Network Logic - Index of

Network logic
beliefs, explanations and values – a common context of meaning, also
known as culture, which is continually sustained by further
communications. Through this culture individuals acquire identities
as members of the social network, and in this way the network
generates its own boundary. It is not a physical boundary but a
boundary of expectations, of confidentiality and loyalty, which is
continually maintained and renegotiated by the network of
communications.
Culture, then, arises from a network of communications among
individuals; and as it emerges, it produces constraints on their
actions. In other words, the rules of behaviour that constrain the
actions of individuals are produced and continually reinforced by
their own network of communications. The social network also
produces a shared body of knowledge – including information, ideas
and skills – that shapes the culture’s distinctive way of life in addition
to its values and beliefs. Moreover, the culture’s values and beliefs also
affect its body of knowledge. They are part of the lens through which
we see the world.
Living networks in human organisations
In recent years it has become very popular in management circles to
use metaphors like ‘the living company’, trying to understand a
business organisation as a living, self-organising system. 8 It is
therefore instructive to apply our network approach to the analysis of
human organisations.
Living social systems, as we have seen, are self-generating networks
of communications. This means that a human organisation will be a
living system only if it is organised as a network or contains smaller
networks within its boundaries, and only if these networks are selfgenerating.
Organisational theorists today speak of ‘communities of
practice’ when they refer to these self-generating social networks. 9 In
our daily activities, most of us belong to several communities of
practice – at work, in schools, in sports and hobbies, or in civic life.
Some of them may have explicit names and formal structures, others
may be so informal that they are not even identified as communities.
30 Demos