This special issue seeks research demonstrating how organizations apply systems theory and cybernetics to create tangible impact. Rather than focusing solely on theoretical development, the issue invites contributions showing practical benefits across management, education, engineering, and other domains where formal systems approaches are relevant. Diverse article types are welcomed, including case studies, practitioner papers, viewpoints, and technical reports, allowing authors to present their work in varied formats while maintaining clear arguments supported by suitable evidence.

The special issue addresses academia's responsibility to engage with grand societal challenges and sustainable development goals. Systems theory and cybernetics offer tools for understanding complex dynamics beyond simplistic solutions, enabling more comprehensive approaches to contemporary problems. Submissions examining applications in the Global South and Eastern Hemisphere, particularly those providing firsthand evidence of systems research's effectiveness in these contexts, are especially encouraged.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Leading change in dynamic societies through complex-adaptive systems models
• Structure, practice, and impact of educational systems on employment, income, social transformation
• Added value of AI, blockchain, and other technical implementations of systems operations
• Effects of systems-oriented consulting services
• Limitations of systems designs and interplay with improvisation and heuristics
• Leadership systems development, application, and assessment
• Cultural differences and specificities affecting the application of formal systems models

Timeline

• January 2, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• November 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Enis Elezi, University of Westminster

Knowledge-intensive organisations face mounting complexity from resource constraints, digitalisation, accountability demands, and geopolitical pressures. Existing research on these challenges remains fragmented across disciplinary silos and often lacks systemic understanding of how these institutions observe, interpret and respond to complexity.

This special issue integrates typically isolated scholarly conversations about leadership, governance, risk, knowledge and entrepreneurship within a cybernetic framework. It explores the interconnected processes of observation, communication, decision and learning that enable organisations to adapt and remain viable across sectors including universities, health systems, research institutes and public agencies.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Leadership and governance as systemic architectures of observation, decision and learning
• Enterprise-wide risk management, knowledge management and entrepreneurship as interconnected cybernetic processes
• Cross-sector analyses of universities, health systems, research institutes, public agencies and professional service firms as complex learning systems
• Reflexive and second-order perspectives on how organisations construct and revise their own governance arrangements
• Theory-as-method applications using cybernetics, systems thinking or complexity frameworks

Timeline

• January 26, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• December 26, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission

This special issue bridges systems theory and science fiction criticism to analyze speculative narratives as models of complex social systems. The editors argue that while science fiction commonly receives sociological interpretation, systematic application of Niklas Luhmann's theory and second-order cybernetics to the genre remains underexplored. The collection seeks to demonstrate how science fiction uniquely simulates social dynamics, including autopoiesis, operational closure, and functional differentiation, addressing contemporary concerns around artificial intelligence, fragmented discourse, and interconnected systems.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Investigations into the 'hypertrophy' of social subsystems (e.g., totalitarization of politics, economization of life) and dedifferentiation in utopian and dystopian literature
• The emergence of non-human communicative systems, including Artificial Intelligence and alien consciousness, and their structural coupling with human society
• Science fiction as a specific function of the art system, allowing society to observe its own evolution, paradoxes, and latent possibilities
• Systems-theoretic readings of ecological crisis, the environment, and global interdependencies in speculative fiction
• Examining the fragmentation of public discourse, 'echo chambers,' and the breakdown of communication through the lens of SF narratives

Timeline

• January 4, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• January 15, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Mehmet Recai Uygur, Kaunas University of Technology

Eglė Celiešienė, Kaunas University of Technology

Sami Çoksan, Western University

This special issue examines democracy through a systems-theoretical lens, addressing the structural tension between democratic openness and the need to manage threats to institutions and public order. The editors invite contributions that apply cybernetics and complexity theory to understand how democratic systems observe, communicate about and respond to various pressures including war, pandemics, disinformation, migration and technological disruption.

The issue seeks to integrate perspectives from multiple fields including democratic theory, governance, securitisation studies, media research and resilience thinking. It particularly welcomes work that moves beyond linear explanations to analyse feedback loops, recursive processes and unintended consequences of governance interventions, examining paradoxes such as liberty versus security and inclusion versus exclusion.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Democracy as a self-referential and paradoxical system
• Democratic resilience, backsliding, institutional learning and adaptation
• Securitisation, threat construction, emergency politics and exceptional measures
• Disinformation, AI, digital platforms and democratic communication
• Migration, protest, border governance and inclusion/exclusion dynamics
• War, pandemics, climate stress and economic shocks as coupled crises
• Public administration, critical infrastructures and cross-sector governance
• Multilevel governance, polycentric coordination and state-business-civil society relations
• Formal and methodological innovations, including systems mapping, simulations, network analysis and truth tables
• Normative and design implications for reflexive, resilient and trustworthy democratic governance

Timeline

• January 5, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• December 31, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission