Download or read book Systems Thinking For Social Change written by David Peter Stroh and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "David Stroh has produced an elegant and cogent guide to what works. Research with early learners is showing that children are natural systems thinkers. This book will help to resuscitate these intuitive capabilities and strengthen them in the fire of facing our toughest problems."—Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline Concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning—for everyone! Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation. How do these unintended consequences come about and how can we avoid them? By applying conventional thinking to complex social problems, we often perpetuate the very problems we try so hard to solve, but it is possible to think differently, and get different results. Systems Thinking for Social Change enables readers to contribute more effectively to society by helping them understand what systems thinking is and why it is so important in their work. It also gives concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning without becoming a technical expert. Systems thinking leader David Stroh walks readers through techniques he has used to help people improve their efforts on complex problems like: ending homelessness improving public health strengthening education designing a system for early childhood development protecting child welfare developing rural economies facilitating the reentry of formerly incarcerated people into society resolving identity-based conflicts and more! The result is a highly readable, effective guide to understanding systems and using that knowledge to get the results you want.

Download or read book Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology written by Dries Daems and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology turns to complex systems thinking in search of a suitable framework to explore social complexity in Archaeology. Social complexity in archaeology is commonly related to properties of complex societies such as states, as opposed to so-called simple societies such as tribes or chiefdoms. These conceptualisations of complexity are ultimately rooted in Eurocentric perspectives with problematic implications for the field of archaeology. This book provides an in-depth conceptualisation of social complexity as the core concept in archaeological and interdisciplinary studies of the past, integrating approaches from complex systems thinking, archaeological theory, social practice theory, and sustainability and resilience science. The book covers a long-term perspective of social change and stability, tracing the full cycle of complexity trajectories, from emergence and development to collapse, regeneration and transformation of communities and societies. It offers a broad vision on social complexity as a core concept for the present and future development of archaeology. This book is intended to be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the field of archaeology and related disciplines such as history, anthropology, sociology, as well as the natural sciences studying human-environment interactions in the past.

Download or read book Complex Systems and Social Practices in Energy Transitions written by Nicola Labanca and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an interdisciplinary discussion of the fundamental issues concerning policies for sustainable transition to renewable energies from the perspectives of sociologists, physicists, engineers, economists, anthropologists, biologists, ecologists and policy analysts. Adopting a combined approach, these are analysed taking both complex systems and social practice theories into consideration to provide deeper insights into the evolution of energy systems. The book then draws a series of important conclusions and makes recommendations for the research community and policy makers involved in the design and implementation of policies for sustainable energy transitions.

Download or read book Complex Adaptive Systems written by Ted Carmichael and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ​This book emerged out of international conferences organized as part of the AAAI Fall Symposia series, and the Swarmfest 2017 conference. It brings together researchers from diverse fields studying these complex systems using CAS and agent-based modeling tools and techniques. In the past, the knowledge gained in each domain has largely remained exclusive to that domain. By bringing together scholars who study these phenomena, the book takes knowledge from one domain to provide insight into others. Most interesting phenomena in natural and social systems include constant transitions and oscillations among their various phases – wars, companies, societies, markets, and humans rarely stay in a stable, predictable state for long. Randomness, power laws, and human behavior ensure that the future is both unknown and challenging. How do events unfold? When do they take hold? Why do some initial events cause an avalanche while others do not? What characterizes these events? What are the thresholds that differentiate a sea change from a non-event? Complex adaptive systems (CAS) have proven to be a powerful tool for exploring these and other related phenomena. The authors characterize a general CAS model as having a large number of self-similar agents that: 1) utilize one or more levels of feedback; 2) exhibit emergent properties and self-organization; and 3) produce non-linear dynamic behavior. Advances in modeling and computing technology have led not only to a deeper understanding of complex systems in many areas, but they have also raised the possibility that similar fundamental principles may be at work across these systems, even though the underlying principles may manifest themselves differently.

Download or read book Small Groups as Complex Systems written by Holly Arrow and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2000-03-21 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The emphasis on change at many levels of organization is critically important as is the first attempt to integrate sophisticated theory and research in organization psychology (e.g., Gersick, Hackman) with social psychological models of development such as Moreland and Levine." --Reuben M. Baron, Emeritus, University of Connecticut "Arrow, McGrath, and Berdahl′s ′Small Groups as Complex Systems′ will change the way you think about groups, the way you think about research, and even the way you think about science." --Donelson R. Forsyth, Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth U "The book is excellent, one of those very rare works that will have substantial impact on the field. I would use the book without hesitation in any advanced graduate seminar dealing with groups." --Donelson R. Forsyth, Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth U "A conceptually elegant analysis of groups as systems. Although the systems approach has been growing more influential in various fields of social psychology in the last ten years, no one has put forward a definitive analysis that applies with fidelity the general systems approach to group processes. McGrath and his colleagues fill that gap, not by paying lip service to popular scientific concepts such as recursive causality, open systems, attractors, and complexity theory, but by fully integrating these concepts into their no-nonsense analysis of such group level processes as formation, task performance, composition, development, and termination. Empirical work is folded into the theoretical mix along the way, but the focus is unrelentingly conceptual with the result that the authors deliver on their promise of developing a powerful, unified theory of group dynamics." --Donelson R. Forsyth, Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth U "Theirs is an ambitious book. They have profound ramifications for experimental social psychology. It is worth mentioning that AMD (Arrow, McGrarth, and Berdahl) list an ethnographic approach, which often implies the adoption of hermeneutic and semiotic methods (a hallmark of the anti-Enlightenment tradition in psychology), as a possible way forward." --Yoshihisa Kashima, American Journal of Psychology What are groups? How do they behave? Arrow, McGrath, and Berdahl answer these questions by developing a general theory of small groups as complex systems. Basing their theory on concepts distilled from general systems theory, dynamical systems theory, and complexity and chaos theory, they explore groups as adaptive, dynamic systems that are driven by interactions among group members as well as between the group and its embedding contexts. In addition, they consider not only the group′s members and their distribution of attributes, but also the group′s tasks and technology in order to understand how those members, tasks, and tools are intertwined, coordinated, and adjusted. Throughout the book, the authors focus our attention on relationships among people, tools, and tasks that are activated by a combination of individual and collective purposes and goals that change and evolve as the group interacts over time.

Download or read book Social Sustainability Past and Future written by Sander van der Leeuw and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel, integrated approach to understanding long-term human history, viewing it as the long-term evolution of human information-processing. This title is also available as Open Access.

Download or read book Systems Thinking For Social Change written by David Peter Stroh and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2015 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation. How do these unintended consequences come about and how can we avoid them? By applying conventional thinking to complex social problems, we often perpetuate the very problems we try so hard to solve, but it is possible to think differently, and get different results. Systems Thinking for Social Change enables readers to contribute more effectively to society by helping them understand what systems thinking is and why it is so important in their work. It also gives concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning without becoming a technical expert. Systems thinking leader David Stroh walks readers through techniques he has used to help people improve their efforts to end homelessness, improve public health, strengthen education, design a system for early childhood development, protect child welfare, develop rural economies, facilitate the reentry of formerly incarcerated people into society, resolve identity-based conflicts, and more. The result is a highly readable, effective guide to understanding systems and using that knowledge to get the results you want.

Download or read book Complexity and Postmodernism written by Paul Cilliers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Complexity and Postmodernism, Paul Cilliers explores the idea of complexity in the light of contemporary perspectives from philosophy and science. Cilliers offers us a unique approach to understanding complexity and computational theory by integrating postmodern theory (like that of Derrida and Lyotard) into his discussion. Complexity and Postmodernism is an exciting and an original book that should be read by anyone interested in gaining a fresh understanding of complexity, postmodernism and connectionism.

Download or read book Why Society is a Complex Matter written by Philip Ball and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-06-09 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Society is complicated. But this book argues that this does not place it beyond the reach of a science that can help to explain and perhaps even to predict social behaviour. As a system made up of many interacting agents – people, groups, institutions and governments, as well as physical and technological structures such as roads and computer networks – society can be regarded as a complex system. In recent years, scientists have made great progress in understanding how such complex systems operate, ranging from animal populations to earthquakes and weather. These systems show behaviours that cannot be predicted or intuited by focusing on the individual components, but which emerge spontaneously as a consequence of their interactions: they are said to be ‘self-organized’. Attempts to direct or manage such emergent properties generally reveal that ‘top-down’ approaches, which try to dictate a particular outcome, are ineffectual, and that what is needed instead is a ‘bottom-up’ approach that aims to guide self-organization towards desirable states. This book shows how some of these ideas from the science of complexity can be applied to the study and management of social phenomena, including traffic flow, economic markets, opinion formation and the growth and structure of cities. Building on these successes, the book argues that the complex-systems view of the social sciences has now matured sufficiently for it to be possible, desirable and perhaps essential to attempt a grander objective: to integrate these efforts into a unified scheme for studying, understanding and ultimately predicting what happens in the world we have made. Such a scheme would require the mobilization and collaboration of many different research communities, and would allow society and its interactions with the physical environment to be explored through realistic models and large-scale data collection and analysis. It should enable us to find new and effective solutions to major global problems such as conflict, disease, financial instability, environmental despoliation and poverty, while avoiding unintended policy consequences. It could give us the foresight to anticipate and ameliorate crises, and to begin tackling some of the most intractable problems of the twenty-first century.

Download or read book An Introduction to Complex Systems written by Joe Tranquillo and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-13 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the interdisciplinary field of complex systems theory. By the end of the book, readers will be able to understand terminology that is used in complex systems and how they are related to one another; see the patterns of complex systems in practical examples; map current topics, in a variety of fields, to complexity theory; and be able to read more advanced literature in the field. The book begins with basic systems concepts and moves on to how these simple rules can lead to complex behavior. The author then introduces non-linear systems, followed by pattern formation, and networks and information flow in systems. Later chapters cover the thermodynamics of complex systems, dynamical patterns that arise in networks, and how game theory can serve as a framework for decision making. The text is interspersed with both philosophical and quantitative arguments, and each chapter ends with questions and prompts that help readers make more connections. “The text provides a useful overview of complex systems, with enough detail to allow a reader unfamiliar with the topic to understand the basics. The book stands out for its comprehensiveness and approachability. It will be particularly useful as a text for introductory physics courses. Tranquillo’s strength is in delivering a vast amount of information in a succinct manner.... A reader can find information quickly and efficiently—that is, in my opinion, the book’s greatest value.” (Stefani Crabtree, Physics Today)

Download or read book Measuring Social Change written by Alnoor Ebrahim and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social sector is undergoing a major transformation. We are witnessing an explosion in efforts to deliver social change, a burgeoning impact investing industry, and an unprecedented intergenerational transfer of wealth. Yet we live in a world of rapidly rising inequality, where social sector services are unable to keep up with societal need, and governments are stretched beyond their means. Alnoor Ebrahim addresses one of the fundamental dilemmas facing leaders as they navigate this uncertain terrain: performance measurement. How can they track performance towards worthy goals such as reducing poverty, improving public health, or advancing human rights? What results can they reasonably measure and legitimately take credit for? This book tackles three core challenges of performance faced by social enterprises and nonprofit organizations alike: what to measure, what kinds of performance systems to build, and how to align multiple demands for accountability. It lays out four different types of strategies for managers to consider—niche, integrated, emergent, and ecosystem—and details the types of performance measurement and accountability systems best suited to each. Finally, this book examines the roles of funders such as impact investors, philanthropic foundations, and international aid agencies, laying out how they can best enable meaningful performance measurement.

Download or read book Complex Adaptive Systems written by John H. Miller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-28 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents. John Miller and Scott Page show how to combine ideas from economics, political science, biology, physics, and computer science to illuminate topics in organization, adaptation, decentralization, and robustness. They also demonstrate how the usual extremes used in modeling can be fruitfully transcended.

Download or read book Diversity and Complexity written by Scott E. Page and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an introduction to the role of diversity in complex adaptive systems. A complex system--such as an economy or a tropical ecosystem--consists of interacting adaptive entities that produce dynamic patterns and structures. Diversity plays a different role in a complex system than it does in an equilibrium system, where it often merely produces variation around the mean for performance measures. In complex adaptive systems, diversity makes fundamental contributions to system performance. Scott Page gives a concise primer on how diversity happens, how it is maintained, and how it affects complex systems. He explains how diversity underpins system level robustness, allowing for multiple responses to external shocks and internal adaptations; how it provides the seeds for large events by creating outliers that fuel tipping points; and how it drives novelty and innovation. Page looks at the different kinds of diversity--variations within and across types, and distinct community compositions and interaction structures--and covers the evolution of diversity within complex systems and the factors that determine the amount of maintained diversity within a system. Provides a concise and accessible introduction Shows how diversity underpins robustness and fuels tipping points Covers all types of diversity The essential primer on diversity in complex adaptive systems

Download or read book Growing Inequality written by George A. Kaplan and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book begins the process of unraveling some of the most 'wicked' problems in public health." - Tony Iton, MD, JD, MPH-The California Endowment Growing evidence indicates that no single factor-but a system of intertwined causes-explains why America's health is poorer than the health of other wealthy countries and why health inequities persist despite our efforts. Teasing apart the relationships between these many causes to find solutions has proven extraordinarily difficult. But now researchers are uncovering groundbreaking insights using computer-based systems science tools to simulate how these determinants come together to produce levels of population health and disparities and test new solutions. The culmination of over five years of work by experts from a more than a dozen disciplines, this book represents a bold step forward in identifying why some populations are healthy and others are not. Describing a series of studies that apply the techniques of systems science, it shows how these tools can be used to increase our understanding of the individual, group, and institutional factors that generate a wide range of health and social problems. Most importantly, it demonstrates the utility and power of these techniques to both wisely guide our understanding and help policy makers know what works. ... an intellectually courageous undertaking. It faces up to the reality of complexity in the social determinants of health. Its achievements and its documentation of difficulties will serve as a valuable foundation for the next generation of scientists and scholars who aim to understand the determinants of health and of health disparities." - Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD, President, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Former President, the Institute of Medicine ...goes beyond the search for a simplistic answer to health disparities and instead embraces the complexity. This is exactly what is needed if we are to improve population health and eliminate disparities." - Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Chairman, Department of Health Policy & Management, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University It is increasingly likely that in the non-distant future that population health policy will be fully informed by a coherent computational decision-support system that integrates data, analytics, systems modeling, forecasting, and cost-effectiveness. This book marks a serious movement toward that future." - Donald S. Burke, MD, Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health, Dean, Graduate School of Public Health UPMC, Jonas Salk Professor of Global Health, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh Recent review of Growing Inequality by Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Science (IAPHS): https: //iaphs.org/book-review-complex-systems-population-health-insights-network-inequality-complexity-health/

Download or read book Society a Complex Adaptive System written by Walter Frederick Buckley and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1998 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Download or read book Social Emergence written by R. Keith Sawyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that societies are complex dynamical systems that can be understood through the concept of emergence.

Download or read book Agile Actors on Complex Terrains written by Graham Room and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book assesses the value and relevance of the literature on complex systems to policy-making, contributing to both social theory and policy analysis. For this purpose it develops two key ideas: agile action and transformative realism. The book takes some major themes from complexity science, presents them in a clear and accessible manner and applies them to core problems in sociological theory and policy analysis. Combining complexity science with perspectives from institutionalism and political economy, this book is the first to integrate these fields conceptually, methodologically and in terms of the implications for policy analysis and practice. Room shows how the models and methods of social and complexity science can be jointly deployed and applied to empirical areas of public policy. He demonstrates how complexity science can provide insight into the nonlinear dynamics of the social world, but why these need to be understood by reference to the unequal distribution of power and advantage. Among the sociological debates with which the book engages are those concerned with causation and explanation, rational action and positional competition, and the place of evolutionary concepts in accounts of social change. Among the policy debates are those concerned with evidence and policy, the dynamics of inequality, and libertarian paternalism. The book will appeal to final year undergraduates and postgraduate students in social sciences; scholars in social and policy studies broadly defined; policy-makers who want to go beyond conventional discussions of evidence-based policy-making and cross-national lesson-drawing, and consider how to approach complex and turbulent policy terrains; and a wider range of scholars in other disciplines where complexity science is already well developed.