Design as Institutioning: Shaping Temporality and Agency in Organizations and Human Systems

Appreciative Inquiry: A Program to Enhance Positive Nurse-to-Nurse Interaction

Communities that undertake systems change in accordance with the system of care philosophy commit to creating new systems entities for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance. These new entities are values-based, voluntary, and cross-agency alliances that include formal child-serving entities, youth, and families. Describing the scope and intent of one such implementation of systems of care, a mental health administrator commented, "If we're going to change things, it has to be systemic" (B. Baxter, personal communication, December 2, 2005). This paper explores the concept of "systemic" in the context of systems of care. Systems theory is used to understand strategies of purposeful systems change undertaken by stakeholders in established system of care communities. The paper presents a conceptual model of systems change for systems of care that is grounded in data from a national study of system of care implementation (Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health in Case Studies of system implementation: Holistic approaches to studying community-based systems of care: Study 2, University of South Florida, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health, Tampa, FL, 2004). The model is based on Soft Systems Methodology, an application of systems theory developed to facilitate practical action around systems change in human systems (Checkland in Systems thinking, systems practice, Wiley, Chichester, 1999). The implications of these findings to real world actions associated with systems change in systems of care are discussed.

Karst systems are extremely complex, and due to a number of geological and hydrological characteristics, they can be included among the most fragile and vulnerable environments in the world. Complexity of karst is expressed bythe enormous variations existing in different karst regions (White, 1988). The difficulties inherent in such variability were appropriately described by Beck (1999), who wrote, ‘‘Learning to understand the systematics of karst terrain and how to deal with it safely requires serious effort—often a lifetime of study.’’ This means, in other words, that man must make a strong effort to learn to live ‘‘in harmony with’’ karst, rather than to live ‘‘on’’ karst. Many problems we face when interacting with karst environments are best solved through changes in human systems rather than through alterations of karst environments. This is because subtle changes in fragile karst systems change them significantly. Because karst covers 10 to 20% of the earth’s surface and provides 40 to 50% of the world’s drinking water (Ford and Williams, 2007), it requires a specific approach to mitigate negative human impacts and allow sustainable development. In this sense, protection of karst groundwater is essential in many countries. Karst hydrologic systems are highly vulnerable to pollution, water withdrawals, and changes in land use (Bakalowicz, 2005; Calo` & Parise, 2009). In addition, the dissolution of limestone creates voids in the subsurface that can lead to collapses that directly affect the built environment by inducing severe damage, property loss, and disruptions to daily life. Management of karst environments is a very delicate matter, and how to manage pollution, karst hazards, and human impacts on karst landscapes is a question worthy of discussion (White, 1990; Parise and Pascali, 2003).

Moral identity has been touted as a foundation for understanding moral agency in organizations. The purpose of this article is to review the current state of knowledge regarding moral identity and highlight several promising avenues for advancing current understandings of moral actions in organizational contexts. The article begins with a brief overview of two distinct conceptual perspectives on moral identity—the character perspective and the social-cognitive perspective—that dominate extant literature. It then discusses varying approaches that have been taken in attempting to measure moral identity. The final two sections of the article review empirical findings regarding the antecedents and consequences of moral identity, respectively. Mechanisms and situational factors that are pertinent to moral agency in organizations are emphasized in both sections.

Health innovation, Consoli and Mina argue, represents ‘complex bundles’ of new knowledge and services ‘emerging from a highly distributed competence base’ [1]. Complex systems theories have emerged from insights gained encompassing human behaviour, human values, evolutionary biological systems and statistical physics of the early complex systems theorists [2]. The recently published Handbook on Systems and Complexity in Health provides a broad overview and very detailed specific examples of the adoption and implementation of these sciences into the health professions [3]. Taking a broader view of health and care related to human systems than Consoli and Mina, these Forum papers reflect on a range of ‘complex bundles’ of innovation from a widely distributed knowledge base at population, clinical practice and biological levels. They illustrate the importance of using a complex systems lens to make sense of innovation and change in human systems. This is always a pressing challenge as health systems leaders and professionals continue to struggle to adapt to changing internal and external constraints. Inequalities, fairness and justice are important dynamic elements of human health systems, as change invariably causes shifts among intended and unexpected interdependent agencies. Buse [4] and Reynolds [5] have explored case studies of phenomena that impact on the health of individuals and populations. At a macro-population level, Buse [4] examines the contribution of intersectoral action for health equity, as it relates to climate change through the lens of critical heuristics (CSH) – viewed holistically and through multiple lenses, and rejecting reductionist analyses that predefine a system according to its parts. Systems thinking in general seeks to understand an issue as more than the sum of its parts. Accounting for the human dimension of social systems, ‘CSH provides three overarching contributions to the systems literature: a fundamental commitment to emancipation through practical action; critical awareness; and methodological pluralism’ [4]. Reynolds [5], in an entirely different area, explores the nature of fairness and conflicting value systems in hospital charity lotteries, which provide money for selective popular health services but may undermine individuals’ health potentials in the process. This raises the challenges of contradictions and tensions in dynamic health systems. Norman [6] provides a personal analysis of his role as an educator, promoting systems thinking in population health education, and reflects on the work of Buse and Reynolds. He highlights the fact that the challenges in education for systems thinking reach beyond overcoming resistance in social and professional acceptance, to encompass balancing new ideas, seeing existing ideas in new ways and ‘unlearning’ others. Techniques are needed to educate students to be open, responsive and adaptive in their thinking, and to embrace contradictions, tensions and changing dynamics of ‘bundles of knowledge’ in different competency domains. Health professionals need to demonstrate capability as much as competence. New ways of teaching and learning with curricula and learning materials need to be developed. At the level of clinical practice, Persky et al. [7] examine communication between residents and attending doctors on-call after hours in the light of existing local guidelines. Surveys were conducted with residents about their expectations and experiences of interactions with attending doctors. The study found considerable variability among reported experiences in relation to different specialities, individual resident expectations and attending doctor’s reported behaviour. The authors identify that the communication has complex social dynamics. They hypothesized about the contribution of power and deference, as well as variations in resident’s self-confidence and perceived competence to undermining adherence to local guidelines. Interestingly, they propose that the solution to the perceived complexity is the enforcement of greater regulation. This is a typical and bureaucratic response to complex situations identified in the Cynefin framework [8] See Fig. 1. However, there are potentially a range of opportunities for solutions other than regulatory, using creativity and trial and error. Finally, reflecting the need to better understand how to characterize complex systems of biometric properties in health care, bs_bs_banner

Water resources management is a nontrivial process requiring a holistic understanding of the factors driving the dynamics of human‐water systems. Policy‐induced or autonomous behavioral changes in human systems may affect water and land management, which may affect water systems and feedback to human systems, further impacting water and land management. Currently, hydro‐economic models lack the ability to describe such dynamics either because they do not account for the multifactor/multioutput nature of these systems and/or are not designed to operate at a river basin scale. This paper presents a flexible and replicable methodological framework for integrating a microeconomic multifactor/multioutput Positive Multi‐Attribute Utility Programming (PMAUP) model with an eco‐hydrologic model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The connection between the models occurs in a sequential modular approach through a common spatial unit, the “hydrologic‐economic representative units” (HERUs), derived from the boundaries of decision‐making entities and hydrologic responsive units. The resulting SWAT‐PMAUP model aims to provide the means for exploring the dynamics between the behavior of socio‐economic agents and their connection with the water system through water and land management. The integrated model is illustrated by simulating the impacts of irrigation restriction policies on the Río Mundo subbasin in south‐eastern Spain. The results suggest that agents' adaptation strategies in response to the irrigation restrictions have broad economic impacts and subsequent consequences on surface and groundwater hydrology. We suggest that the integrated modeling framework can be a valuable tool to support decision‐making in water resources management across a wide range of scales.

he designation, under the name of Epigravettian, of all industries in Central and Eastern Europe from the last glacial maximum and up to the end of isotopic stage 2, masks the variety of industries and prevents an understanding of the adaptations of hunter-gatherer societies to climate variations. - For Eastern Europe (Dnieper, Boug and Don basins): Eastern Gravettian, Final Eastern Gravettian, Local Aurignacoid Industries (Muralovkian, Zamiatnine culture and others), Early Epigravettian of the steppe area, gap, Mezinian of the Dnieper Basin, late Epigravettian of the steppe area, - For the northeastern foothills of the Carpathians (Dniester, Prut and Bistrita basins) : Eastern Gravettian, Aurignacoid Industries, gap, Early Epigravettian (Molodovian s.s.), gap, Final Epigravettian, - For Central Europe: Eastern Gravettian, gap, Aurignacoid Industries, gap, Sagvarian, gap, Magdalenian and Late Epigravettian. The typological and technological studies of lithic and bone industries reveal large differences, due to strong changes in human systems during the last glacial maximum. And the mere presence of backed bladelets (which also exist in the Solutrean, Badegoulian and Magdalenian cultures in Western Europe) is not sufficient to cluster these industries under the same name of Epigravettian. So we propose to give different names to these different industries.

Over the past few years many workers have lived through buyouts, mergers, acquisitions, upsizings, and downsizings as well as many other changes in the workplace. However, witnessing and feeling the effects of such changes does not guarantee that employees will automatically comprehend the changes. Understanding changes in the workplace requires that employees grasp basic concepts related to the nature of change in human systems. Therefore, this paper presents a short case study of one company struggling through some troubling changes. The reader is asked to look at the changes in terms of ten concepts related to planned change. It is recommended that the case and related questions be discussed in small groups. This will enable various perspectives on the case to be discussed and appreciated. The groups should include a mix of employees, supervisors, and managers.

The purpose of this paper is to stress our belief that therapeutic intervention does not have the power to create durable, predetermined changes in human systems. Still, a number of therapists seem to feel that certain adjustments are necessary if improvement is to occur and try to convince families to adopt them. Such partial moves ignore the question of what has prevented the family from discovering such beneficial adaptations on its own.We suggest that the basic rules of the family prohibit it from changing. Tb stimulate the inherent healing capacities of human systems, a preferable goal might be to validate the present functioning of the family through an understanding of the different levels of its self perception (phenomenological model, mythical model). If this is done effectively, a possible reformulation of the relationship is truly facilitated. Relations between the participants will continue, but will no longer be what they were before. The effectiveness of the intervention is confirmed by the appearance of new beliefs, new perceptions. Any behavioral modifications shown by family members are logical consequences of their new conception of the relationship, not the causes of it.

Positive organizational change is a paradox. On one hand, natural human inclinations toward the positive and heliotropic tendencies foster a proclivity toward positive change in human systems. On the other hand, human beings react more strongly to negative than to positive stimuli, so the presence of negative events overshadows positive events. Paradoxically, both tendencies—toward the positive and in response to the negative— are important enablers of positive change, but because the negative usually dominates, positive factors have to be given extra emphasis for positive change to occur. The concept of “positive” has created a great deal of controversy and confusion in organizational studies, spawning critics as well as promoters. The major connotations of this concept in organizational scholarship are clarified, and a way to reconcile the paradox of positive change is proposed. New investigations of positive organizational change are introduced that address various aspects of the positive change paradox.

The ecological concept of niche is used to provide a better understanding of prehistoric interactions between the Plains and the Puebloan Southwest. A diachronic model is presented based on concepts of energy flow and regional microvariation in net energy input. At a general level, such use of ecological models and principles enables changes in human systems to be seen as an example of a general increase in ecosystem complexity. The application of more powerful theoretic and methodological concepts and constructs can then lead to a more powerful theory of human cultural evolution.

Abstract. Human and hydrological systems are coupled: human activity impacts the hydrological cycle and hydrological conditions can, but do not always, trigger changes in human systems. Traditional modeling approaches with no feedback between hydrological and human systems typically cannot offer insight into how different patterns of natural variability or human-induced changes may propagate through this coupled system. Modeling of coupled human–hydrological systems, also called socio-hydrological systems, recognizes the potential for humans to transform hydrological systems and for hydrological conditions to influence human behavior. However, this coupling introduces new challenges and existing literature does not offer clear guidance regarding model conceptualization. There are no universally accepted laws of human behavior as there are for the physical systems; furthermore, a shared understanding of important processes within the field is often used to develop hydrological models, but there is no such consensus on the relevant processes in socio-hydrological systems. Here we present a question driven process to address these challenges. Such an approach allows modeling structure, scope and detail to remain contingent on and adaptive to the question context. We demonstrate the utility of this process by revisiting a classic question in water resources engineering on reservoir operation rules: what is the impact of reservoir operation policy on the reliability of water supply for a growing city? Our example model couples hydrological and human systems by linking the rate of demand decreases to the past reliability to compare standard operating policy (SOP) with hedging policy (HP). The model shows that reservoir storage acts both as a buffer for variability and as a delay triggering oscillations around a sustainable level of demand. HP reduces the threshold for action thereby decreasing the delay and the oscillation effect. As a result, per capita demand decreases during periods of water stress are more frequent but less drastic and the additive effect of small adjustments decreases the tendency of the system to overshoot available supplies. This distinction between the two policies was not apparent using a traditional noncoupled model.

This paper presents a counter point to predictions of doom in international relations. It argues that two phenomena, nuclear winter and remote sensing, mark a turning point in the 40 year old nuclear arms race. The need for a new form of diplomacy emerges with the end of global war as a strategy of conflict resolution. Family therapy is seen as potentially relevant in this area of diplomatic conflict resolution. New contributions to this area may come from the study of spontaneous change in human systems.

This article presents a qualitative analysis of the ethical reasoning of 149 teachers working in a large city district. Through exploring how these experienced teachers reason through a ‘normative case study in educational ethics’ (NCS) that presents an ethical dilemma of how to support a student experiencing multiple injustices in and outside of school, this study offers an illustration of how individual teacher decision-making seeks to mitigate structural inequities. Findings show that, in contrast to the techno-rational decision-making assumed by the USA K-12 education system, teachers’ ethical reasoning in this case was individually-focused, holistic, and flexible. These findings suggest the need for professional development and systemic change that supports teachers’ complex individual ethical reasoning. Methodologically, this study demonstrates that qualitative philosophical inquiry using normative case studies is a promising approach to investigating teachers’ situated ethical and moral reasoning in real time.

Although research has indicated that moral decisions are made during video game play, less research has examined moral reasoning during play. Using a think-aloud protocol, participants’ decisions and reasoning were recorded during game play and coded as either strategic or moral. Players’ reasoning was also coded using Moral Foundations Theory. Results indicated an almost equal percentage of strategic and moral reasoning; the salience of several individual moral foundations predicted moral reasoning during play. Video game experience was positively related to the use of moral reasoning, which can be explained by relating reasoning to rational and experiential processing during game play.