Markus F. Peschl

• Professor
• Professor at University of Vienna

Facing our complex (global) challenges in a rapidly changing, unpredictable, and uncertain world begs the question of how we can bring about innovations that have a reasonable and sustainable purpose and that shape and lead to thriving and novel futures. The claim of this paper is that, in order to bring forth such purposeful innovations and novelt...

Purpose While many approaches in the field of unlearning aim at describing, understanding or explaining the “what” and/or “how” of unlearning, this paper aims to focus on the “where-to” and the goal of unlearning. In many cases, unlearning starts off with a specific result or goal in mind. This paper suggests that such an approach has to be challen...

Our world has changed radically over the last several decades. Almost every domain of our lives is affected by disruptions in technology—our economy, culture, and education, as well as social lives. We are living in an environment that is characterized by high levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (“ VUCA world”). These chang...

Recent publications in the field of KM emphasize the importance of topics such as Spirituality (e.g. Bratianu, 2017; Kaiser, 2023; Rocha & Pinheiro, 2021), Phronesis (practical wisdom) (Kragulj, 2022; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 2019; Rocha et al., 2022; Serenko, 2024), Organizational Purpose (Kerschbaum, 2022), dealing with future potentials and future-ori...

With the advent of Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, and, more generally, generative AI/cognitive technologies, global knowledge production faces a critical systemic challenge. It results from continuously feeding back non- or poorly-creative copies of itself into the global knowledge base; in the worst case, this could not only lead to a sta...

When Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, started to forge pitons (a piece of climbing equipment) in 1957, he never planned to become a businessman. All he wanted to do was produce climbing gear for his friends and himself. However, half a century later, his company Patagonia (now worth 3 billion dollars) has become one of the most renowned ou...

Our world has always been changing, sometimes rather gradually, at other times more radically. In today’s world, we see both tremendous challenges and potential to shape it in a new and desirable direction. In almost every domain of our lives we are challenged by high levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguousness (“VUCA world”)....

In today's increasingly complex, rapidly changing world, organizations are challenged to not only adapt to VUCA environments but also exploit new market niches. Even so, they continue to be regarded as machine-like and deterministic instead of living, evolving systems. In this chapter, we examine organizations in relation to the tension between det...

The role of spirituality in organizations has received increasing attention over recent years. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to take up this shift and develop the foundations for an alternative approach to knowledge management: Spiritual Knowledge Management. A key question in spirituality concerns the unfolding of the identity (of an org...

Understanding consciousness is a major frontier in the natural sciences. However, given the nuanced and ambiguous sets of conditions regarding how and when consciousness appears to manifest, it is also one of the most elusive topics for investigation. In this context, we argue that research in empirical aesthetics—specifically on the experience of...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to challenge processes of organizational learning and innovation that are based on making use of, extrapolating, or adapting past experiences and knowledge, because such a strategy turns out to be incapable of dealing with the challenges of today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. As a pos...

Various collaborative innovation methods are increasingly used in strategy development and the implementation of organizational challenges. The aim of applying them is to involve different agents of an organization and support them in generating new ideas in a joint effort. For this research, an experimental field study was conducted in the course...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of self-transcending knowledge as one of P. Senge’s common themes underpinning his five disciplines approach. It will be shown that the notions of vision, purpose and transcendence, especially self-transcendence are closely related to each other. However, the aspect of self-transcendence h...

In our increasingly digital societies, many companies have business models that perceive users' (or customers') personal data as a siloed resource, owned and controlled by the data controller rather than the data subjects. Collecting and processing such a massive amount of personal data could have many negative technical, social and economic conseq...

In this paper, based on the predictive processing approach to cognition, an enactive theory of need satisfaction is discussed. The theory can be seen as a first step towards a computational cognitive model of need satisfaction.

The aim of this paper is to analyze relational uncertainty (i.e., the subjective feeling of being unsure with regard to social interactions) and epistemological uncertainty (i.e., the subjective feeling of being unsure about the content, process or outcome of a task) as well as their interrelations and development over time in collaborative learnin...

We are facing huge changes and challenges in today´s hypercomplex and high-speed world (e. g., in terms of economy, climate change, new technologies, migration, etc.). How can we understand these changes and how should we deal with them in a sustainable and thriving manner? It will be shown that it is not sufficient to just react to these changes i...

We propose a systems perspective on the cognitive foundations of innovation and knowledge creation. We show that the (standard) way we perceive, think and act is opposed to creating (radically) new knowledge. For example, the predictive coding paradigm claims that our brain is a highly complex ‘prediction machine’ being mainly driven by its past ex...

The demands on managing an organization have changed dramatically over the last decades. Besides classical tasks, such as planning or controlling, modern management has to cope with a hyper-complex world; both inside an organization and in relation to its systemic environment. We have to re-think management in the light of managing uncertainty and...

Nowadays a huge number of events are offered worldwide that aim at exchanging and generating knowledge. They come in many different formats and sizes: conferences, conventions, and other forms of meetings try to meet the expectations of their target audiences. While they all differ in detail and scope, on a deeper level they also share specific cor...

We are proposing a method (the "InnoLens approach") that enables companies to reach a profound understanding of their own mental models and assumptions in order to (i) deal more openly and creatively with (external) information and (ii) identify future potentials for innovations in a visualized and embodied way of concept mapping.

www.designing.events We assume that if you are reading this book then you probably also know how to organize an event like a conference or convention. You are, no doubt, also familiar with the main ingredients for success: a distinguished keynote speaker, interesting and lively presentations, good food, vibrant networking breaks, and a relaxing, e...

Um die Zukunftsfähigkeit eines Unternehmens zu sichern, muss der Arbeitsplatz der Zukunft ein Workspace für Wissens- und Innovationsarbeiter sein. In diesem Beitrag wird gezeigt, wie Innovation, Wissen, Organisation und Raum beziehungsweise Büro zusammenhängen. Ausgehend von einer Darstellung des Konzeptes der Innovation wird deutlich, dass kogniti...

Animal innovations range from the discovery of novel food types to the invention of completely novel behaviours. Innovations can give access to new opportunities, and thus enable innovating agents to invade and create novel niches. This in turn can pave the way for morphological adaptation and adaptive radiation. The mechanisms that make innovation...

»Wissen verändert« – so lautete das Motto der Kremser Wissensmanagement-Tage 2014. Dieses Leitthema betrifft viele Aspekte der Wissensgesellschaft und wurde in der Tagung von verschiedenen Seiten diskutiert. Ist die Vorstellung vom Lernenden Unternehmen mehr als eine Utopie, wie ticken die Wissensarbeiter der Generation Y, wie können Unternehmen in...

This paper is about designing spaces enabling processes of collaborative knowledge creation and innovation. It is a theoretical paper on the role of artifacts as enablers for creating new knowledge. We refer to these artifacts as Enabling Spaces comprising an architectural, technological (ICT), social, cognitive, organizational, cultural, as well a...

At the core of Wilson et al.'s paper stands the question of intentional change. We propose to extend this notion by introducing concepts from the domains of innovation and knowledge creation. By going beyond their "acceptance and commitment therapy" approach we present a comprehensive framework for a theory of change culminating in the change strat...

Context • Radical constructivism (RC) is seen as a fruitful way to teach innovation, as Ernst Von Glasersfeld's concepts of knowing, learning, and teaching provide an epistemological framework fostering processes of generating an autonomous conceptual understanding. Problem • Classical educational approaches do not meet the requirements for teachin...

http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/9/3/421.peschl

As opposed to managing or controlling innovation processes, this paper proposes the notion of enabling as a more suitable approach to innovation. As a consequence, the concept of Enabling Spaces is introduced as a space that is designed in such a way that it enables and facilitates processes of collaborative knowledge creation and innovation. In th...

This paper introduces the concept of enabling, as opposed to managing or controlling, as a key characteristic and attitude for designing spaces which are supposed to have a ‘branding effect’. In our case we will focus on a very specific notion of branding or branded spaces; namely, spaces that are branded for creating (new) knowledge. It can be see...

One of the big challenges in the field of innovation is to create something radically new and at the same time something that has been "waited for," although nobody has explicitly known or seen it, something that-despite its newness-appears just in the right time at the right place ("kairos") and organically fits in the existing environment (be it...

Hand, Hirn und Werkzeug - eine komplexe Interaktion. Dieser aus der Architekturpraxis initiierte Band untersucht aus der Perspektive verschiedener Wissensdisziplinen, inwiefern die manuelle Intelligenz des Menschen kreative Prozesse befördert. Besteht in Zeiten programmierter Umgebungen ein Widerspruch zwischen instrumentellem Handeln und intuitive...

Innovation has become one of the key drivers for growth. However, how do we bring about innovation which is both radical and respects the limits of the world? One of our key assumptions is that we have to take into consideration the epistemological and cognitive processes leading to (radically) new knowledge first. We propose an approach that estab...

〉 Context • Cognitive science, as an interdisciplinary research endeavour, poses challenges for teaching and learning insofar as the integration of various participating disciplines requires a reflective approach, considering and making explicit different epistemological attitudes and hidden assumptions and premises. Only few curricula in cognitive...

An epistemologically and cognitively founded pedagogical learning/teaching model tackling these goals is developed. Possible solutions will be suggested by developing a meta-model for learning/teaching processes in a stepwise manner. It turns out that philosophy of science concepts play a crucial role in these processes. Furthermore, the role of mi...

We are currently in a crisis (e.g. climate change, the breakdown of the financial sys-tem, species extinction, worldwide poverty, etc.). Some claim this a 'crisis of crisis'. Oth-ers refer to the current state as a 'systemic crisis' and the momentum of a great bifur-cation. This raises the question whether or not we will have the opportunity of cho...

Innovation has become one of the most important issues in modern knowledge society. As opposed to radical innovation this paper introduces the concept of Emergent Innovation: this approach tries to balance and integrate the demand both for radically new knowledge and at the same time for an organic development from within the organization. From a m...

This paper introduces an alternative approach to innovation: Emergent Innovation. As opposed to radical innovation Emergent Innovation finds a balance and integrates the demand both for radically new knowledge and at the same time for an organic development from within the organization. From a knowledge management perspective one can boil down this...

Presents an alternative concept and understanding of knowledge representation in neural networks based on the assumption that (natural or artificial) neural structures are responsible for the generation of an organism's behavior, which is in interaction with its environment. The concepts of constructivism, 2nd-order cybernetics, embodiment of knowl...

Purpose: How does new knowledge or profound change come about and which processes of construction are involved? This article aims at developing an epistemological as well as methodological framework which is capable of explaining how profound and radical change can be brought about in various contexts, such as in individual cultivation, in organiza...

Over the last years a general understanding has been established that knowledge is one of the main resources, not only in economics and science, but also in our everyday life. The whole movement of knowledge management (e.g., Nonaka et al. 1995; Holsapple 2003, 2003a, and many others) is just one expression of this new understanding. Nevertheless,...

Purpose Empowerment describes the processes of how to gain and increase autonomy and self‐determination in one's own environment. Typical examples for empowerment processes can be found in: citizen's initiatives, human rights movements, and other social movements or self help groups. This paper shows that empowerment processes have to be understood...

In business and education there is a growing occurrence of virtual teams, which interact mainly via computers. We analyze the levels of interaction and the channels through which communication is conducted, and the problems which are caused by the lack of the representation of a social dimension. As a first step towards a solution of these problems...

The notion of knowledge is omnipresent in the field of knowledge management and knowledge organisation. This chapter begins with an epistemological reflection on the systems involved in the processes of representing, transferring and managing knowledge. It will be shown that knowledge is fundamentally tied to the process of cognition. By implicatio...

In this paper, we argue that simulation introduces a completely new quality to the process of theory development. One of the main methodological characteristics of cognitive science (compared to other disciplines studying cognition) is the extensive use of simulation models. In the first part of this paper the foundations as well as implications fr...

this paper, we investigate the role of simulation in cognitive science in oder to determine whether the methodological foundations of (computer) simulation are indeed compatible with computationalism, as is standardly assumed by cognitive scientists. We show that simulation might force computationalists to modify their credo

states. In this step the entities of the empirical theory (i.e., variables, operators/rules, relations, etc.) are transformed into a set of abstract states in which the physical conditions and constraints (e.g., time, space, etc.) of the original system become irrelevant.

This paper addresses the questions concerningthe relationship between scientific andcognitive processes. The fact that both,science and cognition, aim at acquiring somekind of knowledge or representationabout the world is the key for establishing alink between these two domains. It turns outthat the constructivist frameworkrepresents an adequate ep...

The focus of this paper is the process of knowledge acquisition (KA) and which role virtuality plays in this context. We argue that there are three dif- ferent modes of knowledge acquisition which can be identified both in the domains of cognition and science: the empirical, the "constructive", and the "synthetic" mode. We show that the method of c...

The relationship between our actions and their perceivable results is ruled by what we call the laws of nature. It is general understanding that our actions act upon real objects which react according to the laws of nature what then can be perceived. Virtual Reality Facilities (VRFs) simulate the action-perception relationship in a physically corre...

This paper discusses the notion of representation and outlines the ideas and questions which led to the organization of this volume. We argue for a distinction between the classical view of referential representation, and the alternative concept of system-relative representation. The latter refers to situated cognitive processes whose dynamics are...

An understanding of structural and behavioural problems people and computers encounter in problem solving can guide us not only in the design of human-computer interfaces but also in the deveiopment of representation schemes for design purposes of cognitive models and computer applications. We review several models of interactive behaviour develope...

With the increased utilization of cognitive models for designing user interfaces several disciplines started to contribute to acquiring and representing knowledge about users, artifacts, and tasks. Although a wealth of studies already exists on modeling mental processes, and although the goals of cognitive engineering have become quite clear over t...

In this paper we review some problems with traditional approaches for acquiring and representing knowledge in the context of developing user interfaces. Methodological implications for knowledge engineering and for human-computer interaction are studied. It turns out that in order to achieve the goal of developing human-oriented (in contrast to tec...

In this paper it will be shown that in neural systems with a recurrent architecture, the traditional concepts of knowledge representation cannot be applied any more; no stable representational relationship of reference can be found. That is why a redefinition of the relationship between the states of the environment and the internal representationa...

Wird im Rahmen der Kognitionswissenschaft oder im alltäglichen Sprachgebrauch von Repräsentation gesprochen, so steht in den meisten Fällen die Idee eines Umweltmodells oder der Darstellung der Umwelt in einem Repräsentationsmedium klar im Vordergrund. Sieht man jedoch genauer hin, so entdeckt man, daß es sich hier nicht nur epistemologisch, sonder...

Automated knowledge acquisition (artificial learning) in dynamically changing environments may profit from integrated symbol-processing paradigm,with parallel distributed processing a promising candidate, and artifical life techniques. The contribution reveals implicit assumptions and misinterpretations to better adjust learning capabilities.

In most cases the structure and architecture of the neural system are held responsible for the representational function of a cognitive system. Traditional approaches assume that there is an input which is processed by the representation system. In most models the process of how the environmental signals are transformed into neural signals/represen...

Nachdem der Fokus der vorigen Kapitel auf den Repräsentationseigenschaften des neuronalen Systems gelegen ist, werden wir uns in diesem Kapitel ausführlich mit der Frage der Repräsentation und Konstruktion von Wissen in der Peripherie beschäftigen — wenn in diesem Kontext von ”Peripherie” die Rede ist, so ist immer das Sensor- resp. das Motorsystem...

The problem of knowledge representation plays a central role both in philosophy of science and in the study of cognitive systems. The method of this paper is to integrate findings in experimental and computational neuroscience, constructivist and naturalistic epistemology, and philosophy of science. The aim is to find an alternative foundation for...

One of the basic paradigms underlying the rapidly expanding field of artificial intelligence states that information-processing capabilities must be interpreted as being essentially independent of the material mechanisms that embody the various performances. Within this perspective, even living systems seem to lose most of their peculiarities by be...

This chapter describes the technical details of a model of cognition. This model is based on artificial neural networks. The aim of the whole project is to consider not only the technical and computer science aspects of cognition, but to integrate also epistemological and neuroscientific issues. This alternative approach in cognitive science is cal...

The aim of the project described is to achieve a deeper understanding of cognitive processes. It is based on the assumption that cognition is the result of neural activities taking place in a natural or artificial neural network (ANN). In the model presented the network is not embedded into a linguistic environment but rather is physically coupled...

This paper presents a project in cognitive science having the following aims: the consequent integration of methods, concepts, knowledge, etc. from computer science, epistemology/philosophy as well as from neuroscience, the investigation of basic questions concerning both natural and artificial cognition; the construction of a model of cognition ba...

As is well known, cognitive science is far from being a well defined discipline with an own methodology (as, for instance, physics or biology). A multitude of disciplines is involved in this fuzzy research program which has its roots in the early fifties — the development of cybernetics has brought about an interdisciplinary discourse concerning th...

An alternative approach to modeling cognition is discussed which considers not only computer science, parallel distributed processing and neuroscience aspects, but also epistemological issues. The aim is the construction of an adequate cognitive model satisfying epistemological as well as neuroscience claims. This project considers a constructivist...

Concepts can be found in a variety of technical systems, e.g., rule-based knowledge bases. Mostly, the basic assumptions for knowledge acquisition, representation, and interaction are given merely implicitly. Our investigation - exemplified by the field of cognitive human-computer interaction - pursues different goals: 1. to clarify the body of imp...

It turns oul-investigating knowledge representation rnechanisurs in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science-that rules are used for representing and manipulating knowledge in most cases, more or less explicitly. Usually, a very small group of researchers actually reflect the use of rules when designing knowledge-based systems. Thus, epistemol...

H.Maturana, H.v.Foerster & E.v.Glasersfeld gelten als die ‘Altmeister’ des Radikalen Konstruktivismus, der keine homogene Doktrin, sondern eine sich in starker Bewegung befindende interdisziplinäre Diskussion darstellt, die sich m Bereichen der Cognitive Science, (Neuro-) Kybernetik, (kognitive) Psychologie und Biologie abzeichnet — sie bleibt jedo...

Dieser Aufsatz zeigt anhand von philosophisch und auch logisch klar erscheinenden Argumenten die Defizienz der Meinung, daß man universell intelligente Maschinen auf der Basis der physical symbol system hypothesis 1 [NEWE 76], [NEWE 80] aufbauen könne. Trotz der Erfolge, die die orthodoxe AI für sich verbuchen kann, scheint sie in einer Sackgasse z...

This paper shows, using as well philosophical as logical arguments, the deficiency of the belief, that universal intelligence could be based on the 'physical symbol systems hypothesis'1 as it was stated by Newell & Simon. In spite of the (sometimes outstanding) results of orthodox AI, it seems that AI finds it self in a dead end, which is based on...