Systemic Practice and Action Research最新文献

A systemic perspective is considered helpful when facing complex organizational challenges, but its practical implementation may be challenging. A potential effective method that facilitates the practical application of a systemic perspective may be the Systemic Constellation method. This method aims to raise individuals' awareness of their social context and to render explicit their tacit knowledge relating to this social context. In recent decades, consultants, coaches, and other professionals, worldwide, have adopted this method, acquired through self-education. However, thus far, this method received only little attention from the scientific community and scientific evidence on the effectiveness of the method is limited. There is currently almost no data on professionals using the Systemic Constellation method within organizations or on how and when they apply it. This lack of insights impedes its scientific evaluation and quality monitoring. We collected data from 273 professionals who use this method. Our results confirmed the existence of a diverse and growing international community. Respondents reported that the primary advantage of using this method is its perceived effectiveness. They felt that the method could benefit from a stronger scientific foundation. Our results shed light on a potentially effective and feasible method for applying a systemic perspective within organizations and suggest directions for future research.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11213-023-09642-2.

It is now widely accepted that many of the problems we face in public health are complex, from chronic disease to COVID-19. To grapple with such complexity, researchers have turned to both complexity science and systems thinking to better understand the problems and their context. Less work, however, has focused on the nature of complex solutions, or intervention design, when tackling complex problems. This paper explores the nature of system intervention design through case illustrations of system action learning from a large systems level chronic disease prevention study in Australia. The research team worked with community partners in the design and implementation of a process of system action learning designed to reflect on existing initiatives and to reorient practice towards responses informed by system level insights and action. We were able to observe and document changes in the mental models and actions of practitioners and in doing so shine a light on what may be possible once we turn our attention to the nature and practice of system interventions.

On the occasion of a growing popularity of paradox theory in management and organisation research, this article provides an introduction to the paradox of true distinctions, reports on its relevance to theory building, and presents a strategy to contain the paradox without resolving it. To this end, I draw on works by George Spencer Brown and Niklas Luhmann to contextualize theory within the paradox of observation in general and the paradox of scientific observation in particular. A special case of the paradox of scientific communication, paradox theory is then redefined as a scientific programme fascinated with the paradoxical nature of the basic operation of science. I conclude that further development work on the "source code" of science will provide "critical updates" on the opportunities and limits to metatheoretical extensions of theories of management, organisation, and society, including their digital transformation.

The performance evaluation models proposed in the scientific literature to support the decision-making process in the context of sustainability in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) present gaps with respect to the design process. In relation, to the management of environmental education in HEIs, there is an absence of decision support models. In this context, the objective of the research is to build a model for evaluating the performance of environmental education for an undergraduate course at a public university. It is a case study, with data collection through interviews with the Course Coordinator, complemented by questionnaires and documental analysis. The intervention instrument used was the Multicriteria Methodology for Decision Aiding-Constructivist (MCDA-C). The main results were explored showing the process of building a performance evaluation model, considering the singularity of the context, the flexibility in the elaboration process and interactivity with different stakeholders. Additionally, efforts were focused on the presentation of the final assessment model, demonstrating the potential of the MCDA-C methodology as a practical tool to support the decision-making process, and on the discussion of the model developed in relation to the literature reviewed. The model built allows the decision maker to understand the environmental education intertwined with the course, to assess the current situation and the desired end state, as well as the necessary actions for its management. In addition to the constructivist perspective, the model meets the Stakeholder Theory; explains the advantages, using participatory approach methodologies and performance indicators have characteristics of a functional system.