Anthony Stafford Beer was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.
William Ross Ashby was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby.
Sociocybernetics is an interdisciplinary science between sociology and general systems theory and cybernetics. The International Sociological Association has a specialist research committee in the area – RC51 – which publishes the (electronic) Journal of Sociocybernetics.
Second-order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself and the reflexive practice of cybernetics according to such a critique. It is cybernetics where "the role of the observer is appreciated and acknowledged rather than disguised, as had become traditional in western science". Second-order cybernetics was developed between the late 1960s and mid 1970s by Heinz von Foerster and others, with key inspiration coming from Margaret Mead. Foerster referred to it as "the control of control and the communication of communication" and differentiated first order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observed systems" and second-order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observing systems".
Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask was a British cybernetician, inventor and polymath who made during his lifetime multiple contributions to cybernetics, educational psychology, educational technology, epistemology, chemical computing, architecture, and the performing arts. During his life he gained three doctorate degrees. He was an avid writer, with more than two hundred and fifty publications which included a variety of journal articles, books, periodicals, patents, and technical reports. He also worked as an academic and researcher for a variety of educational settings, research institutes, and private stakeholders including but not limited to the University of Illinois, Concordia University, the Open University, Brunel University and the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He is known for the development of conversation theory.
Martin Smith is a former Professor of Robotics at Middlesex University in north London, UK. He is also a former President of the Cybernetics Society in the UK.
Ranulph Glanville was an Anglo-Irish cybernetician and design theorist. He was a founding vice-president of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (2006–2009) and president of the American Society for Cybernetics (2009–2014).
Management cybernetics is concerned with the application of cybernetics to management and organizations. "Management cybernetics" was first introduced by Stafford Beer in the late 1950s and introduces the various mechanisms of self-regulation applied by and to organizational settings, as seen through a cybernetics perspective. Beer developed the theory through a combination of practical applications and a series of influential books. The practical applications involved steel production, publishing and operations research in a large variety of different industries. Some consider that the full flowering of management cybernetics is represented in Beer's books. However, learning continues.
The Cybernetics Society is a UK-based learned society that exists to promote the understanding of Cybernetics. The core activity of the Cybernetics Society is the organization and facilitation of scientific meetings, conferences, and social events. The society's website provides information and news items for professionals in the field and the general audience in order to improve the understanding of cybernetics and associated disciplines. Among the activities of the Society are:
Gerrit Broekstra, is a Dutch scientist and professor in the field of organization behavior and systems sciences at the Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam, Northwestern University, Chicago, and Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands.
Conversation theory is a cybernetic approach to the study of conversation, cognition and learning that may occur between two participants who are engaged in conversation with each other. It presents an experimental framework heavily utilising human-computer interactions and computer theoretic models as a means to present a scientific theory explaining how conversational interactions lead to the emergence of knowledge between participants. The theory was developed by Gordon Pask, who credits Bernard Scott, Dionysius Kallikourdis, Robin McKinnon-Wood, and others during its initial development and implementation as well as Paul Pangaro during subsequent years.
Michael Christopher Jackson OBE is a British systems scientist, consultant and Emeritus Professor of Management Systems and former Dean of Hull University Business School, known for his work in the field of systems thinking and management.
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causal processes such as feedback. Norbert Wiener named the field after an example of circular causal feedback—that of steering a ship where the helmsman adjusts their steering in response to the effect it is observed as having, enabling a steady course to be maintained amongst disturbances such as cross-winds or the tide.
Robert Vallée was a French cyberneticist and mathematician. He was Professor at the Paris 13 University and president of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC).
Yi Lin, also known as Jeffrey Forrest and Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest, is a professor of mathematics, systems science, economics, and finance at Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (SSHE) and at several major universities in China. Lin has been an active researcher in the field of systems science since mid-1980s and serves as the founder and president of the International Institute for General Systems Studies (IIGSS).
Markus Schwaninger is an Austrian economist and Professor of Management at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and Director of the International World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics. He is known for his co-authorship of the St. Galler Management-Model.
Autonomous agency theory (AAT) is a viable system theory (VST) which models autonomous social complex adaptive systems. It can be used to model the relationship between an agency and its environment(s), and these may include other interactive agencies. The nature of that interaction is determined by both the agency's external and internal attributes and constraints. Internal attributes may include immanent dynamic "self" processes that drive agency change.
Liu Sifeng is a Chinese systems engineer. He is the director of the Institute for Grey Systems Studies at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China. He is best known for his work on grey system theory.
Laurence Dale Richards has been a key figure in the modern development of cybernetics as a transdisciplinary field of inquiry, often referred to as the new cybernetics. He was the first to create interdisciplinary masters and doctoral programs in engineering management, with curricula built explicitly on concepts drawn from systems theory and cybernetics. He served as president for both the American Society for Cybernetics (1986–88) and the American Society for Engineering Management (1998–99) and was elected an Academician in the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences in 2010.
