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PurposeThe links between moral communication and legal communication have long been studied in sociology of law. Little has yet been said about moral communication invoking when communication in the legal system is impossible, ineffective or uncertain. The paper fills this gap to demonstrate that systems theory-based sociology of law can effectively recognise the role of moral communication in such situations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents an empirical study of moral communication in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It focused on situations when SMEs' interactions with function systems, particularly the legal system, result in irremovable legal uncertainty. The data depict strategies of managing such uncertainty and were obtained in a paths-to-justice survey of 7,292 owners and managers of SMEs and 101 in-depth interviews. The findings are interpreted using the author's concept of “uncertainty translation”, rooted in Luhmann's systems theory. It suggests that business organisations such as SMEs deal with the ubiquitous uncertainty in their operations by translating it into a convenient type.FindingsThe study distinguishes between formative and absorbing moral communication and finds that both types play a role in steering the uncertainty translation mechanism in SMEs. Six scenarios of invoking moral communication are identified in SMEs dealing with legal uncertainty. In such scenarios, moral communication facilitates the translation of business uncertainty “away from law”. Under some circumstances, this, in turn, leads to latent systematic results, reflexively affecting the legal system, the economic system and the SMEs.Research limitations/implicationsIn its core argument, the study is based on qualitative material. While it identifies empirical scenarios of invoking moral communication, it does not report the prevalence of these scenarios due to methodological limitations.Originality/valueThe study results pose questions related to the staple theoretical issue in post-Luhmannian social systems theory: functional differentiation. If moral communication–a type of communication not linked to any social system–can produce far-reaching, systematic results that affect function systems, then the functional differentiation thesis should be less pronounced than Luhmann typically stressed. This said, the paper argues that the contradiction between the findings and Luhmannian theory of morality is only apparent and may be reconciled.

L’articolo si propone di indagare le implicazioni ecologiche di due differenti tendenze sistemiche: (1) La General Systems Theory (GST) di Ludwig von Bertalanffy, che fa da cornice alla Systems Ecology di Eugene Odum; (2) La Second-Order Cybernetics (SOC) elaborata da Heinz von Foerster, Humberto Maturana e Niklas Luhmann, che costituisce la matrice di un nuovo paradigma ecologico denominato General Ecology. Nell’articolo verranno comparate la GST e la SOC in relazione ai loro differenti modi di intendere il sistema e la sua genesi; il ruolo dell’osservatore nella definizione dei confini di un sistema; e la relazione tra sistema e ambiente. Verrà mostrato come la SOC, mettendo in causa il principio del controllo gerarchico della GST, conduce alla nozione di differenze ecologiche, con la quale si indica una pluralità di diadi sistema-ambiente, problematizzando così la nozione di ambiente come riferimento fisico e oggettivo., This paper investigates the ecological implications of two different trends in systems science: (1) Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory (GST), which establishes the framework of Eugene Odum’s Systems Ecology; (2) Second-Order Cybernetics (SOC), a systemic approach outlined by Heinz von Foerster, Humberto Maturana, and Niklas Luhmann, in which the roots of a new ecological paradigm called General Ecology can be found. In the article, GST and SOC will be compared with respect to their different ways of conceiving a system and its genesis; the role of the observer in defining the boundaries of a system; and the relation between system and environment. It will be shown how SOC, contrasting the principle of hierarchical control of GST, leads to the notion of ecological differences, which indicates a plurality of system-environment dyads, problematizing the idea of environment as a physical and objective reference.