The Knowledge Cybernetics of Culture: The Case of China

Abstract

The theory of knowledge cybernetics is principally concerned with the development of autonomous social collectives that survive through knowledge and knowledge processes. It provides a new way of representing the attributes of culture that can subsume other approaches like those of Hofstede and of Schwartz. An illustration of how this can be developed for Chinese culture is provided. Culture is often seen as the set of commonly held and relatively stable beliefs, attitudes and values that exist within the organization, and reflects on the way that an organization undertakes and implements its decision making, resolves its problems, and in general behaves is another common definition. Culture is embodied in symbols, rituals and heroes that are reflected in organizational communication, manners, dress codes, social rules and norms, and role models. Like macroscopic or 'national' culture, the subject of this paper, organizational which have 'microscopic' culture is often seen to comprises corporate values, norms, feelings, hopes and aspirations. Since culture lies at the base of worldviews and paradigms, it is through these that knowledge is created and migrated, and emotions are migrated. The theory that we shall develop arises from knowledge cybernetics, and permits us to establish cultural characteristics in a way that is more overarching than that of Hofstede or others have so far shown to be the case. The core of knowledge cybernetics that we shall use is the Social Viable Systems model. It will be conditioned by examining the work Fan, who considered a large set of variables that derive from explorations of Chinese culture. It will result in a set of 6 generic classifications of culture each with 4 non-arbitrary sub-classifications.

Keywords: China, Culture, Social viable systems theory, Knowledge migration