Syntony Quest: EDGE

EL Center Directory

EDGE

As part of the research that the founders of Syntony Quest conduct at the Graduate School of Business Administration and Leadership (EGADE) of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Mexico, they have created a research group called

EDGE: The Evolutionary Development Group of EGADE.

EDGE is a transdisciplinary and international research group. It has been set up to explore the dynamics of development from a systemic and evolutionary perspective. Through it, researchers from around the world seek to understand development as an evolutionary process. For example, consider human development, economic development, technological development, social development, sustainable development… after all, what is the difference between these different conceptions of development? How can one tell were one type of development stops and another begins? In short, what is the relation among these different conceptions, and in what ways are they part of a more comprehensive dynamic that might be thought of as evolutionary development? These are some of the guiding questions that researchers at EDGE are exploring through consideration of the implications derived from areas such as the sciences of complexity and systems thinking and how insights from them could foster evolutionary development.

The notion of development has been permeated by concepts and methods from positivistic science. As a result, many development initiatives are reductionistic, myopic, and with little or no impact on the improvement of the quality of life and the sustainability of communities or societies. For instance, development is many times equated with economic growth. But growth and development are not the same:

— • Growth	an increase in size or quantity
— • Development	an amelioration of conditions or quality
— • Evolution	a tendency toward greater structural complexity and organizational simplicity, more efficient modes of operation, and greater dynamic harmony

The individuals and organizations involved in EDGE are committed to knowledge and value creation that increases the quality of life and the prospects for sustainability of diverse communities around the world. The collective expertise and experience of EDGE includes areas such as systems theory, general evolution theory, economic development, appropriate technology assessment and policy, social innovation, sustainable development, environmental behavior, social systems design, education, regional development, business and management, entrepreneurship, change management, culture crafting, leadership development, knowledge management and nonprofit management.

If you are interested in the core concepts of evolutionary development, you may wish to take a look at see the PowerPoint presentation entitled Evolving Knowledge for Development [link to resources section: power point presentation].

EDGE has an online virtual space for dialogue and collaboration among its members. If you would like to join or support this international research group, please email us at edge@syntonyquest.org.

Objectives

The overall purpose of our research is practical: the articulation of a general actionable model of evolutionary development through the creation of knowledge, methodologies, and innovative frameworks that help us understand and guide development initiatives. Our work seeks to generate policies for evolutionary development as well as guidelines for citizen participation in conscious actions that promote the development of their communities.

Indigenous Women Photo Credit: Panamerican Health Organization

The creation of such a model requires solid grounding in appropriate theory, philosophy, and methodology, and clearly represents an ambitious and complex task. To be congruent with our assumptions, values, and knowledge base upon which our research is based, our process takes the form of a disciplined, collaborative, open ended and evolving inquiry.

Some of EDGE’s products are:

Publications
Development methodologies
Training and consulting
Learning modules for graduate (Master’s and Doctoral) education
A flexible evolutionary development model

Functions

The functions of EDGE as an international research group are:

To catalyze
- collaborations between academia, industry, government, and the nonprofit sector
- new initiatives and projects that generate wellbeing and sustainability toward life-affirming and positive futures
To facilitate
- dialogue and understanding
- collaboration and synergy
- learning and informed practice
To guide
- creativity and productivity aligned with the nature-derived ethic of evolutionary development
To integrate
- knowledge, skills, and experience
- diverse perspectives
- realities and possibilities
To generate value
- in economic, human, social, environmental, and ethical terms

Garbage Photo Credit: Panamerican Health Organization

Lines of inquiry

EDGE explores evolutionary development through research activities that follow five inter-related lines of inquiry:

Knowledge and learning
Objective: To expand the boundaries of what traditionally has been considered as education in order to integrate learning and knowledge creation processes into all sectors of society.

Project: Creating evolutionary learning communities in corporations, nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, and rural communities.

Outcomes: Documented cases and stories; publications; public presentations; workshops for the dissemination of methodology and lessons learned.

Societal Transformation and Self-directed Sustainable Development

Objective: To develop the guidelines and supporting materials for organizations and communities to self-organize for the improvement of their quality of life in a framework of dynamic sustainability.

Project: Further development of Evolutionary Systems Design as a praxis for self-directed sustainable development.

Outcomes: Publications; public presentations and workshops; learning guides and educational materials.

Evolution of Business

Objective: To contribute to the evolution of a business culture that embraces financial, social, and environmental sustainability as equally important, and ultimately inseparable, objectives.

Project: Action-research on strategic systems design for sustainability.

Outcomes: Case studies and experiential stories; publications; modular portfolios of consulting offerings.
Technology Policy and Innovation

Objective: To guide the development of soft technologies (technologies of human interaction) and sustainable technologies (green or ecological technologies).

Project: Development of guidelines and frameworks to support soft and green technologies.

Outcomes: Publications; public presentations; training and consulting.
Integration

Objective: To consolidate EDGE and to create opportunities for greater leverage and impact.

Outcomes: Consolidation of the integration groups on Evolutionary Development at the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) and the International Systems Institute (ISI); publication of dedicated issues of international journals (e.g., World Futures and Systems Research & Behavioral Science); sponsorship of conferences and strategic dialogues sponsored by EDGE; design and presentation of graduate courses in various universities internationally.

Conferences

EDGE and Syntony Quest sponsor a special integration group (SIG) on Evolutionary Development (previously named the ELC SIG) at the annual international conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). You can learn more about this conference of systems scholars and practitioners at www.isss-conference.org and about the history of this SIG at http://isss.org/sigs/sig29elc.htm.

EDventures

EDGE has recently begun collaboration with a venture capitalist organization based in Silicon Valley (California) known as Open Capital Network (OCN). OCN seeks to empower 1 million socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurs in the developing world by generating investment in projects that create self-directed sustainable development. Through Syntony Quest, EDGE will support OCN with research and development of empowerment tools and practical guidelines so that diverse projects can be aligned under a shared vision of evolutionary development.

Publications

Here is a chronological sample of recent publications generated as part of our research:

Laszlo, Kathia C.; Laszlo, Alexander; Campos, Marcia; and Romero, Carlos (2002). Evolving Development: An evolutionary perspective on development for an interconnected world. World Futures, Winter 2002. [Link to Evolving_Development.pdf in resources section]

Laszlo, Kathia C. and Laszlo, Alexander (2002). Evolving Knowledge for Development: The role of Knowledge Management in a changing world. Journal of Knowledge Management, Special Issue on Knowledge-Based Development. Vol. 6, No. 4, October 2002. [Link to Knowledge4Development.pdf in resources section]

Laszlo, Kathia C. and Laszlo, Alexander (2003). Creating human and social capital for developing the global learning society: Toward an educational model for graduate business education. Contzen, Jean-Pierre; Gibson, David; and Heitor; Manuel (Ed.) Rethinking Science Systems and Innovation Policies. Connecticut: Greenwood Publishers. [Link to Human-Social_Capital.pdf in resources section]

Laszlo, Kathia C. (2003). The Evolution of Business: Learning, Innovation, and Sustainability for the 21st Century. World Futures. In press, 2003. [Link to Evolution_Business.pdf in resources section]

Laszlo, Alexander and Laszlo, Kathia (2003). The making of a new culture: Learning conversations and design conversations in social evolution. B.H. Banathy & P.M. Jenlink (Eds.), Searching Together. Manuscript, publication pending. [Link to New_Culture.pdf in resources section]

Laszlo, Alexander and Laszlo, Kathia (2003). A Soft Technology for Evolutionary Learning. Systems Research & Behavioral Science. Publication pending, 2003. [Link to SofTech_for_EvoLearning.pdf in resources section]