Introducing Organizational Systems
We are pleased to announce the launch of Organizational Systems, a new academic journal dedicated to advancing the intellectual and practical programme initiated by Stafford Beer concerning the organisation, governance and viability of complex social systems.
The journal provides an interdisciplinary forum for scholarship concerned with how organisations and social systems organise themselves, maintain their identities, respond to complexity, coordinate action, distribute autonomy and remain viable under changing conditions.
Its intellectual orientation brings together three closely related traditions: cybernetics, systems theory and complexity sciences. Within this broad field, Organizational Systems is particularly interested in organisational, sociotechnical and socio-political cybernetics, as well as in theoretical and practical approaches to the design, governance and transformation of complex organisations.
Stafford Beer's work provides an important point of departure for the journal, but not a boundary around it. Organizational Systems seeks both to develop the problems raised by Beer and to place them in dialogue with other traditions and contemporary developments in systems thinking, complexity, organisation studies, technology and social theory.
The journal is conceived as a space for theoretical development, conceptual reconstruction, empirical research, methodological innovation and organisational design. It particularly welcomes work that addresses enduring problems of complexity, autonomy, coordination, participation, adaptation, regulation, governance and liberty in organised social life.
The launch of Organizational Systems coincides with an especially significant moment for the cybernetics and systems community. 2026 marks the centenary of Stafford Beer's birth, and the journal's inaugural publication programme will be developed in connection with Metaphorum 2026: 100 Years of Stafford Beer, bringing together scholars and practitioners concerned with the continuing development of his intellectual legacy.
The inaugural issue will include contributions associated with the conference together with editorial and programmatic papers intended to establish some of the questions, problems and possibilities that will orient the journal in the years ahead.
Rather than treating the centenary solely as an occasion for retrospective celebration, Organizational Systems takes it as an opportunity to ask a forward-looking question:
What problems of organisation, governance and viability must cybernetics, systems theory and complexity sciences address today?
Organizational Systems is developed in collaboration with Metaphorum and is published within the academic publication system of the University of Nariño, Colombia.
We invite researchers, practitioners and emerging scholars working across cybernetics, systems theory, complexity sciences and related fields to follow the development of the journal and participate in the conversations that will shape its first issues.
