Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations

5: Communicative action in the medium of symbols

• The importance of feelings
• The importance of reflection-in-action
• The importance of abstract thinking
• The multiple aspects of symbols
• Conclusion

The last chapter argued for a way of thinking about human acting and knowing that makes no fundamental separation between individual self-conscious minds and social interaction but, rather, sees them as different aspects of the same processes of cooperative, complex responsive relating between people. The distinctive features of this approach are as follows:

• Both the individual and the collective identities of human beings emerge in the complex interactions between human bodies as they responsively relate to each other. Meaning, that is, knowledge, ...