Foreword
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2022
Summary
I thank Dr Bart Nooteboom for the honourable invitation to write these few pages as a foreword to his book. In this newest book, based on an interdisciplinary vision brought about by the dialogue between philosophy and organisational studies, the author delves into human sociocultural relations, among other matters, helping to recover the focus on the individual with microfoundations in a technological era, and offers foundations for consistent research and projects on the organisational level.
Upon reading Professor Bart Nooteboom's book, my reaction was the pleasant satisfaction of identifying that the themes indispensable to the establishment of organisational resilience and the configuration of contemporary governance models (multilevel governance and governance of learning and knowledge) will have, starting from the launch of this book, a fundamental support. Various elements covered in this book are multilevel governance mechanisms, such as intra-and inter-organisational learning networks, organisational and individual, management of change processes and the creation of human knowledge, and the elements of trust and collaboration for the entire system to cohere.
In the world of disruptive digital transformations, the focus has been on technological changes and integrations, but the adaptive advantages inherent to successful organisations are the result of collaboration between autonomous individuals capable of learning and adapting to multilevel learning networks.
It is clear that despite the individuality of the subjects, they are all integrated into the general program of Homo sapiens and also into more limited programming frameworks, such as the cultures to which they belong. But this limitation is illusory, since the subjects are connected to the organisational network, translating information and reinterpreting it, returning it to the environment from their personal connections, and strengthening the cultural network from their view and interpretation of the world. In other words, this phenomenon of interactive construction between the environment and the individual is linked to other phenomena, within a network of space-time connections.
When one tries to understand the process that leads individuals to make the decision to collaborate or not with peers, it is realised that one can no longer look at those individuals as autonomous. A system emerges with complex structures, and with interwoven elements, and that, after we perceive the extent of its complexity, makes us capable of dealing with the real and of dialoguing and negotiating with it.
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- Process PhilosophyA Synthesis, pp. ix - xiiPublisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2021