Reflection in self-organised systems - Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising - page 103

ginalised groups have difficulty in developing trust and a sense of security so reflective
learning can be threatening unless the environment 'intellectually and emotionally
supports individuals in their learning and development' by allowing them to challenge
ideas and practices without the threat of reprisal. It is a common trend in the busy
workplace for reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action to be discouraged and resisted
due to time pressure (Brockbank and McGill, 1998; Ayas and Zeniuk, 2001), and any
type of learning to be deferred to the future. Project work, in particular, allows oppor-
tunities for learning, but evidently these opportunities are rarely explored. Sharing of
lessons learnt from experiences, successes and problems does not happen in many organ-
isations (Mathiassen and Purao, 2002).
Mathiassen and Purao (2002) suggest that what organisations strive for is a culture that
instigates the evolution of a 'community-of-practice'. This is where colleagues collaborate
and share work experiences with the intention of combining individual learning in a
localised context to allow the creation of knowledge that can be generalised to other
organisational contexts and perhaps lead to changes in practices, modifications to design,
etc. Communities-of-practice cannot be designed - they emerge as colleagues collaborate
to solve problems together. Mathiassen (2002) explains 'membership [of communities-
of-practice] is informal and based on participation in diagnosing situations and telling
stories about them. The resulting communities are fluid rather than bounded, evolve
rather than being designed and typically cross the formal boundaries of an organisation.'
Successful reflection, therefore, is dependant on culture at both an individual and organ-
isational level. On an individual level, one needs to be in a philosophical position to feel
comfortable about questioning long standing assumptions, values and understandings,
and with using the reflection process to reach new knowledge. Individual reflective
culture can determine organisational reflective culture but organisational culture can
also dictate individual behaviour (Ayas and Zeniuk, 2001). If organisational learning is
to take place, there needs to be an environment in which individuals feel psychologically
safe to challenge organisational norms and practices so double-loop and triple-loop
learning can take place.
Self-organisation
Technological systems become organised by commands from outside, as when human
intentions lead to the building of structures or machines. But many natural systems be-
come structured by their own internal processes: these are the self-organising systems,
and the emergence of order within them is a complex phenomenon that intrigues scientists
from many disciplines (Yates et al., 1987, cited in Camazine et al., 2001).
Self-organisation is a process that is set in motion when, confronted with change, com-
ponents of a system (e.g. individuals, organisms, elements) spontaneously form patterns
and structures in order to target their goals: problem-solving . One way of understanding
self-organisation is to contemplate a common purpose or problem, initiating a strong
relocation of energy and actions within a system, which leads to the formation of complex
webs from elements that are sparsely coupled in order to achieve a common purpose.
Following are four definitions that summarise the view of self-organisation as it is being
used in this paper:
Self-organisation refers to a broad range of pattern-formation processes in both
physical and biological systems, such as sand grains assembling into rippled
dunes, chemical reactants forming swirling spirals, cells making up highly
organised tissues, and fish joining together in schools (Camazine et al., 2001).