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From Information Metabolism to Economic Intelligence

1.1. Introduction

Volume 2 of Strategic Intelligence for the Future focuses on information, information research, analysis and the integration of information in decision-making processes. In the first chapter of this work we will, before addressing the technical aspects, attempt to demonstrate the role of the "information function" within organizations. We will consider this "information function" in a broad sense, that is information collection, analysis and creation from the results of analyzing "knowledge for action". Although everyone agrees that the "information function" should be placed at the heart of economic intelligence, it is rare to find work that analyzes the role of this function in the "evolution" of organizations, businesses and indeed individuals. This aspect is especially important as in many cases, a part of this function, searching for and collecting information, is often outsourced or confined to internal structures remote from decision-makers. We will therefore analyze this function's role, not in the classical framework of the intelligence cycle (or the information cycle according to the authors), but by exploring more deeply its impact on the behavior of individuals, which forms the substrate for development and the action of institutions and businesses. To do this, we will refer to different works in the information domain metabolism on the one hand, in the context of the individuation of actors on the other hand, and finally in epigenetics in the sense of their action on the world around us, as Joël de Rosnay underlines. We will thus be able to consider that the role of the "information function" is to become a vector for learning within the organization, lying within, in Vygotsky's sense of the term, a proximal zone of development. Indeed, it is through learning that the organization will be able to generate transferable "self-criticisms" that will promote a new form of development. Thus, the "information function" finds a central place when it is the result of endogenous work, engaging all members in the organization. We thus reach a very strong analogy with the Japanese concept of "ba" and its impact on businesses at the level of their coordination, cohesion and efficiency.

1.2. Information metabolism according to Timothy Powell

The concept of a living being metabolizing food compared to the metabolism of information within an institution, was described for the first time by Timothy Powell in 1995 [POW 95]. Since this date, the "information function" environment has changed considerably. This change is twofold:

• - on the one hand, advances in technology which, in this domain, now trigger profound change;
• - the appearance of new governing systems, supported by methods and tools such as economic intelligence in France or competitive intelligence in the Unites States.

In this context, it is useful to revisit the concept of information metabolism by considering the most recent advances in the domain of biology and genetics, but also by referring to older work with roots in psychiatry and psychology.

In the analogy between the metabolism of food and information metabolism, Timothy Powell made the following comparison:

Figure 1.1. Information metabolism according to Timothy Powell

In this presentation, we therefore find the main stages of the information cycle as it is generally described in economic intelligence. This analogy reveals two aspects that will be important in the rest of this book: cellular chemistry as well as the aspect of taking decisions and taking action, rests in economic intelligence on a "maturation" of strategic information by experts so by human beings) after decisions have been taken. The macro and micro functions are analogous to cellular anabolism and catabolism1 [WIK 18a]. The information function for generally describing this process is not therefore a simple recourse to documentation, rather it engages complex processes, based among others on expertise, lived experience and some understanding of the world around us. It should also be noted that Timothy Powell refers in a short bibliography to works on strategy [TOF 93, TYS 95], to post-capitalist society [DRU 93] and the value of information [POW 94, PET 92] but does not address the relationship of information with biology and the psyche.

1.3. Let us examine this concept in more detail

In a remarkable though sometimes contested work, Kepinsky, in his book Melancholia2 [GRA 75, KEP 74], develops the concept of information metabolism at the cellular level. He develops a psychological theory of the interaction of living organisms with their environment, based on information processing [BIE 15]. He also believes that living beings are characterized by their ability to grow and maintain their own negentropy [WIK 18b], which leads to the notion of equilibrium, and in fact of harmony, in the sense found in Chinese philosophy [CHO 07]. The involvement of entropy in the system is also underlined by Germine's work [GER 93]. But living beings, as Bielecki [BEI 15] underlines, exist under a number of conditions:

• - to reproduce and evolve;
• - they are constructed from organic chemical components, based on organic chemical synthesis;
• - to interact dynamically with the environment;
• - they are open, dissipative structures significantly displaced from thermodynamic equilibrium;
• - they conduct electrical circuits on cellular and molecular level;
• - they are hierarchical, open systems;
• - they are self-organized systems characterized by increasing organization over time; and
• - they are systems processing information, matter, and energy in a specific way.

In these eight conditions, we find a considerable analogy with the conditions that will influence the evolution of organizations (meaning businesses, institutions, etc.) and which are broadly considered in the process of economic intelligence. These should evolve and interact with their environment. They can include hierarchical or open organizations. They may also self-organize; an example of this is institutions or autopoietic networks [MIN 02, ZEL 01, ZEL 92] that change according to constraints in their environment. This analogy, which goes further than the one suggested by Timothy Powell, supports the comparison between living organisms and information which, in Kepinsky's sense, includes anabolic and catabolic processes [DIF 18]. These processes are equivalent to the processes of researching and accumulating strategic information, then analyzing this to produce knowledge for action. This process can also, always by analogy, be compared to the camel, the lion and the child [WEI 10], stages described by Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra [DOU 19, NIE 15].

1.4. Organizations and human beings

An organization, whatever it is, is formed by human beings the sum of whose actions will form the institution's movement, its way of being; the institution evolves its richness through change. It is therefore important, always remaining with the analogy with life and its psychological interactions, to tackle individuation [ORT 18]. Various definitions are possible depending on the field in which this concept is used:

• - general definition: distinction between one individual and another in the same species or group and the society of which they form a part of, which makes them exist as an individual;
• - embryology: induction process that leads to the formation of complete organic structures;
• - linguistics: process by which a group is characterized as opposed to another group thanks to consistencies in linguistic activity;
• - philosophy: creation of a general idea, of a type of species within an individual;
• - psychanalysis: process of becoming aware of profound individuality, described by Jung [DUC 18].

1.4.1. Individuation according to Jung

We will, in the remainder of this work, prefer the process of individuation described by Jung and Simondon for two principal reasons:

• - Jung, in his analytical work, considers the collective unconscious that liberates, within the individual, a vital energy that Jung calls "archetypes", this is by analogy with the impact of lived experience and history, both for individuals and by analogy for organizations within businesses and institutions;
• - because Jung's process of individuation can be amplified when the "balance" of the relationship between the non-human world (the environment, for example, the Internet, connected objects, etc.) and the human world evolves erratically. So, we will return to the notion of stability, explored previously. We thus come back to the dysfunction that "crops up" in an organization that does not know how to or cannot control the "non-human" environment it must face.

In the process of individuation, "the individual identifies rather with the orientations that come 'from the self' - vulgarly defined by the archetype of the self, that is, the totality of the individual personality - than...