Citation

Gadomski AM. Int. J. Crit. Infrastruct. 2009; 5(1/2): 120-155.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

10.1504/IJCIS.2009.022853

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The paper deals with the methodological approach to the identification of the sources of socio-cognitive vulnerability. The main attention is on large complex organisations whose mission is emergency/high-risk management. The paper gives a preliminary demonstration of how a systemic, unified computational methodological approach enables the redefinition and structuring of a complex problem involving ill-defined human, organisational and cultural factors into the form of computational models. The systemic socio-cognitive paradigms and the framework of the Top-down Object-based Goal-oriented Approach (TOGA) meta-theory have been presented and applied as a meta-ontological platform, basic formalisation and goal-oriented knowledge-ordering tool. In the case of human-caused threats and organisational crises, the methodology can be applied and used for the modelling of ill-defined vulnerabilities of human networks on individual, interorganisational and intraorganisational decision levels. Among others, it rigorously applies such key concepts as information, preferences, knowledge and their recursive Information, Preferences, Knowledge (IPK) architecture. Some top modelling results related to the recent, main natural and technological disasters illustrate the application of this approach.