Complex Decision-Making in Economy and Finance. Pierre Massotte

Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Complex Decision-Making in Economy and Finance - Pierre Massotte страница 20

Complex Decision-Making in Economy and Finance - Pierre Massotte

Скачать книгу

implementation of various technologies and the frontiers of several sciences (engineering sciences, life sciences, humanities and social sciences, etc.). We use multidisciplinary techniques here, as is the case at, for example, the Santa Fe Institute and in MIT Interscience Centres;

       – similarly, to ensure the emergence of innovative products under conditions of reactivity and well-defined “sustainable development”, we are dealing here with the entire product life-cycle. We will then speak of a vertical integration of functions, with optimizing approaches, such as “continuous process improvement”;

       – we also know that our new network organization requires good control and coherence of all processes and we will talk about the horizontal integration of processes. The latter often requires a review of the associated processes and procedures, and therefore the re-engineering of distributed systems.

      These particular constraints are difficult to address simultaneously. We will therefore be obliged to simplify the process by identifying the necessary subcultures, the criteria of competition and cooperation that will lead us to coopetition or comperation between vertical and transversal processes and by making subtle and balanced aggregations.

      2.1.3.2. Dynamic stability and quality

      We mentioned the fact that the quality and performance of a process always requires time and effort.

      The challenge is to reconcile these imperatives with those of e-business. This concerns the rapid implementation of a quality assurance and certification system (required for large volumes) or a global and total quality approach (as part of continuous process improvement and a dynamic customer-focused approach through mass customization).

      In the first two cases, and to a lesser extent in the third case, it is a question of “hardening” and strictly controlling processes, using techniques such as six-sigma. This makes it difficult to adapt in a reactive and dynamic way to unstable and changing contexts.

      2.1.3.3. Dynamic stability and time

      Technologies are evolving rapidly, and there is a growing difficulty in adapting not only skills but also structures and infrastructure. How then can we reconcile resource adaptability, return on investment, dynamic reconfiguration of organizations and process control? How can all stakeholders be quickly involved in a global approach? This requires homogeneous and coherent modes of communication, thought, action, cooperation, creation, design, etc. How can we manage in real-time distributed production systems, process and workshop reconfigurations, relocations and company restructuring in a global and international environment? Dynamic stability requires a fine management of time, logistics and environmental constraints.

      2.1.4. Concepts of sociability and emergence of order

      In a didactic context, sociability (this word dates from the 17th Century) refers to the ability of a system to associate and bring together a number of similar entities and make them live agreeably and harmoniously at all times. By extension, sociability expresses the character of a group of living beings that promotes human relationships, particularly intellectual or social relationships [WIL 00]. This founding father of sociobiology explains in his book that most of the behavioral components of living organisms, and of course the conduct of human or social groups such as ants, have a genetic predestination. Thus, the sociability of groups of living beings is statically embedded in genes and becomes an integral part of their nature.

      However, sociability can be seen as the manifestation of a dynamic process and the belonging of an entity to a larger group, and therefore to a social body, because there are mutual influences. These profoundly transform their own functioning and behavior. The emerging properties of this living group are of considerable power. Indeed:

       – each entity involved in the life of a group processes a variable amount of information and the amount of information processed in parallel by the whole group is considerable;

       – a living being (or agent) belonging to a social system processes less information by itself than a solitary being or agent. They operate in a limited “neighborhood” and are subject to local constraints and objectives. They work very astutely in their local environment;

       – as part of a whole, a living agent contributes to more complex information processing and works, without wishing to do so a priori, towards the emergence of global behavior. The system then acts as a single organization;

       – in a group of individuals, the communication therefore modifies the activity of each entity in any form whatsoever. It allows the exchange of statuses, needs and orders of actions. This ensures that the needs of the entire system are met more accurately and consistently than if each entity were to attempt to assess the overall demand on its own. However, can aggregate demand be measured at its fair value and assimilated by all agents in the system?

       – in a social body, constituting a single and coherent system, the roles of each individual will become more precise over time and become very specialized but very closely dependent on the whole, which is itself the consequence of collective action;

       – knowledge of the finest operating details and actions at the level of an individual does not allow us to understand and predict the evolution of the system as a whole.

      The evolution of a complex system obeys a global objective, and it will therefore be organized to best meet its objectives in a given context and environment. This emergence of order corresponds to an attractor and it can be said, in another way, that the sociability of the system is considered as a sociobiological attractor.

      Just as the notion of “interaction” is more important than that of “function” at the level of an agent, the emergence of a stable state or order takes precedence over the notion of predetermined order. In the first case, these are unpredictable events, and in the other case, these are calculable and predictable systems.

      Thus, the concept of emergence is a fundamental part of the science of complexity and characterizes complex adaptive systems. This concept of the emergence and progressive and coherent organization of the parts of an interconnected system is based on two different approaches to the evolution of systems, the Platonicians and the Aristotelians:

       – for Aristotle’s followers, the approach is very mechanistic and deterministic. Living organisms, like interconnected systems, are “machines” whose behavior is explained solely by the laws of chemistry, physics and mechanics. In this approach, we will also classify the one advocated by Descartes and by determinists and reductionists. Even though many phenomena related to complex systems could be explained in this way, Aristotelians had to admit that there were fundamental differences between inanimate objects and living organisms: the physical organization of matter makes it possible to give living organism properties that inanimate things do not have;

       – for Plato’s followers, the approach is more open, vitalist and philosophical. Even though the components of the complex system obey the laws of physics, a life force animates the raw material and most of the properties that emerge from these organisms escape scientific analysis. Thus, Niels Bohr stated: “Knowledge of the fundamental characteristics

Скачать книгу