Synergy Matters: Working with Systems in the 21st Century

ISBN-13: 9781475771824 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 657 str.

Adrian M. Castell; Amanda J. Gregory; Giles A. Hindle

Opis

The 21st century is now almost upon us and, whilst this represents a somewhat artificial boundary, it provides an opportunity for reflection upon the changes, and the accelerating pace of change, in our social, economic, and natural environments. These changes and their effects are profound, not least in terms of access to information and communication technologies, at once global in effect and manifest locally. These changes and their consequent demands are reflected in the theme of this volume: Synergy Matters, proceedings from the 6th UK Systems Society International Conference.

Recenzje

`The book is a worthwile addition to any department or institutional library for reference purposes and can be recommended as such.'
Kybernetes, 29:4 (2000)

Spis treści

Plenary Papers.- Seeing Systems: Overcoming Organisational Fragmentation.- Fighting Failure.- Critical Management Education: A Critical Issue?.- Putting Systems Theory to Work — The Synergy Between Theory and Practice.- Making Sense of Chaos — Systems and the Information Society.- Student Papers.- Translating Production Quality Data for Use in the Improvement Process.- Using Systems Concepts to Research the Implications of Emerging Information Technologies (ITs) for Pedagogy in Higher Education (HE).- Rich Pictures, Metaphors and Stories as Mechanisms to Improve Collective Actions.- A Novel Approach to Quantify Agricultural Sustainability Using Fuzzy Set Theory.- Applied Artificial Intelligence and the Management of Knowledge.- Diversity Management and Organisational Change.- Understranding Interorganisational Health and Social Service Groups: Would Alternative Metaphors of Systems Help?.- Beyond the Golden Rule: Emencipatory Practice and Change in Organisations.- Synergy Between Humans and Software Agents.- The Application of Internet Technologies to Information Management.- An Introduction to Cybernetic Viability Study (CVS).- A Multicultural Perspective on Integrating Non-native Speaking Students into the Community in Vienna/Austria and Texas/U.S.A.: A Preliminary Report.- Chaos and Complexity — The Way to Transform Organisations Ready for the Next Century: Insights from a Case Stufy of the Open University.- A Discussion on Complementarism and Its Stance Towards Paradigms.- A Systems View of Intellectual Capital.- Applying Muller-Merbach’s Framework to System Acceptance.- Co-Constructing the Methodology: Learning from Practice with ‘Wide Band’ GDSS.- An Exploration of the Potential of Systems Methodologies for Approaching Organisations Operating at the Edge of Chaos.- Group Support Through Restricted Conversations.- Modelling Complex Decision-Making.- Discourse, Calibration, Explanation and Evolution: Implications for Computer-Based Systems Development.- Weak Incommensurability and the Development of Systems Thinking.- How Prevalent is Systems Thinking in the Methods, Tools and Techniques Used in Project Management?.- Action Research.- Soft Systems Methodology: Its Potential for Emancipatory Development.- Issues in the Conduct of Research Through Intervention in Real-World Affairs.- Acronym Happy — Applying SSM to the CSA.- The Poverty of Action Research in Inrormation Systems.- Atlantic Crossings: A Genealogical Analysis of the Relationship between Systems Thinking and Action Research in the United Kingdom.- Exploring Links between Action Research (AR) and “Alternatives”.- Changing Organizational Culture by Means of the Activities of Hierarchical Poly-Agent Organizations.- Business and Management.- All in the Mind — Heuristics, Models, Systens and Business Advice.- A Systemic Approach to Change Management in Anglian Water Engineering.- Understanding How Concerns for the Natural Environment are Integrated into Prectical Strategic Decision Making: An Application of Ashby’s Law.- A Pluralist Approach Towards Integration of Quality and Environmentalmanagement, Leading to Sustainable Development.- Process Management.- The Problems of the Lyric Theatres in London — A Systems Perspective.- Change Management.- Some Reflections on Practice: What did I Think I was Doing When I Joined Systems Design Conversation Groups?.- Synergy: A Spirtual Issue in the Context of Change Management Systems.- Administrative Science Quarterly: Canary of Worldview Shift?.- Does the Queen have Magical Powers: Leadership & Systems in the 21st Century.- Taming the Problems of Hypermobility Through Synergy.- Change Management and Information Systems.- Service Integration, Human Services Collaboration, and Computer Supported Co-Operative Work.- A Systemic Analysis of Process Oriented Change.- Community & Social Systems Research.- Convivial Information Systems.- Enabling Older People: Developing a Social Services-Owned System.- Achieving Policy Synergies: The Case of Reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy.- Sustainability of Primary Health Care: A Systems Approach.- Is the Systems Approach a Precedent of the Development Approach?.- Towards a Methodology for the Management of Community Arts Projects.- Synergy in ‘Learning Citizen-Groups’ Using Teleogenic Systems Methodology.- After Justice: On the Conditions of Possibility of Justice in the Present.- Identity and Boundary Management in Synergistic Relationships.- Shaping a Local Community Information Systems Support Infrastructure Using a Collaborative Approach.- Information Within the (Human) System: Considerations of Freedom, Power and Order.- Community Matters: Community Operational Research Work on Health Needs on the Stonebridge Estate.- Critical Systems Thinking.- The Life Flux, Synergy and Multiple Paradigm Methodology.- Critica Theory as a Foundation for Strategic Management.- Dealing with Power in Organisational Intervention: The Place of Methodology.- Interdisciplinarity, Systems and Totality: Some Anti-Systemic Motifs in the Thought of Benjamin and Adorno.- Linking Methodological Complementarism with the Theory of Joint Alliances.- Development & Applications of Systems Methodologies.- Metaphors for Systemic Intervention.- Maturana’s Notion of Phenomenic Reductionism and Its Implications for SSM.- Retaining and Maintaining Soft System Models.- Implementation Concerns in Soft-Systems Interventions: Some Lessons Fron Interactive Management.- Operational Synergy and Meta-Methodology in the Prison Service.- Purposefulness and Complexity-Grappling Capability: Some Preliminary Propositions.- Monitoring, Evaluation and Dissemination Management Idea, Wuli-Shili-Renli Systems Approach and Their Application.- Choice of Model or Model of Choice?—Systems Thinking and the Phenomenology of Decision Making.- Bottom up Thinking.- A Systems Thinking Model for Economic Management the Case of Tanzania.- Measures of Performance: The Three Es of Soft Systems Methodology and the Indices of Performance of the Viable System Model.- New Light Through Old Windows — But Is It the Right Kind of Light?.- Intersubjectivty in Interpretive Research: The Dialogical Case.- Towards Synergy in the Search for Multi-Perspective Systems Approaches.- Educational Systems.- Peering into Ourselves: Critical Rellections on Peer Learning.- Getting to Grips with Gender and Systems.- Using SSM in Designing a New Nursing Informatics Curriculum.- Teaching Systems at the Open University: Reconceptualising the Curriculum by Creating Meaningful Conversations.- Using Multimedia to Teach Systems Thinking.- Information Systems.- Synergy of the’ soft’ and ‘Hard’ Sciences for Improving Information Systems.- What is the Point of Working in an Industrt Where there is a Better than Evens Chance of Your Work being Shelved?.- Rapid and Participatory is Analysis and Design: A Means to Defy the ‘Anatomy of Confusion’?.- Culture, Ideas, Idiosyncrasy.- A Knowledge Representation Approach to Computer-Based Support for Soft Systems Analysis.- An Analysis of ‘Fan Traps’ in an Eer Schema by Using a Set of ‘Info Concepts’.- The Intrinsic and Extrinsic Aspects of Information Systems Evaluation.- “We Focus on the Parts and Ignore the Whole”: The Story of Information Systems Teaching at Our Universities.- A Systemic Model for Participatory Change in Information Systems Management.- Information and Communication Technology: Tacit Knowledge and Innovation.- Qualitative Modelling of Information Systems.- Poly-agent Systems Theory: Evolution Model and its Applications.- What Drives the Developmnet of an International Information System? a Grounded Theory Investigation.- Electronic Commerce: More Hype Than Substance?.- Workflow for Inter-Organisational Environments.- Research and Reality: Co-Exist or Co-Inhabit?.- An Empirical Study of EIS Satisfaction — some Preliminary Findings.- Organisational Learning.- Self-Space and Vision.- Organizational Learning and Improvement Based on the Art of Business Coaching.- Educating the Knowledge Worker.- More Metaphors for Organisational Teams.- Synergy in a Complex and Post-Modern World.- Managing Learning and Knowledge During I.S. Development in an Autopoietic Organisation: Implications from the Literature.- On Redistributing Values: A Management Methodology.