Report R4.2 Change Research Seminar Leader: Anupam Saraph, Director, Institute for Change Research, India AnupamSaraph[at]gmail.com In the later half of the twntieth century, there has been an increasing recognition of the inadequacy of domain specific traditional modes of inquiry to address problems in many areas. The rise of "general systems theory" was a response to search for principles and laws that apply across domains irrespective of the components of a system. On these lines, "change research" attempts to seek out general, universally applicable principles of change. The scope of change research as a research perspective includes the following: * Understanding and applying change * Estimating change * Seeking out forces that drive change * Exploring consequences of forces driving change * Identifying desirable change paths * Seeking ways to be on desired path To do this, it is important to identify accurate units of change. These units are used to form certain constructs which are in turn employed to formulate axioms and laws and to build models. The quality of these models is evaluated on the basis of the extent to which they capture real-world experiences. However, real-world experiences could be evaluated from varied viewpoints. Are "participant experiences" more valuable than "observer experiences"? What about "designer experiences"? One of the applications of change research could indeed be to design systems that function effectively. Design-oriented research follows a different perspective than "analytical" or "problem solving" modes of inquiry. Design of models allows us to experience change without actually going through it. This can often be handy in research involving large complex systems. Modelling however involves the use of accurate and precise definitions of components and their relationships. In such situations tools for change research such as "theory of organisation" can be handy. In this theory, the basic units of a system are “actors.” The actors cannot be created or destroyed, but can only be acted upon. The role of the actors is to act and every “act” is a response to some event. These acts modify some attributes of some actors. Thus, all changes in the system are driven by actors. All acts are performed on the basis of “reactivities” of actors. All systems are open to reorganisation and are sustained if the relationships within can be sustained. * Systems reorganise through expansion to accommodate reactivities of actors * Systems reorganise through contraction to accommodate inability of actors to service reactivities * Actors in a static systems have a reactivity to every characteristic distinguishing its actors * A system is open to reorganisation if no actor has a reactivity to any characteristic of at least one actor One important distinction of research efforts that aims for universally applicable principles, such as change research, is how they define their primary objects of inquiry. In most discipline-specific research, entities such as individuals, groups, physical objects, or biological species are the objects of inquiry. By shifting attention to entities such as "change," the researcher opts for a different perspective that might be helpful in some situations. A notably similar perspective is followed by the field of memetics. Here, instead of focusing on individual minds, the analytic units are "memes" that are said to inhabit various minds and ensure their own survival. Reference Saraph, A. (1994). Toolbox for tomorrow: Exploring and designing sustainable systems (Doctoral Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen). Pune, India: Simlab. (Appendix 2: Forrester’s principles of feedback; Appendix 3: Principles of systems)
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