Governing incompleteness: coordinative adequacy and the limits of computational observation

Purpose This paper asks when representational incompleteness becomes an organizational coordination problem and develops coordinative adequacy as a second-order, regime-level criterion for evaluating computational observation regimes. Design/methodology/approach A problem-driven conceptual synthesis uses second-order cybernetics as an epistemology of observation to integrate organization, coordination and digital-systems research. Doomsday supplies a historical limit model; Euclid's wall isolates the representational condition; a retrospective Horizon application probes diagnostic reach; evidence and revision conditions delimit the claims. Findings Incompleteness becomes a coordination problem not through omission alone, but when task-relevant loss makes different states decision-equivalent and authorized use makes that loss consequential for affected parties. Coordinative adequacy evaluates that relation without treating more computation as inherently better. Consequential authority specifies the representation–decision coupling; reflexive effects denote attributable changes propagated through it; computational restraint governs justified limits to computation and conditions of revision. Research limitations/implications Comparative operationalization and empirical testing require task-grounded evidence and outcomes differentiated across affected parties. Practical implications The evaluative questions support deployment review, audit, procurement, incident review and redesign. Social implications Evaluation must consider authorized purposes, consequences for affected parties, effective contestation and justified computational limits. Originality/value The paper develops coordinative adequacy as a second-order, regime-level criterion for when incomplete representation becomes a coordination problem. It identifies consequential authority as the coupling that makes task-relevant loss operative and treats justified non-computation and revision as constitutive of adequacy.