Overview
- Provides a framework for understanding and doing systems thinking in practice
- Presents examples of different forms of systems thinking in practice
- Builds a case for investment in systems thinking in practice capability based on societal need
- Contains extensive footnotes pointing to the sources and evidence of the authors' claims
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Thinking and Acting Differently
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Front Matter
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Systems Practice as Juggling
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Front Matter
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Systemic Practices
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Front Matter
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Valuing Systems Practice in a Climate-Change World
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Systems Practice: How to Act is
structured into four parts. Part I introduces the societal need to invest in systems thinking in practice, in contexts of uncertainty and complexity epitomised by the challenges of responding to human-induced climate change. Part II unpacks what is involved in systems practice by means of a juggler isophor; examining situations where systems thinking offers useful understanding and opportunities for change. Part III identifies the main factors that constrain the uptake of systems practice and makes the case for innovation in practice by means of systemic inquiry, systemic action research and systemic intervention. The book concludes with Part IV, which critically examines how systems practice is, or might be, utilised at different levels from the personal to the societal.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
​Ray Ison, Professor of Systems at The Open University (OU) in the UK since 1994, is a member of the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice (ASTiP) Group in the STEM Faculty. With colleagues, he has made pioneering contributions to Systems education (a field he chooses to call ‘cybersystemics’), at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has an established international reputation as a researcher, teacher, author and consultant, has led major change management projects, and held (or holds) significant international leadership positions in the cybersystemics field (e.g. President of ISSS 2014-15). His research and scholarship is focused on the presence or absence of systemic relations between the social and ecological, or what he terms ‘systemic governance’. In 2008, he established the Systemic Governance Research Program within the Sustainability Institute at Monash University, Australia which he led till 2015. Prior to joining the OU he worked in Australia at the
Universities of Sydney and Western Sydney (Hawkesbury).Professor Ray Ison is regular keynote speaker at national and international conferences and is frequently invited to run workshops. As well as publishing numerous journal papers, he has edited or co-edited nine journal special editions and co-authored or co-edited four books including: Cow up a Tree. Knowledge and Learning for Change in Agriculture: Case studies from industrial countries (2000); Agricultural Extension and Rural Development: Breaking out of Knowledge Transfer Traditions (2007) and Agronomy of Grassland Systems (1997).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Systems Practice: How to Act
Book Subtitle: In situations of uncertainty and complexity in a climate-change world
Authors: Ray Ison
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9
Publisher: Springer London
eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)
Copyright Information: The Open University 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4471-7350-2Published: 24 August 2017
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4471-7351-9Published: 10 August 2017
Edition Number: 2
Number of Pages: XX, 354
Number of Illustrations: 58 b/w illustrations, 3 illustrations in colour
Topics: Computer Appl. in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Computers and Society, Management of Computing and Information Systems, Environmental Management