ABSTRACT
To understand the special features of human groups and sport teams as complex systems, it would be benefi cial to focus on the differences between biological systems and human social systems. Maturana and Varela (1997), who were previously mentioned in connection to the concept of autopoiesis (Chapter 2, 2.1), have expended considerable effort in examining these differences. They (and Horn, 2008-11 years later) suggested that the main distinction can be seen in the primacy of mutual roles and the status of the parts versus the whole of the complex system. In biologic systems, elements (or parts or subsystems) exist and function only “in the name of” and for the whole. In such a strict hierarchy, the integrity and existence of elements are generally not important if the whole system survives and functions. In contrast, in social systems, the elements (or agents or individuals) create the whole and raise it to the level of a managing structure. In such a fl exible hierarchy, the integrity and existence of the whole are not so important, if the system agents survive and function (Horn, 2008). Even in this very “democratic” form, such a vision of social systems is based on the construction of a social hierarchy (see also Peled, 2000).
