Pedro Pablo Cardoso
University of Exeter / De Montfort University
Biography
Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter and Programme Director at De Montfort University (Cambodia). Consultant and researcher in complexity in management, with previous roles at Leeds Beckett University and Cranfield University. His work focuses on complexity management in strategy, security, sustainability, innovation, and management systems inspired by co-evolving and transition management principles. He has led projects across the UK, Europe, Latin America, and Cambodia.
Sessions
Designing Viable Identity in Institutional Transitions: A VSM Reconstruction of the Total Veteran Framework
Purpose: This article reconstructs Total Veteran through the Viable System Model (VSM) to develop the Viable Identity Adaptation Framework (VIAF), a conceptual model for understanding and designing identity adaptation during major institutional transitions. It argues that post-military reintegration should not be reduced to employability, entrepreneurship training or psychological adjustment, but understood as the systemic redesign of viable identity, self-environment models, regulatory capacity, coordination and renewed domains of action. Design/methodology/approach: The article offers a theoretically informed reconstruction of Total Veteran as a case of transition from a highly structured military environment into civilian and entrepreneurial life. It uses the VSM as an analytical and design architecture to reinterpret the functions embedded in Total Veteran and to abstract a transferable framework for organizational and cultural change. The argument draws on organizational cybernetics, organizational identity, sensemaking, second-order learning and second-order cybernetics. Findings: The reconstruction suggests that viable identity adaptation depends on the interaction of six functions: identity and purpose formation, self-environment model reconstruction, regulatory translation, monitoring and early-warning feedback, coordination among operational domains, and operational experimentation in renewed domains of autonomy. Controlled, incremental exposure to new environments emerges as catalytic because it allows identity coherence to be tested, self-environment models to be revised, regulatory needs to surface and new agency to be enacted. Originality/value: The article extends the VSM from organizational diagnosis toward the design of viable identity adaptation in institutional transitions. It positions Total Veteran as a generative case for VIAF and offers a design logic for veteran reintegration, organizational change, cultural transformation and VSM-based systemic practice.