Understand the full range of systems approaches and how to use them with this innovative overview.Leaders and managers face increasing complexity and uncertainty because technical, organizational, socio-cultural, political, and environmental issues have become intensely interconnected. Systems thinking is recognized as the essential competence for managing complexity. As the demand for systems thinking grows, however, the fragmentation of the field into different m...

From the winner of the INCOSE Pioneer Award 2022The world has become increasingly networked and unpredictable. Decision makers at all levels are required to manage the consequences of complexity every day. They must deal with problems that arise unexpectedly, generate uncertainty, are characterised by interconnectivity, and spread across traditional boundaries. Simple solutions to complex problems are usually inadequate and risk exacerbating the original issues.

As this century draws to a close and the new one approaches, the United States is still struggling with serious and persistent social problems. These troubling dilemmas, including poverty, homelessness, discrimination, and severe inequity, afflict some subgroups of the population more than others, and it is the plight of these at-risk groups—childr

The author thoroughly describes and analyzes the most significant systems methodologies-`organizations as systems,' hard, soft, cybernetic, and critical-and demonstrates the complementary strengths of different systems approaches.

Twenty five years ago, in 1964, The Operational Research Society's first International Conference (held at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge) took as its theme "Operational Research and the Social Sciences". The Conference sessions were organised around topics such as: Organisations and Control; Social Effects of Policies; Conflict Resolution; The Systems Concept; Models, Decisions and Operational Research. An examination of the published proceedings (J.R.Lawrence ed., 1966, Operationa...

Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work -- but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, Bowling Alone*,* which The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement."Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures -- whether they be PTA, church,...

**The classic, myth-shattering history of the American family.“The Way We Never Were effectively demolishes the normal, traditional nuclear family as neither normal nor traditional, and not even nuclear.” ―Nation**Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man’s home has never been his castle, the “male breadwinner marriage” is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. I...

Many of today’s books on the tools and techniques of leadership and management provide descriptions of long lists for use in decision-making, leading, coaching and project management. This book takes a completely different approach. It contests the claims that the tools and techniques are based on evidence and explains why human activities of leading and managing are simply not amenable to scientific proof and consequently, why long-term futures of organizations are unpredictable.T...

Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics remains unique amongst strategic management textbooks by taking a refreshingly alternative look at the subject. Drawing on the sciences of complexity as well as a broad range of social scientific literature, Stacey and Mowles challenge the conceptual orthodoxy of planned strategy, focusing instead on emergence and the predictable unpredictability of organisational life.Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduat...

A preeminent sociologist of race explains a groundbreaking new framework for understanding racial inequality, challenging both conservative and liberal dogma.In this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of low-skilled black males, and the fragmentation of the African Ame...

This Open Access book explores the meaning and roles that strategy and leadership play in our lives. Based on decades of experience, the author contemplates whether we believe strategic leadership exists because it actually exists, or whether it exists because we believe it does? Both answers are true.The author argues that the duality of the essence of strategic leadership is clear. It may appear to be personalised, or it may seem to be an important characteristic of the organizat...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARFrom Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliott Currie comes a devastating exploration of the extreme levels of violence afflicting Black communities, and a blueprint for addressing the crisisAbout 170,000 Black Americans have died in homicides just since the year 2000. Violence takes more years of life from Black men than cancer, stroke, and diabetes combined; a young Black man in the United States has a fifteen times g...