Complexity, Epistemology, and the Challenge of the Future Johannessen & Kuhn~Vol 2_Ch-22

Creativity: Social Psychology

Montuori A. (2011) Social Psychology. In: Runco MA, and Pritzker SR (eds.)
Encyclopedia of Creativity, Second Edition, vol. 2, pp. 345-351 San Diego:
Academic Press.

This encyclopedia entry explore the implications of social psychology for creativity research. Topics include motivation, interactions, collaborations, groups and groupthink, environments conductive to creativity, the role of "gatekeepers" and more.

Creativity: Systems Approach

Montuori A. (2011) Systems Approach. In: Runco MA, and Pritzker SR (eds.)
Encyclopedia of Creativity, Second Edition, vol. 2, pp. 414-421 San Diego:
Academic Press.

It is not possible to speak of a single systems approach. There
are rather of a number of systems approaches, each loosely
drawing on different aspects of a family composed mainly of,
general system theory, cybernetics, information theory, chaos
theory, and complexity theory. Systems approaches have been
used in most of the social sciences, particularly sociology and
management, but their use has extended into the arts and
humanities.
Creativity researchers have used systems approaches drawing
on very different sources and in very different ways. The
main focus has been to highlight creativity as a phenomenon
that occurs in the context of multiple systems, and therefore
involves a network of interactions.

Creative Inquiry: Confronting the challenges of scholarship in the 21st century

Futures 44 (2012) 64–70

It is becoming increasingly apparent that creativity and imagination are key to envisioning alternatives to the problems of postnormal times. At the same time, educational institutions all over the globe are still mired in assumptions from the machine/industrial age, preparing students for reproduction and conformity rather than creativity. This article outlines the philosophical foundations of an educational approach in which creativity is central to scholarship, where learners move from being consumers to creators and from bystanders to participants in the postnormal dance of knowledge.

Beyond post normal times: The future of creativity and the creativity of the future

Montuori, A. 2011. Futures The journal of policy, planning and futures studies. 42, 2 221-227.

Creativity and imagination are the most important ingredients for coping with post-normal times, according to Sardar.This paper looks at the way creativity itself is being transformed in the West, from the individualistic/atomistic view of Modernity towards a more contextual, collaborative, complex approach. It explores the potential and possibilities for this more participatory creativity to help go beyond the ‘‘crisis of the
future,’’and argues that the centrality of creativity must go beyond the mythology of genius and inspiration to inform philosophy, ethics, and action. Philosophical reflection and the imagination of desirable futures can emerge from a creative ethic that stresses the value of generative interactions and contexts that support creativity.

Edgar Morin's Path of Complexity

Introduction to Edgar Morin's "On Complexity," Hampton Press, 2008.

An extensive bio-bibliographical overview of the work of Edgar Morin, followed by a discussion of his "complex thought" in the context of the history of ideas. This is the Introduction to his "On Complexity."

Transdisciplinarity and Creative Inquiry in Transformative Education: Researching the Research Degree

in Maldonato, M. & Pietrobon, R. (2010). Research on scientific research. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press

The design of a transdisciplinary Ph.D. program with a focus on developing the ability to do original, creative research. The chapter discusses both theoretical and practical dimensions of transdisciplinary education.

Creative Inquiry

Montuori, A. (2006). The quest for a new education: from oppositional identities to creative inquiry. ReVision: A journal of consciousness and transformation. Winter, 28, 3, pp. 4-20.

In this paper I explore Creative Inquiry as an approach to education that navigates between and beyond the Scylla of reproductive, "banking" education and "right brain" narcissism to view education as a creative process. This process includes the self-creation of the knower as well as the understanding of how knowledge is created. The paper takes a broader view of the creative process: it requires rigor and imagination, learning and unlearning, self-knowledge and a thorough grounding in one's subject matter, theory and praxis.

Transformative Leadership for the 21st Century

ReVision Winter 2010 • Volume 30 • Nos. 3 & 4

This paper outlines the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings of a masters degree in Transformative Leadership with a specific focus on the role of creativity and self-creation. It uses the design of the degree as a way of address some of the considerable complexities
of the field of leadership, but also the larger planetary and personal challenges facing individuals who are committed to contributing to positive social change.

Gylany and Planetary Culture

Montuori, Alfonso(1997) 'Gylany and planetary culture: A personal exploration', World Futures, 51: 1, 165 — 181

The emerging planetary culture is viewed from an autobiographical perspective. The author discusses the importance of complex thought (Morin) and the notions of gylany and partnership (Eisler) to address the need to develop a heterogeneous, diverse context which supports creativity and mutually beneficial relations. Systems-theoretical and feminist approaches are brought to bear on the need to develop an ecology of creativity, which focuses not simply on individual genius but on the potential for creative collaboration. Ecological concerns are viewed in the context of our understanding of gender, creativity and progress.

Planetary Culture and the Crisis of the Future

Montuori, Alfonso(1999) 'Planetary culture and the crisis of the future', World Futures, 54: 4, 297 — 311

This essays reviews a number of leading works on global affairs at the end of this century, and proposes the need for a fundamental re-education and re-thinking of global issues to reflect our planetary citizenship. The importance
of transdisciplinarity is addressed in the context of the development of a new polyphonic, narrative understanding of identity and knowledge.

Creativity and Transdisciplinarity: An Interview with Alfonso Montuori by Russ Volckmann

Integral Review December 2009, Vol. 5, No. 2

Russ Volckmann's interview covers transdisciplinarity, creativity, creative inquiry, musical chaos, London in the late 70s and early 80s, disciplinary fragmentation, Edgar Morin, jazz, authoritarianism, psychedelics, improvisation, complexity, and generally gives me the opportunity to ramble about a variety of topics.

Creativity, Consciousness, and the Direction for Human Development

Montuori, A., Combs, A., & Richards, R. (2003). Creativity, consciousness, and the direction for human development. In Loye, D. (Ed.) The great adventure: Toward a fully human theory of evolution. Albany: SUNY Press.

The Complexity of Improvisation and the Improvisation of Complexity

Montuori, A. (2003). The complexity of improvisation and the improvisation of complexity. Social science, art, and creativity. Human Relations. 56(2) 237-255.

The concept of improvisation has become increasingly popular in the
discourse of organizational theory. This paper explores the several
aspects of improvisation, in the context of musical, organizational, and
everyday activities, in order to address some of the philosophical issues
relevant to this emerging interest. It addresses, for instance, the way
the term improvisation has fallen into disrepute, referring to something
that is, ultimately, a pale and messy copy of the ‘correct’ way. It argues
that in western music, this can be traced to the modernist valorization
of the order provided by a written musical score, perfectly representing
the composer’s wishes, and the concomitant devalorization of
the spontaneity and creativity of musicians who, before approximately
1800, improvised a substantial amount of their performances. Connections
are made between the modernist concept of organization
and postmodern or complexity-based approaches that stress creativity
as an emergent property of the relationship between order and
disorder. It concludes by suggesting that the study of improvisation
demands a profound immersion into (inter-)subjectivity, emotions,
time, aesthetics, performance, and social creativity, none of which have
traditionally been the focus of organization and management studies,
or the social sciences in general.

Creative Inquiry and Discovering the Unforeseen

In Creative Breakthroughs in Therapy: Tales of Transformation and Astonishment  by Jeffrey Kottler and Jon Carlson, New York, John Wiley, 2009

Edgar Morin: A Partial Introduction

Montuori, A. (2004). Introduction to Special Issue: Edgar Morin: A partial introduction. World Futures: The Journal General Evolution. 60, 5-6/200.

An overview of noted French thinker Edgar Morin's work, which has spanned over 50 years and ranged from epistemology to the sociology of social change, from the meaning and nature of death to cinema and popular culture, and the development of a transdisciplinary method, at the heart of which lies his development of "complex thought."

Deconstructing the Lone Genius Myth: Towards a Contextual View of Creativity

A. Montuori & R. Purser, (1995). Deconstructing the lone genius myth: Towards a contextual view of creativity. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 35, 3, pp. 69-112.

This essay explores the social dimensions of creativity through a discussion of the "myth of the lone genius" and an outline of existing research. The authors argue that North-American individualism and methodological reductionism have prevented laypersons and researchers from fully exploring the implications of the larger sociohistorical context, both in terms of the research on the creative person/process and the actual discourse of creativity itself. Examples are used to demonstrate the social nature of the creative process using a systems/ ecological perspective. The authors believe inquiry into the social dimensions of creativity provides an important entry point into a host of pressing methodological, philosophical, gender, and cultural issues which they hope will prompt much further interdisciplinary research.

It doesn't matter how many times we tell the familiar story of Bach writing each week for the honest burghers of Leipzig, or Mozart's relations with the courtly musical patrons of his day; audiences still prefer to think of the musical creator as a man closeted with his idea, unsullied by the rough and tumble of the world around him.

-Aaron Copland in Music and Imagination

POSTMODERN SYSTEMS THEORY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ENVIRONMENT: THE CHALLENGE OF RECONCEPTUALIZATION

Paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference, 1998, Chicago

ABSTRACT
Postmodernism has profound implications for organization theory, by challenging us to reconceptualize management discourse and practices, but also with the threat of a kind of “organizational nihilism.” This paper proposes a systemic, participative epistemology, which avoids reductive and disjunctive theorizing emphasizing “complex thought,” and the development of trust and partnership.

Keywords: Postmodernism, systems theory, epistemology, domination, partnership, trust, complexity

Ricerca e dottorato di ricerca, transdisciplinarietà e indagine creativa.

Montuori, A. (2009). Ricerca e dottorato di ricerca, transdisciplinarietà e indagine creativa. In M. Maldonato & R. Pietrobon (Eds.). Pensare la scienza. Torino: Bruno Mondadori.

The Joy of Inquiry

Montuori, A. (2008). The joy of inquiry. Journal of Transformative Education. 6, 1, pp.8-27.

In this article, the author reflects on his own educational experiences as a starting point for an exploration of the way that education can be a joyful process if framed as an
opportunity for creative inquiry. The author outlines some dimensions of an attitude of creative inquiry, focusing on Wonder, Passion, Hope, and Conviviality. The author then
explores a number of different metaphors for inquiry and the way they can frame our attitude and evoke different moods.

Creativity, Culture Contact, and Diversity

Co-authored with Hilary Stephenson World Futures, 66: 266–285, 2010

Recent trends in the understanding of culture contact, with concepts such as
 hybridization, cosmopolitanism, and cultural innovation, open up the possibility
 of a new understanding of human interaction. While the social imaginary is rich 
with images of conflict resulting from culture contact, images of creativity are 
far rarer. We propose the creation of an extensive research project to document
 cultural creativity, starting with obvious examples in the arts, and expanding into
all areas of life in order to counteract the present conflictual images and develop
a social imaginary with positive “attractor” images that can guide to greater
 creativity.

Literature Review as Creative Inquiry

Montuori, A. (2005). Literature review as creative inquiry. Reframing scholarship as a creative process. Journal of Transformative Education. 3, 4, 374-393.

In this article it is proposed that approached in the right way, literature reviews can be an opportunity for creative inquiry. The process of the literature review is framed as a participation in a community, a dialogue with those who are part of the community
now, and with one’s “ancestors.” The literature review can also explore the deeper underlying assumptions of the larger community or communities of inquiry one is joining and one’s own beliefs, assumptions, and attachments. Three levels are
proposed that each provide a different perspective on the construction of knowledge. The article concludes with a brief overview of the way inquiry, specifically in the context
of the literature review, can also be an opportunity for self-inquiry.

Cross-cultural encounter as an opportunity for personal growth

Montuori, A., & Fahim, U. (2004). Cross-cultural encounter as an opportunity for personal growth. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 44, 2, 243-263.

Cross-cultural encounters can provide an excellent opportunity for
personal growth by placing us in situations where our understanding
of self and world, and of how we believe things “are” or “should
be,” is severely challenged. In this article, the authors argue that in
the United States, the cultural dimension is often overlooked in our
understanding of personal growth because U.S. individualism
obscures the role of culture in the constitution of the self and that
understanding this dimension makes a vital contribution to selfunderstanding.
They also view cross-cultural encounters as potentially
creative and draw on the psychology of creativity to explore
the implications of this view. The authors conclude by arguing that
to have the greatest effect, humanistic psychology must both return
to its roots in existential-phenomenological psychology and philosophy
and tackle its own understanding of the self as a culturally
situated phenomenon.

How to Make Enemies and Influence People: The Totalitarian Mindset

Montuori, A. (2005). How to make enemies and influence people. Anatomy of the totalitarian mindset. Futures. The Journal of Policy, Planning, and Future Studies. 37, 18-38.

This essay outlines the characteristics of what I call the ‘totalitarian mindset’. Under certain circumstances, human beings engage in patterns of thinking and behavior that are extremely closed and intolerant of difference and pluralism. These patterns of thinking and behaving lead us towards
totalitarian, anti-pluralistic futures. An awareness of how these patterns arise, how individuals and groups can be manipulated through the use of fear, and how totalitarianism plays into the desire in human beings for ‘absolute’ answers and solutions, can be helpful in preventing attempts at
manipulation and from the dangers of actively wanting to succumb to totalitarian, simplistic, black-and-white solutions in times of stress and anxiety. I present a broad outline of an agenda for education for a pluralistic future. The lived experience of pluralism is still largely unfamiliar and
anxiety inducing, and that the phenomenon is generally not understood, with many myths of purity and racial or cultural superiority still prevalent. Finally, as part of that agenda for education, I stress the importance of creativity as an adaptive capacity, an attitude that allows us to see pluralism as an
opportunity for growth and positive change rather than simply conflict.

Gregory Bateson and the Challenge of Transdisciplinarity

Montuori, A. (2005). Gregory Bateson and the Challenge of Transdisciplinarity. Cybernetics and Human Knowing. 1, 16-37.

Gregory Bateson was a thinker beyond disciplines, contributing not only to specific disciplines ranging from Communication to Family Therapy to Ecology, but also helping us to think about the nature of inquiry, thought and disciplinary organization. In this paper I argue Bateson was a transdisciplinary thinker, and illustrate how his work can lead us to a new approach to inquiry. I conclude by outlining the 5 central features of transdisciplinarity: inquiry-driven rather than exclusively discipline-driven; meta-paradigmatic rather than intra-paradigmatic; informed by thinking that is complex, creative, contextualizing, and connective; inquiry as a process of creative combining rigor and imagination.

Creativity, Society, and the Hidden Subtext of Gender: Toward a New Contextualized Approach

Eisler, R. & Montuori, A. (2007). Creativity, society, and the hidden subtext of gender: A new contextualized approach. World Futures. The Journal General Evolution. 63:7, 479-499.

Conventional categories of creativity are being deconstructed after the so-called postmodern debate. This article takes this process deeper, to what we will show is the hidden subtext of gender underlying how creativity has been socially constructed.
It also proposes a more contextualized approach to creativity that takes into account both its individual and social dimensions and how this relates to what Eisler (1987) has called a partnership rather than dominator model of society.

The Partnership Organization

Eisler, R. & Montuori, A. (2001). The partnership organization. OD Practitioner, 33, 1, pp.11-17.

Limits to anthropocentrism: towads an ecocentric organization paradigm?

Co-Authored w/Ronald E. Purser & Changkil Park

The historically constituted dimensions of anthropocentrism are examined, tracing the emergence of linear perspective, a camera theory of knowledge, and the human-nature dualism. These epistemological conventions are socially reproduced in organization science and management practice in their more contemporary anthropocentric forms: a disembodied form of technological knowing conjoined with an egocentric organizational orientation. The paradigmatic differences between anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches for dealing with issues related to the natural environment are discussed in environmental management and ecocentric responsibility paradigms. Corporate environmentalism and greening-business approaches are grounded in the environmental management paradigm. Environmental management approaches are found to be incommensurable with the ecocentric responsibility paradigm.

Miles Davis in the Classroom

Co-Authored w/Ronald E. Purser

Learning and Jazz

Adjusting the granularity of management perception and action

Co-Authored w/Nick Beech and George Cairns

ABSTRACT
A danger that postmodernism faces is that it is
branded as irrelevant to practicing managers –
those who daily influence the lives of others. Part
of the accusation of irrelevance derives from attacks
on postmodern thinking that see it as propounding
a sense of purposelessness and antipathy
to action. It is possible to see such accusations
as being based on a reading of Lyotard’s
(1984) demolition of meta-narratives. Without
meta-narratives such as religion, capitalism,
scientism or communism, individual actions lose
their place in modernist teleological purpose.
When there is no ultimate purpose, then day-today
actions do not have significance. If, for example,
there is no perceived purpose to making
a profit – whether or not ‘profit’ is viewed as beneficial
then the manager’s task in eliciting effort
from workers is reduced to a mere whim. Such
a line of reasoning can lead to a rejection of
postmodern thinking.
In this study, we argue that attacks on
postmodern thinking that conceive it as leading
to purposelessness are misconstrued, and that
it is possible to adjust the focus of purpose in a
way that reframes action. Ironically, we see the
work of Weber (1968), who has often been associated
with meta-narratives of bureaucracy and
religion, as offering a route to maintaining the utility
of the anti-meta-narrative approach. We argue
that the appropriate approach is postmodern,
not post-purpose, and that postmodernism does
not reject the idea of purpose per se, rather it
draws attention to the chaotic context in which
purposes are played out.
In seeking to support understanding of the
chaotic context of organizations, we argue for approaches
to management that are based on ‘coping’
with diversity, and on ‘improvisation’ around
complexity and ambiguity, rather than on reduction
and convergence in search of unattainable
unity of meaning and purpose.

Towards an education for a planetary culture

Frank Barron: A Creator on Creating

The Art of Transformation: Jazz as a Metaphor for Education

The Meaning of Partnership

Co-authored w/Isabella Conti

Il pensiero totalitario

Gregory Bateson e la transdisciplinarietà

Montuori, A. (2005). Gregory Bateson e la sfida della transdisciplinarietà. Elites. 2/2005, pp. 4-15.

FROM STRATEGIC PLANNING TO STRATEGIC DESIGN: RECONCEPTUALIZING THE FUTURE OF STRATEGY IN ORGANIZATIONS

WORLD FUTURES, 59: 3–20, 2003

In this article I present an overview of critiques of strategic planning, focusing on their conceptualizations of the environment. I first outline the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the environment of strategy, and then
outline some of the alternatives to strategic planning and their underlying bases in constructivism and the sciences of complexity. I conclude by arguing that Banathy’s
systems design methodology is eminently suited to the process of strategy formulation, and should be explored more deeply within this context.

In Search of Creativity: Beyond Individualism and Collectivism