinsic characteristic of
SO organisations is their ability to contrast the external environment with a model of
itself (the organisation in its current state).
Beer (1979, 1981) explained originally the VSM as a meta-language to facilitate
self-regulation in social organisations, by facilitating learning (understanding of the
organisation through the creation of an unified – internal model), adaptive (shared
observation of the external environment) and evolving properties, necessary in viable
systems. It generates global awareness or consciousness of the state of the organisation
(self-reference), thus facilitating the emergence of more coordinated decision-making
processes among the participants. Following Beer, Espejo et al. (1996) consider that
sharing mental models about the organisation and the environment as vital to generate
organisational learning, as they increase the organisation’s capacity for effective action.

Tool Nature Origin Orientation

PQASSO (2004) “Off the Shell” quality Voluntary sector Planning

assessment Budget/resources
Systematic management
Time control
Visible National standard Community Governance
Communities associations Charity regulation, trustee’s
(1999) duties
Community anchors and
standards for other groups
(tenants and residents
associations)
Local Multiplier 3 Measurement of New economy Measurement of economic
economical impact foundation impact
(The) SIGMA Quality administrative British standards Toolkit/guidelines to
Project (1999) management systems Forum for the future address specific
Accountability sustainability challenges
KALIFa Complexity and Consultancy in Construction of knowledge
evolutionary sciences knowledge and learning infrastructures
management
Learning Futures Ltd
& CIbit
Moobela (2004)a Complexity Research Diagnostic and planning
Table I. Notes: Systemic tools used in regeneration; ahave foundations in complexity sciences
Tools for regeneration Source: Cardoso (2011)
(a) Author
(b) Methodology name
(c) Theoretical background/ (1) Presentation
conceptual approach Key concepts Main application (2) SO-CAS mechanism

(a) Ostrom (1995) The interaction among individuals generates Build consensus on rules of access and use of (1) Guidelines to create and use rules of
(b) Games theory social capital common goods interaction to administrate a common good
The understanding of social capital as a form (2) Aggregation, tagging and internal models
of self-organising/generated bargaining
process
The autonomous-communitarian created
rules are inspired in the games theory
(a) Takeuchi and Nonaka (1986) Design of efficient structures for work teams Coordination of operative groups (task (1) Set of basic roles and rules of interaction
(b) Agile/Scrum SO occurs in the form of synergies through distribution-completion) and management of communication/
(c) Systems thinking the shared knowledge of the general status of information within the teamwork
the project and the recognition and self- (2) Aggregation, diversity, flows, internal
assignment of tasks models and building blocks
(a) Romme (1995) Participatory bottom-up decision-making Collective/consensual decision making on (1) Guideline specifying election and
(b) Sociocracy processes. To be applied ideally in a multiple options participation rules, and the mechanism to
(c) Complexity consensual non-hierarchical organisational simplify the decision-making process
Cybernetics structure (2) Aggregation, flows, diversity, internal
models and building blocks
(a) Latane (1981) The DSIT makes three assumptions: Drive group behaviour/group believes and (1) Mathematical model of the effects of
(b) Dynamic social impact theory (1) People vary in strength or persuasiveness idiosyncrasy strength, immediacy, and number. It
(DSIT) (2) People influence each other in proportion indicates the number of people in a
(c) Network theory of a multiplicative function of their community that must share a common
Communication theory strength, immediacy and number interest to create a consensual majority
Synergetics (3) People will change their opinions if and (2) Aggregation, flows, diversity, tagging,
only if the pressure to change is greater internal models and building blocks
than the pressure not to change
(a) Owen (1991) (1) A nutrient environment; (2) high levels of Planning and decision making (1) Simple instructions to be executed by a
(b) Open space technologies complexity and diversity of issues to be facilitator
(c) Systems thinking solved and people to solve it; (3) high level (2) Aggregation, flows, diversity, tagging
of actual or potential conflict; (4) groups and internal models
motivated by a short time to make a
decision;
(5) scarcity of connections, SO will only occur
if there are few prior connections between
the elements (no more than two)
(continued)
self-organisation

self-organisation
Complexity

in social systems
facilitate
Methodologies to
539
approaches to

Table II.
 K

540
40,3/4

Table II.
(a) Author
(b) Methodology name
(c) Theoretical background/ (1) Presentation
conceptual approach Key concepts Main application (2) SO-CAS mechanism

(a) Brown and Isaacs (1994) The capability, commitment, contribution, Planning and decision-making tool (1) Conversational process, following a
(b) World cafe collaboration and conscience are described networking pattern hosting conversations
(c) Systems thinking as core processes to creating and sustaining about questions that matter
Organisational learning organisations as communities. Common (2) Aggregation, diversity, flows and internal
Complexity understanding is created trough a driven models
conversational process
(a) Beer (1994) Structured, non-hierarchical process of Planning and decision-making tool (1) Conversational process with defined roles
(b) Team syntegrity effective and efficient dialogue. The (2) Aggregation, diversity, flows, tagging,
(c) Organisational cybernetics underlying model is a regular icosahedron, internal models and building blocks
where each of the 30 struts represents a
person and each of the 12 vertices represents
a topic. The internal network of interactions
is created to generate a reverberation
expressed as uniformly distributed
information about the 12 topics
(a) Kelleher et al. (2001) Based on the concept of community of Creation of communities of practice (1) Three modules are provided:
Haldane and Bond (2004) practice, the generic model of community a. Web-based secure discussion and
(b) KALIF evolution and the ecology of ideas, and the knowledge exchange facility
(c) CAS role of the independent learner. A common b. Groups of interest, team building
component in all these theories is the relevant c. Individual coaching and training to
role of communications, transference of facilitate role definition and network
knowledge (content/context of sponsorship
communications) and network strength and (2) Aggregation, flows, tagging, internal
evolution (nature, dynamism and strength of models and building blocks
links)
Source: Cardoso (2011)
For a more complete description of different theories of SO and their impact on the design Complexity
of this research methodology (Cardoso, 2011, Chapter 4). approaches to
We also found that the VSM – despite its long history – was still the framework
presenting the most structured and comprehensive body of theory and related self-organisation
methodologies. It is not the intention of this paper to present an introduction to the VSM
but for those interested we recommend Malik’s introductory materials (www.malik-
mzsg.ch/en/node/809), Walker’s VSM Guide (www.esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/ 541
screen.php?page ¼preface) and Espejo’s web site (www.syncho.com/). For an in-depth
presentation of the VSM and its applications to deal with complexity and sustainability
agendas in organisations and communities (Espinosa and Walker, 2011). In summary,
the VSM is a recursive model that explains core principles of viability. It asserts
that viable systems contain and are contained in other viable systems: they are
organisationally closed, exhibit structural patterns of interaction at every recursive level
of organisation, and retain their coherence and identity even as they adapt to external
changes. Each viable system is able to take core decisions locally; all viable systems
belonging to an organisation share basic rules of interaction and share information and
communication channels and tools that allow them to serve their own purposes as well
as those from the embedding organisation they belong to. The viability of complex
interacting systems is a result of adaptive interactions between embedded (viable)
systems (Beer, 1979). The idea of recursive viable systems is fundamental to understand
their entangled complexity.
At each recursive level of organisation there are several “meta-systemic” roles
responsible for providing the right managerial and technical services to all viable
systems, like: maintaining organisational identity and closure (System 5); exploring likely
and desirable futures (System 4); regulating embedded sub-systems and optimising
synergies (Systems 3 and 3 *); and avoiding oscillations (System 2). Meta-systemic
management can also be described as a cognitive coordination mechanism for the system,
making resources and other services available while balancing the need for structural
integrity (as in Browning et al., 1995). Importantly, most decisions emerge from bottom
up agent- and network-based activity rather than from a priori central control (as in
Axelrod, 1997).
Currently, the theory on CAS is generating increasing interest, however, the
available methodologies and tools for supporting practical applications are more
restricted (Paucar-Caceres and Espinosa, 2010). We have presented elsewhere a more
detailed comparison of these approaches and the way they have been used to support
sustainability programs (Espinosa and Porter, 2011, see also Table III). We have
learned that there are more complementarities than deep differences between the two
approaches. In addition, the core complexity principles embodied in the CAS approach
are aligned with the VSM core complexity management principles.
While designing the action research project in the eco-village, the (broader) research
team had agreed on some basic principles to observe and measure different aspects of
SO in the three social realms (for details see Arcaute et al., 2009). In addition, the
research design for this sub-project was supported by a multi-methodological
framework – the visualization-planning toolset – integrating tools and methodologies
aimed to observe and describe the organisational evolution of this eco-community
using a collection of systemic and complexity tools (Figure 1). Cardoso (2009, 2011,
Chapter 3) for a full explanation on the research approach and tools chosen
K
Complex adaptive systems Organisational cybernetics
40,3/4
Identification of relevant Focus on the patterns of interactions Identify both entities and the
variables between the agents but without relevant niche pinpointing the
pre-establishing “relevant variables” essential variables in the interaction
View of organisation SO within the system tends to occur Self-organised autonomous viable
542 when the system is far from systems recursively nested; meta-
equilibrium, or at the edge of chaos. systemic functions guaranteeing
The behaviour of complex systems cohesion and synergy. Complex
is not predictable systems are organisationally closed
and exhibit “patterns of viability”
View of control The six key principles of CAS SO resulting from embracing shared
Role of authority should be allowed to function to the rules and communication protocols.
greatest extent possible, within Distributed control
the limits of existing management.
Top management’s role is to
empower their activation rather than
to control from the top
Role of participation/ Empowered employees are freed Empowerment and participation in
empowerment up from many controlling processes decision making is explicitly
in a way that enables a number required to cope with the variety of
of self-organising abilities to emerge complex organisation vs
Table III. for the benefit of the organisation environment interactions
Organisational Response to CAS demonstrates path dependence: Immediate: people on the operational
cybernetics vs complex environmental change its history influences the present level have autonomy to operate and
systems approaches to behaviour of a system respond to real time changes. Closed
management feedback loops in all interactions

and Chapter 4 for a detailed presentation of the conceptual and methodological

framework design.
Most of the awareness and modelling of the current organisation (sharing a mental
model of the organisation) takes place during the first learning loop – the visualization
loop – with the aid of facilitators and supported by different analytical/modelling tools.
At this stage, the VSM language is introduced through workshops; historical data about
the evolution of the organisation is collected through interviews, questionnaires,
narratives and direct in-field observations with key organisational members. Later on
this information will be used following narrative and in-depth analysis techniques to
identify critical events and key players; the responses from questionnaires about
network connectivity are used later for the social network analysis (SNA).
Once members have identified core organisational issues that need attention and/or
redesign, they use the VSM distinctions to identify feasible and desirable
improvements in their structure; we call it the planning loop. At some stages of the
learning process, the researchers may produce SNA analyses and narrative analyses,
which will deepen the understanding of the evolution of the organisation and the role of
key actors in the community’s self-organising process.
In the reflective loop members will review their own decisions and reflect on
implemented and planned changes to their organisation. The researchers/facilitators
would also reflect on the learning from the VSM, the SNA and the narrative analyses
and would summarise it as a unified report to members, “closing the loop” on the
learning process. In this way, the participant community can suggest criticisms,
 Complexity
Visualization and planning toolset approaches to
self-organisation

2 3 2 543
3

2 1
4 3 4 1
1
4

Reflective loop
Visualization loop Planning loop 1. Creation of a consolidated narrative
1. VSM workshops 1. VSM appropriation
2. VSM + SNA in context (narrative)
2. VSM feedback 2. SNA interpretation
3. SNA 3. Evaluation of the self-reference
4. Narratives and story telling
3. SNA in context (nerratives)
4. Adapation self-reference in action
4. Socialization and critical review... Figure 1.
...(new beginning?)
The visualization and
planning toolset
Note: It describes the sequence of interaction, collection and interpretation of data (V-P toolset)
with the community

and amendments to the learning process, which would improve validity and
consistency of the decisions made collectively. This staged learning approach
continues over time, and a new cycle would follow after the last one is concluded.

The eco-village organisation

Starting in 1996, “the Village” was finally registered in 1999 as a non-for-profit
organisation (charity) aimed to build the eco-village and also “to create a model
sustainable community from which others may learn”; they chose to work under a flat
structure and consensual decision-making mechanisms. After several years of design,
selling the idea, getting the land and the resources and obtaining planning permissions,
they started building the eco-community in a rural town in need of regeneration in
2005. They aimed to build about 130 family units and communal, agricultural,
woodland and wildlife areas. During this initial period, the management of the
organisation was mainly led by two persons: this was in contradiction with their
non-hierarchical approach to organisation, and hence they decided to re-reorganise
themselves at the start of the building and infrastructure works, which led to a period
of confusion and weak management.
In concordance with their non-for-profit character, members operated on the basis of
personal commitment and voluntary work. In 2007, aiming to provide stability and
continuity to the management and to the day-to-day administration, they contracted a few
paid staff on administrative roles. At that moment, they had around 20 self-organised
working groups whose representatives met at a monthly “Group Coordinators” meeting to
monitor progress and to take decisions – see Figure 2 in the next section. Also, they held
K
Functions and activities of
40,3/4 Planning
environmental scanning and planning

New members

Political lobby Communications

544 Biz-dev

Legal Functions and activities of coordination

Construction Board Process

management Ultimate decision
-making Social activities
Functions and activities of
management

Functions and activities in the field

EWW

Building

Community
buildings

Figure 2. Mobility
Distribution and
organizational functions of The town X
the working groups before
the academic intervention Sales
(2007)

a monthly “Members Meeting” – often involving all members – where major policy
decisions were taken by consensus. Additionally, they had a “Process Group” to facilitate
ongoing learning about organisational structures and processes and to solve differences
and conflicts among the working groups. As a registered organisation, they had a “Board”
elected democratically that was legally responsible for the project.

VSM analyses
In parallel with the VSM project, we have produced an in-depth analysis of the
process of evolution of the village organisation, using additional data that Cardoso
collected from members about the different stages of development of the village project
and organisation, through interviews, questionnaires and informal conversations.
To facilitate the analysis, we consolidated the data collected according to core
periods of time when critical events happened that affected the organisational
structure of the eco-village; such events were detected through a narrative analysis.
The following sections offer a chronological account of these critical events that Complexity
moulded the community to its present structure. approaches to
self-organisation
Eco-village project: 1996-2007
During the first part of this stage (1996-2005), A and B led the organisation[3]. They
were doing all the final decisions despite the existence of a board and the extensive use
of consensual decision-making procedures. The working groups were fluctuating as
545
the project evolved and new tasks emerged. For example, the “search land” group was
disbanded once the decision about the final location of the project was made and new
groups were assembled to start the planning for the real development and engineering
works of the sites, including the “planning group”, “sales” and “Energy-Water-Waste”.
In response to the increasing complexity of the project, once the land was acquired
(2005), the process group started to be more important in the coordination of the
different activities and simultaneously, the legal group became more visible. At the end
of this period, the community decided to constrain the centralised control of B and A by
providing the “Board” with more attributions in the decision making: there were major
tensions due to the unacceptable centralised management and many members left the
project at this stage, creating chaos and uncertainty. They decided not to renew B’s
contract and A decided to step back from his position. The nature of the project
changed in this moment from project design and environmental activism to a real
development enterprise with tangible risks and specific tasks. This demanded the
creation of new, specialised, more focused and task-oriented groups (e.g. building,
engineering, legal issues, finances, sales and contractors).
A period of instability followed where the new “Board” did not know well enough how
to deal with the complexity of the project; the recently appointed engineers leading the site
development ended up having conflicts and poorly defined accountability, which again
increased the internal tensions. A was nominated as manager, as a response from the
members on the need to recover some control. A faced a poorly managed organisation:
several working groups were operating without accountability, the contractors were not
monitored properly, the financial projections were not precise enough and early warnings
about a forthcoming financial crisis were unnoticed. The lending banks hence started
questioning their confidence on the project. In order to recover control, the “Board” took a
micromanagement approach, intervening at all the operational levels. It was under these
circumstances that the decision to call for external advisors was made.

VSM project: 2007-2009

The academic consultants introduced basic VSM criteria for effective organisation,
through workshops, while jointly modelling the existing organisation and understanding
the shortages and constraints it imposed on members. Representatives from the process
group and from most working groups joined the VSM project and worked through a series
of workshops (initially every three months, later on every six months) identifying
structural and learning constraints in their current organisation, as well as possibilities for
improvements. Figure 2 shows the existing organisational arrangements at the beginning
of the VSM project. Note the large number of working groups; most of them were not
operating on a permanent basis, were not focused on the most relevant tasks, and some of
them were not reporting any activity.
K Through the intervention, participants used the VSM as a language to map a shared
40,3/4 mental model of the organisation. They developed a common understanding of the
project, facilitating the identification and characterisation of working groups. As a
result, they learned more effective ways of dealing with the complexity of their core
tasks. They agreed to substantially reduce the working groups by focusing resources
and efforts on those which were more coherent with the demands of action imposed by
546 the external environment at that moment (e.g. building, planning, energy-water-waste
and sales). This made it possible to create the meta-systemic functions required for
proper co-ordination: with dozens of operational groups, the complexity generated by
their interaction was unmanageable.
Throughout the duration of this period their organisation evolved from about
20 self-organised working teams into seven clearly defined primary activities (PAs)
enclosing them; they also evolved and redesigned their meta-systemic management
roles and tools (Figure 3). The new PA groups (System 1) met more regularly,
completed tasks on time and continuously reported on their achievements and learning

S5 May generate problems

Significant improvement
S4
Not well defined
Coordination and
finances S3 No progress
S2
S3

Land use

Building

Sales
New ventures
Bilco
orgfarm
Energy water and
servco
waste management
eco-education?

Building
community
houses

Vert
-education

Creating a
sustainable
community

Notes: The dotted line represents links between parts of the organisation and the merging new
Figure 3. business; some relationships have not been defined clearly and have the potential to generate
Eco-village’s VSM in 2009 conflict (e.g. not clear relation and delimitation of ownership of the board of the eco-village with
the new business)
constraints. There were several improvements on their System 2, e.g. new conflict Complexity
resolution processes, improved e-forums and standard reporting systems from approaches to
System 1. System 3 roles were redesigned: a manager was appointed (responsible for
servicing PAs in System 1), the coordinators group was made more efficient and self-organisation
responsive, and new reporting systems were implemented. System 4 was developed
for the first time and it included roles responsible for System 4 issues in each PA and at
the organisational level, as well as a slot for S4 issues at the coordinators’ meetings and 547
new S4 workshops inviting all members. System 5 was improved, making sure that
“Board” members concentrated in System 5 issues and communications with all
members improved.
Over this period, some PAs became more specialised and in some of them the volunteer
affiliation became restricted by the technical profile of the task (e.g. building and
energy-water-waste recruiting engineers/builders). As some of these specialised activities
evolved and became more complex, new subsidiary firms were created to take over these
tasks. This helped to simplify the tasks and to relieve tension and responsibility in the
control of these activities from the general manager; they now nominate a chair in the
“Board” from each of the new subsidiaries. Also, by recognising the need of creating
System 5 mechanisms to consolidate identity and ethos, the “Board” developed through
this period the Village Eco-Charter: a statement of beliefs and principles intended to guide
the decision making at all levels of the organisation and to provide directions to the
individual design of sustainable housing.
At the end of this period (2009), the global financial crisis was at its peak
affecting dramatically the viability of the project. No sales were reported over one year
but the first group of families moved to the eco-village. To cope with these new
circumstances some members from the education group (VERT) were commissioned to
create a strategic plan. The document presented by this task force group did not match
the expectations of the community. A permanent body of members, more professional
and skilled to scan the environment and make suggestions to preserve their viability in
the short, mid and long term (VSM-S4), was hence assembled. Most of the members of
this new group (denominated the “navigation” group) came from the process group,
which was the more active one at implementing VSM tools during the period of the
academic intervention.
In addition, other groups were exploring the possibility to split-off and operate
either as subsidiaries or as co-owned businesses of the eco-village (e.g. the building
group became a co-owned company). Other PAs transferred most of their functions to
private and independent businesses created by some members of the eco-village,
allowing the inclusion of people from the local community. An example was the
“Organic Farm”, which took over some of the functions of the “Land Use” group and
created the first (successful) community farm of the village: currently it sells its
products under a scheme of organic agriculture by subscription.
In summary, the main structural problems, which were threatening the survival of
the community in 2007, have now been dealt with, and the resulting organisation is
both more effective and compatible with their fundamental ideology of equality,
sustainability and democracy. Roles have been clarified, and decisions are taken at the
right moment, which has resulted in a better working environment and in a more
effective interaction with their environment. Based on the feedback received from the
community, we consider that the introduction of the VSM proved useful.
K Eco-village project 2010: post-intervention
40,3/4 A final visit to close the loop of the EPSRC funded action research project was made at
the end of the second quarter 2010[4]. At that moment the eco-village was still sorting
out some financial difficulties affecting its development. This situation forced them to
further reduce the number of administrative staff: only the general manager and the
person in charge of sales were kept in the payroll as part-time employees. Once more
548 the PAs were revisited, and only the most critical tasks for the survival of the project
were kept such as building individual houses, providing site services, community
buildings, educational centre and the farm. As a response several PAs started to
explore the possibility of operating independent of the eco-village under a set of
different models (co-owned business unit, subsidiary, independent service provider
and partnership with external organisations among others). The emergence of this
network configuration of related business raises a new challenge for the management,
which with regard to the use of the VSM should explore the concept of recursion and
heterarchy as described by Schwaninger (2006). The VSM of Figure 4 shows the
ongoing changes in the structure of the organisation. Even though new changes have
to be accommodated, the village keeps progressing, dozens of new houses have now
been finished and many members are living in the village. A truly cooperative and
democratic organisation has consolidated and the number of emerging new businesses
keeps growing, creating new opportunities for employment and sustainable living in
the town.

S5
The eco-hostel
Navigation S4
group Identity group
The eco-enterprise
center
Coordiration
and finances S3 S2 The process group
S3'
Legal group

Land use The orgfarm

May generate problems

Building The buildco

Significant improvement

Virtual existence
Sales

No progress
Energy water and The servco
Provides services to... Comint
waste manegement
Being taking over by...
Not established yet
Community
Subsidiary building ?
Co-ownership
Vert The eco-education
-education co

Creating a
sustainable
community
Figure 4.
VSM after the academic
intervention (2010) Notes: The functions of EWW, building and (eventually) community building are being transferred to subsidiary and co-owned firms; the
emergent business units may demand from the XOOP “Board” (S5) new arrangements and definition of rules of interaction
The rest of this paper concentrates on the complexity analysis developed in parallel by Complexity
the research team, and in assessing the results provided by both views. approaches to
self-organisation
SNA analysis
Social network analysis (SNA) is a powerful tool for analysing complex systems in a
generic way. It allows us to look at emergent structures that are the outcome of the
many and intricate interactions between its components. For our specific eco-village 549
case study, it reveals key properties of the community that are based on relationships
between individuals. These relationships take up the form of communication flows in
this case, but these are context specific and can take up any other form, such as
economic, political, etc. (Wasserman and Faust, 1994). Organisational structure can be
revealed through SNA (Kilduff and Tsai, 2003), and its evolution observed over time
and compared against the VSM.
The data were collected through interviews and questionnaires, using free recall
format, over three different periods of time: before, during and after the intervention,
and we will use the following prefixes to refer to each of these periods, “PRE”, “MID”
and “POST”, respectively. Members recalled the frequency of a topic-specific
communication with other members of the community, hence omitting interactions
that could have taken place but at the moment were not recalled. In addition, not all
members were interviewed. Taking this into account, we can construct two sets of
networks where the nodes correspond to the individuals and the weighted links to the
frequency of the interactions. Considering only the subgroup of members of the
community that were interviewed, we can define a weighted directed network for each
of the three periods of time.
In order to build the second set where all the members of the community are part
of the network, the data need to be symmetrised as follows. If an individual A states
that he talks to B with frequency f, and the individual B was not interviewed, then
the link between A and B will have a value of f/2. If on the other hand they were
both interviewed but recall different frequencies, say f1 and f2, the link between the
two will be 12(f1 þ f2). This results in an undirected weighted network that is still
incomplete, since links between B and C will be missing if neither of the two were
interviewed. It can be argued that such a network cannot give appropriate measures
that can reflect any underlying structure in the community, however, the people that
were interviewed accounted for 26 per cent (^3 per cent) of the total community that
lives on the site. Data were collected from the most relevant subgroup. In addition,
we will show that although it constrains fine grain analysis for some specific
aspects, it does serve to identify many important features and to diagnose conflict
within the community.

General network aspects: interviewed-only members

Applying network analysis to the weighted directed networks for the three different
periods, one can measure important properties such as those given in Table IV.
The first property, the connectivity, can be measured in terms of weakly and strongly
connected components (Newman, 2010). A part of the network is defined as a weakly
connected component if all its nodes can be connected to one another by an undirected
path, that is, if any two nodes i and j within the component can be connected through
a set of undirected links. Hence, the number of weakly connected components gives
K the number of disconnected parts in a network. For a part of the network to be strongly
40,3/4 connected, the path needs to exist in both directions. The networks for the three different
periods are shown in Figures 5-7, where the area of a node represents the in-degree of an
individual (number of links pointing to the node). These graphs and the results clearly
show that the connectivity of the network improved from PRE to POST.
In detail, the network for the period PRE is the only one that is disconnected. This
550 occurs due to the isolation of two members from the rest of the community: AB and BK.
In terms of strong connectivity, ideally one wishes to obtain a single strongly
connected network, because otherwise messages can get “trapped” in the different
components. For example, one can see from Figure 5 or Figure 7 that if a message
reaches CP or I, it would stop spreading through the network. Connectivity hence
improved at this level, with a reduction of the number of those “traps” to one at the
POST-period. The MID-period refers to the period where the community was
re-shaping its organisational structure towards a more viable one. It is a period of great
activity, which is reflected in a very high connectivity at the network level, and hence it
is free from the above-mentioned “traps”. In addition to spreading information through
the network, another important aspect to consider is the degree of reciprocity in the

Table IV. Connectivity

Properties for the directed Weakly Strongly
weighted networks for Period conn. cpnts conn. cpnts Reciprocity (%) In degree Out degree Compactness
interviewed-only
members of the PRE 3 5 38 3.94 ^ 2.56 3.94 ^ 3.11 0.433
community, over MID 1 1 50 6.43 ^ 3.92 6.43 ^ 2.28 0.616
the three periods of time POST 1 2 59.30 5.06 ^ 2.66 5.06 ^ 2.14 0.611

AC

M
N
BE H

J
I
O
C

Figure 5.
EO CP
Network of
communication between E U
interviewed-only members
at period: PRE
AB BK
 Y Complexity
R
AO approaches to
self-organisation
J
DO
AB
N F H
551

D I EO
O
AC
B
A E

AD
CP Figure 6.
W
Network of
communication between
interviewed-only members
at period: MID
BK

communication exchange (Newman, 2010). This tells us the fraction of links that are
reciprocated, that is, if i points to j, j also points to i. It helps us identify the degree of
homogeneity within the community with respect to communicating information.
The analysis clearly shows that this improves as the community moves to a more
viable structure.
The in- and out-degree refer to the number of links that point towards and out of
an individual, respectively. Table IV gives the mean ^ standard deviation for each period.
The high value for the standard deviation indicates that there is a high differentiation in
the roles that the individuals play within the community. We will come back to this point
later on. On the other hand, the increase in the mean for the in- and out-degree clearly
shows that more connections developed after the intervention.
The last observable in the table, “compactness”, refers to the distance-based cohesion of
the network. It tells us how close individuals in the community are with respect to each
other; the higher the number, the closer they are. It is a variable that is computed taking
into account the average distance among all the pairs in the community, and it can take
values between 0 and 1, where 1 corresponds to a fully connected network. The UCInet
package was used to compute this observable. The results show that as the network
evolved its members became closer to each other, allowing for a faster flow of
communication to take place.
In summary, the previous analysis for the interviewed-only network showed that
the intervention helped the community to develop a more cohesive community,
K C
40,3/4 AC
O

H
552 EQ U
BK

BE
CP J

M
I DO
F
Figure 7. N
Network of
communication between
interviewed-only members
at period: POST AB

with higher connectivity and reciprocity, and with a more efficient communication
network. Let us now look at the finer structure of the community.

VSM and roles: network of all members

Overlapping the VSM model to the symmetrised network of information exchange, one
can construct five networks corresponding to each of the systems within the VSM. Table V
shows the connectance r for the three different periods. The connectance gives the fraction
of links present from a maximum possible, according to the current number of nodes
(Newman, 2010). In this case, we give the percentage of the value of the connectance
relative to the maximum density of links that one could get taking into account the number
of individuals that were interviewed. So, this value gives an indicator of performance of
the connectivity of the network. It is clear that the intervention induced an improvement
in the connectance of the systems, most dramatically in S3 and in particular in S4, which
was non-existent in the previous periods.

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5
pop (%) r (%) pop (%) r (%) pop (%) r (%) pop (%) r (%) pop (%) r (%)

PRE 81.82 14.96 25.45 26.09 23.64 3.03 0.00 NaN 14.55 23.08
Table V. MID 61.84 14.04 18.42 13.04 18.42 13.04 0.00 NaN 6.58 50
Connectance for the five POST 67.16 13.74 16.42 36.84 16.42 13.16 40.30 20.83 14.93 35.29
networks of each of the
VSM systems Note: NaN indicates that no value can be taken
Deepening the analysis at the individual level, it is evident that communicating with Complexity
as many members of the community as possible will place individuals at a valuable approaches to
position. These individuals will be recognised by their high degree within the network.
However, in order to find key individuals, it is important to consider with whom these self-organisation
individuals interact, in addition to their own degree. This measure is given by the
eigenvalues and associated eigenvectors within the SNA (Ortiz-Arroyo and Hussain,
2008; Cheliotis, 2010). 553
Leaders and coordinators are expected to score the highest eigenvalues. These are
normalised such that 1 is the highest possible. Looking at the results for the
eigenvalues for PRE and the list of coordinators, some inconsistencies arise for a few
individuals. These are listed as coordinators, but have a very low eigenvalue.
To illustrate this point, let us take an example: individual B. This is an authoritarian
figure that besides of coordinating three groups played a very important role in the
development of the project as a whole. Nevertheless, the associated eigenvalue is only
0.05. This individual was forced to leave the project by the community. The other
individuals whose eigenvalues do not correspond to their roles, have either left the
project, are or were in conflict with the community or have stopped working towards it.
In addition to, identifying existing or potential conflict, the analysis also allows us
to pinpoint individuals that are or were crucial to the project such as J, I, F and
M. The latter is in charge of all the legal aspects arising in the project, and if removed,
nobody would have the skills to fill that place. This puts the community at a low point
of resilience. On the other hand, one can look at how the roles of individuals have
changed over time. For example, I was the main person in charge of everything related
to farming and land-use during PRE, and at that period the eigenvalue was of 0.93.
This shifted to 0.69 at MID, and to 0.18 at POST. Clearly, either the importance of the
task, or the position for that task, decreased in relevance within the community. For a
more detailed explanation a similar analysis of the networks applied to each of the
tasks in the three different periods. However, in order to conduct such a fine grain
analysis, it is necessary to have the complete information network, because the partial
one reconstructed from the people interviewed is not detailed enough. This analysis
would allow us to identify aspects on resilience and performance for each of the tasks.
In conclusion, the SNA detects important changes in the general structure of the
system, in terms of its cohesion and efficiency, with respect to the exchange of
information. It allows us to identify key individuals, and potential sources of conflict.
It helps complement other methodologies, such as the VSM, using them as a template
for the underlying structure against which the system is compared and analysed.

Findings
The analysis obtained from this case study confirms our hypothesis on the
complementarities between the VSM and CAS approaches. A parallel mapping of the
organisational dynamics and the structural changes decided by the community
members shows interesting insights about emergence and SO. The choices made by
the community members about working groups and meta-systemic management
affected positively the connectivity and communications within them, as the SNA
analysis demonstrated. This coincides with most testimonies from members about
their perceptions on the organisational changes over the last three years, which they
judged as beneficial and useful to improve the community’s organisation.
K Post the VSM project, not only the internal organisation improved but also new
40,3/4 conditions appeared that facilitated the emergence of innovative associated businesses.
While we write this paper (Nov 2010), we have counted around 25 local initiatives:
some of them taking over previous PAs (e.g. community buildings); some of them
suggesting innovative small and medium sized enterprises associated to the village
(the organic farm, the sustainability education entity, etc.); some of them created to
554 provide new services to the village and Cloughjordan – the town where it is located
(e.g. eco-hostel and eco-build).
Through the learning process they have developed awareness of the need to
continuously review their emerging organisation and associated networks, and to design,
when required, the necessary meta-systemic management mechanisms. The study
reconfirms the importance of shared mental models in the process of self-organisation as
previously described by Espejo et al. (1996, p. 80): members recognised that improvements
in performance, tasks identification and connectivity are related to sharing a clear model of
the organisation – resulting from the VSM project.
Our intention in the research project was to develop innovative ways of measuring
and observing different aspects of SO and division of labour and we have certainly
learned about the complementarities of observations between structural arrangements
and the evolutionary dynamics of the networks responsible for doing the tasks. Much
more detailed analyses would be possible if we could operate with fewer constraints in
terms of data collection. That would allow us to explore issues such as resilience of the
emerging networks and redundancy of roles.
Essential for SO to emerge are mechanisms to share crucial information on which
main organisational tasks need attention, their priority, and the required resources and
skills to do such tasks. Distributing and sharing core information and knowledge
widely between members and understanding priorities on tasks’ distribution seem to
be common issues not only in human societies but also in biological societies and this
has an important impact in the design of robot communities taking over specific
(automated) tasks.
A multi-methodological approach using both qualitative (VSM) and quantitative (SNA)
analyses has shown that some of the often intuitive learning resulting from a VSM-oriented
change processes (i.e. analysing evolutionary patterns of interaction between PA (System 1)
roles and meta-systemic management roles can be rigorously quantified and
complemented with structured analytical techniques. Hence, SNA provide insightful
evidence and alternative analytical lens not used in traditional VSM applications.
We believe that the multi-methodological approach for supporting SO, identifying a
set of observables and a choice of analytical tools to quantify key aspects in the process
of SO, would be highly beneficial to any other community aiming to self-organise and
work in a cooperative, flat organisation.

Conclusions
Like all action research projects we have focused on a particular organisation; the
generalisability of our findings is limited as, so far, the practical applications observed
here have focused on a particular organisation. However, the resulting theoretical
frameworks of the broader research are useful for a wide variety of organisations, both
in terms of guiding organisational transformations and supporting networking
management of complex organisational networks collaborating to create more Complexity
sustainable evolutionary pathways. approaches to
While the VSM provides a framework and templates to classify, organise and
contextualise information about roles, tasks, resources, rules of the game and interactions, self-organisation
the SNA offers quantitative routines to describe in detail the connections, sensible points
(nodes) and the dynamics of interactions among the different constitutive elements
identified with the VSM distinctions. Both, the VSM and SNA possess a strong potential to 555
present information in visual forms that – either independently or combined – facilitates
the diagnosis, comprehension and identification of key organisational issues that affect
the organisational viability; offering important insights to the strategic planning and
decision-making processes.
With respect to the self-organising mechanism, this study contributes with empirical
evidence about the importance of shared mental models; where the combined use of the
VSM and SNA not only facilitated the definition of such a shared description of the
organisation but also helped to develop and locate the organisational structure that
support this function of abstraction (VSM-S4).
Finally, this study reconfirms previous research stating that the VSM, which takes a
closed systems view of organisations, and CAS, which takes an open system
perspective (as in Espinosa and Porter, 2011), together offer internally consistent and
complementary insights to address issues of SO and adaptive management that are
fundamental for sustainable development of organisations in general and communities
in particular. While SNA offers insightful analytical tools to observe and understand
the dynamics and co-evolution of organisational networks, VSM offers a language to
map patterns of interaction among core agents in such networks. Each view offers
suggestions that are fundamental for improving the organisation’s adaptability that is
particularly relevant for communities operating in a cooperative, flat organisation as
the village in this study.

Notes
1. Partner universities: Department of Physics and the Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
Imperial College London; School of Mathematical Sciences, University of the West of England;
Department of Computing, University of Wales, Newport; Hull University Business School.
2. Dr J Walker was originally involved as consultant in the project.
3. We shall refer to interviewees as A, B, etc. to preserve anonymity.
4. The academic consultancy is still ongoing and there have been two visits in 2010, working
on emerging organisations and functions.

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About the authors

A. Espinosa was born in Bogota, Colombia and graduated as a Computer and Systems Engineer
in 1981 from Los Andes University. She worked originally as an Information Systems Manager,
in private and public enterprises, and then as the Director of the Secretariat of Information
and Systems of the Colombian President’s Office (1990-1992). In 1995, she got a PhD from
Aston University Business School on Organisational Cybernetics and Strategic Information
Management. From 1993 to 2002, she taught systems and cybernetics in Los Andes University
and provided consultancy for both private and public organisations. Since 2002 she has been
researching and teaching within Hull University Business School. Since 2007 she has done
K research about complexity and sustainability, funded by two EPSRC projects; in particular she
focuses on topics of SO and transition management. She has published extensively on systems
40,3/4 and complexity (theory and applications). A. Espinosa is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: [email protected]
P.P. Cardoso obtained a BA in Marine Biology from the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University
(Colombia). After working in research for a couple of years he got his title as Merchant Marine
Officer and finished his MSc in Environmental Auditing and Business Planning at the Center for
558 Ecological Studies in Malaga (Spain). Then, motivated by his practice as a Business Consultant
he decided to do a Master in International Commerce (Complutence University, Spain) and
participate in research programs in international business. In 2005, he was lecturing at MSc
and MBA programs, leading a research team exploring the internationalization of Hi-Tech SMEs
and creating and conducing the Colombia-Japan Hi-Tech SMEs exchange program. In 2007,
he started his PhD on organizational cybernetics and SO in communities at the University of
Hull, UK. His interests are concentrated in the applications of organisational cybernetics,
sustainability, dynamic networks and the study and development of management systems
inspired in co-evolving and transition management.
E. Arcaute is a Theoretical Physicist who obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge
on Clifford Algebras applied to twistors towards the unification of quantum mechanics
and general relativity, to spinors, to multi-particle wave functions and to cosmology. After
completing her PhD, she moved to Imperial College London to join the group “Complexity and
Networks” led by Prof. Henrik J. Jensen and Prof. Kim Christensen. There, she worked as a
Research Assistant for the EPSRC project, “Defying the rules: how self-regulatory social
systems work”, where she developed a mathematical model aiming at providing the dynamics of
evolution of a system in a self-regulatory way. The model was validated through
multi-robots experiments, and tested against experimental results for division of labour in ant
colonies. Her current work consists in extending the model to look at sustainability in human
communities.
K. Christensen graduated from University of Aarhus, Denmark in 1990. He undertook his
PhD study at Brookhaven National Laboratory, co-inventing a simple model for earthquakes.
He joined the University of Oslo in 1993, where experimental and theoretical studies of granular
flow led to the so-called Oslo model for avalanches in granular media that plays a pivotal role in
slowly driven non-equilibrium systems. After studying evolution of networks at the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, he joined Imperial College London as an EU-fellow in 1997 and was
later appointed as a Professor in Theoretical Physics. He uses the methods of statistical
mechanics and network analysis to gain insight into complex dynamical systems. He has been
working within the area of complexity science for more than 20 years, developing and applying
transferable tools and techniques to real world systems in many different contexts: geology
(earthquakes and reservoir engineering), atmospheric physics (rain), biology (evolution and
social insects), sociology (organisational science) and medicine (brain and heart). Recently,
he co-authored a pedagogical textbook entitled Complexity and Criticality (Imperial College
Press, 2005).

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