Chaos Catastrophe And Human Affairs

Download or read book Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs written by Stephen J. Guastello and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Learning in Chaos written by James Hite. Jr. and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-11-03 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Chasing Chaos written by Jessica Alexander and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Systemic Choices written by Gregory A. Daneke and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The revolution in social scientific theory and practice known as nonlinear dynamics, chaos, or complexity, derived from recent advances in the physical, biological, and cognitive sciences, is now culminating with the widespread use of tools and concepts such as praxis, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence, and parallel processing. By tracing a number of conceptual threads from mathematics, economics, cybernetics, and various other applied systems theoretics, this book offers a historical framework for how these ideas are transforming the social sciences. Daneke goes on to address a variety of persistent philosophical issues surrounding this paradigm shift, ranging from the nature of human rationality to free will. Finally, he describes this shift as a path for revitalizing the social sciences just when they will be most needed to address the human condition in the new millennium. Systemic Choices describes how praxis and other complex systems tools can be applied to a number of pressing policy and management problems. For example, simulations can be used to grow a number of robust hybrid industrial and/or technological strategies between cooperation and competition. Likewise, elements of international agreements could be tested for sustainability under adaptively evolving institutional designs. Other concrete applications include strategic management, total quality management, and operational analyses. This exploration of a wide range of technical tools and concepts will interest economists, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and those in the management disciplines such as strategy, organizational behavior, finance, and operations. Gregory A. Daneke is Professor of Technology Management, Arizona State University, and of Human and Organization Development, The Fielding Institute.

Download or read book From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities written by J. Barkley Rosser and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Learning in Chaos written by James Austin Hite and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1999 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Change is function characteristic of any organization. Hite explains how that organization can still adapt and grow by incorporating change into its structure instead of trying to control it.