The Limits of Control, The Work of Clarity
Course Essay at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT - A350AJ700 Sustainability and Impact in Business Research
Assignment: Reflection paper 5/5 — What or who influences my thinking, and to what extent I may write about anything I want in my doctoral research? [Starting with Burroughs, W. (1978), Heikkurinen, P. (2019), and Matin, K. (2011).]
My thinking is not shaped by a single discipline. It was formed through ecology, forestry, earth systems, complexity thinking, empirical research, and years of interviews across domains. I was trained to look at ecosystems first. Before business, finance, and management, I studied forests. I learned that systems shift. A system can reorganize into a different stable regime. For nature, these are not moral tragedies. They are merely state shifts.
Over time, complexity science, ecosynomics, and earth systems science deepened this orientation. I became convinced that major life support systems can destabilize. Path dependency is real. Human societies are slow to reconfigure. We often fight over scarcity rather than build option space through cooperation. That realization still hits me emotionally, especially when I think about my family. And sometimes, in clearer moments, I let go. Life itself will continue in another form. My doctoral research is driven by one question: how can we align human systems with their contextual conditions so they remain possible?
A tutor comment pushed me to take culture more explicitly into account: This comment landed well! In my PhD, I build on the framing of Ritchie-Dunham (2014) and look at the focal company through four lenses because no single lens explains enough to build robust explanations for my research questions: Resources (how much is there of what), Allocation (who decides and who gets what is available), Value (by what values and criteria), and Organization (how we interact to make it happen). In that framing, “culture” is not a separate add-on. It is the Value lens at a different zoom level. I make what I see inspectable through agreements and agreement footprints, meaning: which criteria and values actually show up in what people agree to, tolerate, refuse, and renegotiate in recurring coordination episodes. Do they have the resources, allocation, and organizational mechanisms to enact the values they are stating (Ritchie-Dunham & Pruitt, 2014; Ritchie-Dunham, 2024; Ritchie-Dunham, Granville-Chapman, & Lee, 2025)?
On the surface, I study business systems. I work with banks, risk managers, business associations, and SME owners. I translate into the language of performance, antifragility, and creditworthiness because such vocabulary keeps the dialogue open. Underneath that vocabulary lies a deeper concern: under what conditions does a stakeholder system remain viable when ecological and social states shift radically?
I don’t start from the premise that every organization must survive. I start from the premise that actors deserve a clear view of the system they are embedded in: the constraints, trade-offs, and assumptions that drive their choices. Sometimes that clarity supports adaptation; sometimes it supports a responsible exit or redesign. The constant is expanded perceptual bandwidth. I do not try to transform people. I create spaces. A psychologist friend once told me, "Stop pushing for change. The only thing we can really do is create a space and issue an invitation." I have learned to take that seriously. If people step into the clearing and use what they see to act differently, that is their choice.
This is why the question of academic freedom is more subtle for me than it first appears. I am not externally censored beyond what is a good science standard. I have published critiques of dominant economic narratives and have stayed present through backlash. The real limit is not external control. It is my own choice to remain intelligible.
I operate in the dragon's den of finance and economics. If I speak in ecological facts or metaphysics, I tend to lose the conversation. If I speak in risk vocabulary, I gain access. So I translate. This is not betrayal. It is craftsmanship: building frameworks that help others articulate what they already sense but cannot yet name.
I chose to do a PhD not to secure status, but to deepen that craft. I want to master scientific tools to clarify how words structure perception-action-outcomes/experiences, how assumptions shape institutions, and how systems shift or remain stuck. I also want my children, if they ever read this work, to understand why I made these choices.
I am fine with letting go of control. If human civilization contracts, that is part of systemic reality. What I am not fine with is unconsciousness. My work is an attempt to make unconscious assumptions visible. Whether that changes outcomes is not fully in my control, but creating a space where different futures become discussable is within my reach. That is the extent of my freedom.
References
Burroughs, W. (1978). The limits of control. Semiotext(e), 3(2), 38–42.
Heikkurinen, P. (2019). Degrowth: A metamorphosis in being. ENE: Nature and Space, 2(3), 528–547. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618822511
Matin, K. (2011). Redeeming the universal: Postcolonialism and the inner life of Eurocentrism. European Journal of International Relations, 19(2), 353–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066111425263
Ritchie-Dunham, J., & Pruitt, B. (2014). Ecosynomics. Vibrancy Publishing.
Ritchie-Dunham, J. L. (2024). Agreements: Your choice. Vibrancy Publishing.
Ritchie-Dunham, J. L., Granville-Chapman, K. E., & Lee, M. T. (Eds.). (2025). Leadership for flourishing. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197766101.001.0001
