Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs

Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs
Author: Stephen J. Guastello
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134787782

Whether talking about steering a wheelbarrow over rugged terrain or plotting the course of international relations, human performance systems involve change. Sometimes changes are subtle or evolutionary, sometimes they are catastrophic or revolutionary, and sometimes the changes are from periods of relative calm to periods of vibrant oscillations to periods of chaos. As a general rule, more complex systems are likely to produce more complex forms of change. Although social scientists have long acknowledged that change occurs and have considered ways to effect desirable change, the dynamical processes of change have been poorly understood in the past. This volume combines recent advances in mathematics and experimental design with the best available social science theories to produce a new, integrated, and compact theory of work, organizations, and social evolution. The domains of application extend from human decision-making processes to personnel selection and work motivation, work performance under conditions of stress, accident and health risk analysis, the development of social institutions and economic systems, creativity and innovation, organizational development and group dynamics, and political revolutions and war. Relative to other literature on nonlinear dynamical systems theory (NDS), this book is unique in that it integrates new developments in NDS with substantive psychological theory. It builds on many recent developments in organizational theory to show that nonlinear dynamics were often implicit in those works all along. The result is an entirely new way of viewing social events, understanding change processes, and asking questions about social systems. This book also contains much new empirical work and explains the newly developed methods for testing these new hypotheses.

Chasing Chaos

Chasing Chaos
Author: Jessica Alexander
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013-10-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0770436919

Jessica Alexander arrived in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide as an idealistic intern, eager to contribute to the work of the international humanitarian aid community. But the world that she encountered in the field was dramatically different than anything she could have imagined. It was messy, chaotic, and difficult—but she was hooked. In this honest and irreverent memoir, she introduces readers to the realities of life as an aid worker. We watch as she manages a 24,000-person camp in Darfur, collects evidence for the Charles Taylor trial in Sierra Leone, and contributes to the massive aid effort to clean up a shattered Haiti. But we also see the alcohol-fueled parties and fleeting romances, the burnouts and self-doubt, and the struggle to do good in places that have long endured suffering. Tracing her personal journey from wide-eyed and naïve newcomer to hardened cynic and, ultimately, to hopeful but critical realist, Alexander transports readers to some of the most troubled locations around the world and shows us not only the seemingly impossible challenges, but also the moments of resilience and recovery.

Learning in Chaos

Learning in Chaos
Author: James Hite. Jr.
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2009-11-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136388060

This book explains how change is a functional characteristic of any organization. And, as organizations begin to understand the nature of change, they can still adapt and grow by incorporating change into their structure instead of trying to control it. To help you understand and grow in this ever-changing environment, this book covers four principal areas of thought on change. Chaos, including chaos theory Organizational theory and practice Learning theory and practice The general social environment Executives, managers, and other organizational leaders will find this book invaluable as they refocus the direction of their organizations in order to realize the benefits of learning under changed environmental circumstances.

From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities

From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities
Author: J. Barkley Rosser
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9401716137

From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities presents and unusual perspective on economics and economic analysis. Current economic theory largely depends upon assuming that the world is fundamentally continuous. However, an increasing amount of economic research has been done using approaches that allow for discontinuities such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, synergetics, and fractal geometry. The spread of such approaches across a variety of disciplines of thought has constituted a virtual intellectual revolution in recent years. This book reviews the applications of these approaches in various subdisciplines of economics and draws upon past economic thinkers to develop an integrated view of economics as a whole from the perspective of inherent discontinuity.

Complexity Leadership

Complexity Leadership
Author: Mary Uhl-Bien
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 160752628X

This book introduces leadership and organizational scholars to the potenial of complexity science for broadening leadership study beyond its traditional focus on leaders’ actions and influence, to a consideration of leadership as a broader, dynamically and interactive organizing process. The book offers a primer on complexity science and its applications to organization studies, and compares the logics of complexity science with those underlying traditional leadership approaches. It describes methodological approaches for studying leadership from a complexity perspective, and offers examples of applications of complexity science to leadership theory. Chapters are written by top scholars in complexity and leadership theory.

Bios

Bios
Author: Hector C. Sabelli
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 670
Release: 2005
Genre: Science
ISBN: 981256103X

This book focuses on a prototype of creative causal processes termed BIOS and how the concept can be applied to the physical world, in medicine and in social science. This book presents methods for identifying creative features in empirical data; studies showing biotic patterns in physical, biological, and economic processes; mathematical models of bipolar (positive and negative) feedback that generate biotic patterns. These studies support the hypothesis that natural processes are creative (not determined) and causal (not random) and that bipolar feedback plays a major role in their evolution. Simple processes precede, coexist, constitute and surround the complex systems they generate (priority of the simple). In turn, complex processes feedback and transform simpler ones (supremacy of the complex).

Facilitating Organization Change

Facilitating Organization Change
Author: Edwin E. Olson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2001-02-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 078795330X

"Facilitating Organization Change" hilft Ihnen, die Dynamik des Wandels in einem komplexen System zu verstehen und diese Kräfte gezielt zu nutzen. Dieses Buch nennt neue Perspektiven, Methoden und Techniken zur Wiederbelebung von Unternehmen. Es erläutert auch die Muster die das Unternehmensverhalten steuern und zeigt, wie man sich diese Einsichten zunutze macht, um den Unternehmenswandel effektiver voranzutreiben.

Generative Emergence

Generative Emergence
Author: Benyamin B. Lichtenstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199933596

Generative Emergence provides insight into the non-linear dynamics that lead to organizational emergence through the use of complexity sciences. The book explores how the model of Generative Emergence could be applied to enact emergence within and across organizations.

The Method of Response Function in Psychology & Sociology

The Method of Response Function in Psychology & Sociology
Author: Irina G. Malkina-Pykh
Publisher: WIT Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2013
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 184564686X

Social (psychological and sociological) systems present considerable difficulties for modellers due to their complexity, multidimensionality, uncertainty and irreducibility. The book proposes that response functions (MRF) be used as a method of constructing purposeful, credible and integrated social systems' models from data and prior knowledge or information. A semi-empirical, or "grey-box", MRF model may be regarded as a trade-off between a knowledge-based model and a "black-box" (empirical) model. It may embody all the existing knowledge on the process (or a part thereof) and, in addition, it relies on parameterised functions, whose parameters are determined from measurements. Observations contain hidden information on the processes under consideration and one of the main purposes of the proposed method is to "extract" and describe these hidden relationships. Parameterisation offers ways to couple qualitative with quantitative analysis. This combination makes it possible to take into account all the phenomena that are not modelled with the required accuracy through prior knowledge. Although only a simplified picture of the processes is modelled, a "grey box" system model provides some insight into the system processes. These processes are featured by chains of causality, highlighting stressors and variables responsive to stressors. The method of response functions is a nonlinear regression method that implies credible models in the sense that they are identifiable and, hopefully, explain system output behaviour satisfactorily. For case studies the authors have selected the problems usually studied by psychologists and sociologists with statistical procedures, such as investigation of variance and discriminant analysis based on the general linear model or one of its multivariate generalisations (structural equation models, etc.); disordered eating and obesity; subjective well-being and alexithymia. An accompanying CD-ROM contains the demonstration versions of three models that are discussed in the various chapters.The Method of Response Functions in Psychology and Sociology is aimed at Mathematical Psychologists; Mathematical Sociologists; Applied Psychologists; Sociologists and Social Practitioners. It will also be suitable for use on undergraduate as well as graduate and postgraduate courses specializing in these areas.