Transformational dynamism of civil society organizations

Abstract

Open innovation, F(L)OSS, sharing economy, co-creation, social entrepreneurship, solidarity economy, platform cooperativism, peer production… These innovative patterns of broadening cooperation among civil society, market and public sector players can play important role also in emergence of knowledge society. The study analyses in this broader context the communities’ transformational dynamism, which affects simultaneously the volunteers, their relationships, organization, and broader environment – provides the potential of social agency. This dynamism ensures also the capability to adapt by enabling to operate in rapidly changing environments. Multidimensional feedbacks and their aggregation into self-regulating loops create the civil society entities’ responsiveness both inwards and outwards. Outward adaptivity can seem more spectacular; however, its inward dimension is at least as important. The adaptability feeds back also with the volunteers’ self-reflection, which is of crucial importance to prevent the emergence and dominance of hierarchies. The study follows realist view of science and methodological pluralism – combines narrative description and case study driven generality focused concept creation. This constellation enables to identify components and transformational effects of the explored transformational dynamism by analysing a sample-case. In future studies the deployment of system dynamics can help to analyse also underlying processes unfolding in real domain.