F. Gregory Hayden

Social Fabric Matrix: From Perspective to Analytical Tool

Two principles apply. First, there is the principle of association, which states that the developer of a model must engage in associating elements of representation systems with those things that are to be modeled. Second, there is the principle of model exchange, which states that it is desirable to find ways of transforming a model from one representation system to another to meet the needs of understanding, learning and effective communication. John Warfield

The Inadequacy of Forrester System Dynamics Computer Programs for Institutional Principles of Hierarchy, Feedback, and Openness

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The Use of Power Blocs of Integrated Corporate Directorships to Articulate a Power Structure: Case Study and Research Recommendations

The purpose here is the explanation of five related concerns. First, we explain a new method to analyze and measure the network of interlocks among the directors of different corporations. Second, we use the method articulated is used to analyze and describe the network that forms the corporate power structure in which the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact (CIC) is enmeshed. We have been greatly surprised by the findings because the literature surveyed concerning corporate director overlaps does not contain any examples of such a dense and extensive network of corporate connections as exist in the CIC. Third, from the empirical base generated for the CIC, we select the most dominant corporations. Fourth, we provide a literature review that is related to the new method utilized. As scientists emphasize, context is imperative for defining what is to be considered and interpreted. Thus, in order to make the literature review more meaningful, it is necessary to gain an understanding of the new methodology and its application before the literature review is presented. A new research and measurement context needs to be demonstrated before we can know what past research base is relevant. Since it is important both to relate past research to the methods used here and to suggest future research, the review is presented after the CIC empirical base is

Ecosystem Valuation: Combining Economics, Philosophy, and Ecology

Discussions regarding ecological crises often begin by casually identifying anthropocentric traits as responsible for the crises and by briefly explaining the need for holistic or macroscopic modeling. Yet, when modeling begins, policy scientists, philosophers, and social scientists usually are not included, and the models often are not ecological, but are rather narrowly biological or physical. The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for broader and richer modeling and the need to recognize that environmental protection and enhancement is anthropocentric policymaking. The question is not whether it will be anthropocentric, but which anthropocentric values, beliefs, and philosophies will guide the policymaking paradigms and analytical techniques.

Contracts and Costs in a Corporate/Government System Dynamics Network: A United States Case

Social scientists have come to understand that society is a set of integrated values, beliefs, institutions, technology, and ecological systems as explicitly laid out in Figure 9.1 (Hayden 1988, Hayden 1997). Societal integration and organization takes place through the on going processing of overlapping institutions and their organizations. The components of transorganizational frameworks, as demonstrated in Figure 9.1, create and structure the networks within which organizations such as business corporations and government agencies function. “Trans” as used in this sense means across. Across organizational networks normative criteria are provided by social beliefs, technology, and ecological systems (Hayden, 1998). From basic criteria, numerous rules, regulations, and requirements are codified by various institutional organizations such as courts, corporations, and government agencies. Transorganizational frameworks guide multi-organization networks made up of overlapping organizations. Thurman Arnold explained in his Folklore of Capitalism that modern industrial systems are the integration of huge organizations that are coordinated with different kinds of organizations. Corporations, government agencies, universities, and inter-organizational compacts, for example, function together and are dependent upon each other (Arnold, 1937). They are one of another.

Normative Analysis of Instituted Processes

This chapter refines and formalizes the normative concepts of duty and obligation consistent with the ideas of institutional economics. To do so, deontic logic and normative system philosophy is utilized in order to formalize a methodology that enhances normative description, empirical investigation, and decision making. This formalization assumes the normative sets of social, technological, and ecological criteria as expressed in the social fabric matrix, and is grounded in the concepts of prohibition, obligation, and permission as emphasized by Karl Polanyi and John R. Commons. The deontic system necessary for a society to integrate authority and processing institutions to create and fulfill normative criteria through rules, regulations, and requirements is developed in a temporal setting. This explanation does not suggest that real-world normative systems are harmonious or continuous, or that they maintain commonality of normative criteria, avoid excess or inadequate redundancy, and are without gaps and conflict. In fact, it is quite to the contrary. The explanation is structured so studies can be completed to find the gaps, discontinuity, disharmony, and conflicts. Given the fragility of the modern world, analytical tools that assist in this task are of paramount concern.

Overlap of Organizations: Corporate Transorganization and Veblen's Thesis on Higher Education

Veblen was the first economist to recognize that management was an important factor of production in modem business enterprise, and nowhere was this more evident than in the rise of the large corporation.... These new enterprises took over from the market the coordination and integration of the flow of goods and services all the way from the production of the raw materials through the several processes of production to the sale of the ultimate consumer.... Veblen perceived correctly that administered production by means of large corporations would eventually spread throughout most of the economy [Gellen 1984, pp. 82-83].

Instrumental Valuation Indicators for Natural Resources and Ecosystems

Beldon Daniels, in the early draft of his latest book, which has a working title of Rediscovering America, 1992,1 has written that there have been four major eras in human history. The fourth, into which we are now evolving, according to Daniels, is the age of intelligence. Although the intelligence activity of the modem age both uses and directs the development of large quantities of data, information, and knowledge; a measurement concept, or unit for valuation has yet to be developed. The industrial age from which we are evolving, consistent with the technology of that era, has used industrial production (or a proxy for production such as money value) as the basic measurement unit for valuation. This article is intended as a step toward the realization of a measurement concept consistent with Danielss ideas. The purpose of this article is to present a general instrumental methodology for determining value indicators with an application to natural resources and ecosystems. The article is guided by the work of four instrumentalists; John Dewey, Fagg Foster, James Swaney, and Richard Mattessich, who reject the possibility of valuation via a market price criterion and who support transactional valuation. All four have offered overarching criteria and principles for valuation. In addition the article uses the knowledge base of the Social Fabric Matrix (SFM) and the principles of General System Analysis (GSA).

Comparison of the Corporate Decision Networks of Nebraska and the United States

Institutional economists have long been concerned with identifying patterns, linkages, and interconnections that constitute a system [Ramstad 1986; Hayden 1982]. Relationships among corporations have been of particular interest. The thesis of this paper is that structural modeling techniques can be used to assist in analyzing and learning more about the structure of corporate decision-making networks, thereby furthering our ability to measure, describe, and analyze corporate systems with a greater degree of consistency. These analytical techniques are demonstrated by comparing the decision-making network of the leading corporations operating in the state of Nebraska with the network for the United States as a whole. A data base for the corporations in Nebraska and the United States will be described, and comparative analysis of the two networks reported. The methods illuminate the structure of transcorporate activities and allow for holistic integration of corporate relations. The techniques are useful for evolutionary analysis in that they provide consistent indicators by which to trace evolutionary changes in the corporate pattern.

Circular and Cumulative Causation and the Social Fabric Matrix

Abstract This study combines the problem orientation of instrumentalism and the systems analysis of circular and cumulative causation (CCC) through the utilization of a social fabric matrix (SFM) and network digraph. The SFM is utilized to articulate part of the Nebraska State system used to distribute state funds among local K-12 public schools. The empirical content is used to derive conceptual conclusions about CCC and to make comments about a controversy regarding agents, institutions, and new rule development. This study provides a refinement of CCC, and it confirms that rules are not the result of self-action by agents.