Systems Practice, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1989 An Introduction to AutopoiesismImplications and Applications John Mingers 1 Received November 18, 1988; revised March 6, 1989 Maturana and Varela have developed a theory to explain the particular character of living systems. Such systems, they claim, have an "autopoietic," or self-produc- ing, organization. This term is now used widely, although often without a proper understanding of the detail of the theory. Moreover, the concept has been applied to other systems, such as societies and institutions, in a rather naive manner. It is a very important theory, with far-reaching consequences both for science and for social intervention, but it must be correctly appreciated and applied. The aim of this paper is to aid that process by, first, elucidating the theoretical ideas and, second, critically evaluating its implications and applications. KEY WORDS: autopoiesis; organization; information; social systems. 1. INTRODUCTION The term autopoiesis is often encountered in the systems literature and is generally interpreted loosely as concerned with self-organizing systems and life. While this is partially true, the concept is actually very detailed and particular, and its implications are very far-reaching. This is not always fully appreciated, not least because of the difficulty of the original papers. Auto- poiesis was coined by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to describe the nature of living as opposed to nonliving systems--it is thus an explanation of the nature of life. This, in itself, is an important enough subject and their theory has far-reaching implications for biology. They went further, however, and also developed fundamental ideas about the nervous system, perception, language, and cognition in general. These, too, have very significant impli- cations, not least for methodologies concerned with taking action within School of Industrial and Business Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K. 159 0894-9859/89/0600-0159506.00/0 9 1989 Plenum Publishing Corporation