Sustainable Self-Governance in Businesses and Society

Sustainable Self-Governance in Businesses and Society

Author: Angela Espinosa

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-12-19

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0429956088

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Sustainable Self-Governance in Businesses and Society offers a sound introduction to Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) and clarifies its relevance to support organisational sustainability and self-governance. While the VSM has been known since the early 1980s, it hasn’t been always easy to understand and to apply. It explains the self-transformation methodology to analyse the way organisations manage (or not) their complexity and govern themselves. The work is supported by multiple examples of application in organisations of all scales – from small to multi-national corporations and from organised social networks to communities and national organisations. It clarifies the relevance of Beer’s theory to support systemic learning and change in organisations, and to coach them to self-organise and self-govern. Readers interested in further understanding insights from complex systems and cybernetics theories for designing and transforming organisations will benefit from this book, as it works to offer very detailed insights on how to put the VSM theory into practice. It clarifies how it improves adaptive capabilities, agile and self-regulated structures, more capable of fully implementing corporate sustainability strategies and self-governing themselves. The chapters provide key reading for managers, consultants, practitioners, and post-graduate students working in organisational transformation, governance, and sustainability.


A Complexity Approach to Sustainability

A Complexity Approach to Sustainability

Author: Angela Espinosa

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1848165277

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A major challenge of our times is to understand and manage the increasing complexity of socio-economic reality. This has immediate relevance for sustainable development. The impact of recent contributions from systems and complexity sciences in addressing this issue has not filtered down into effective practice ? notably, there remain problems caused by the legacy of competing paradigms and the application of their associated methodologies. This book argues the urgency for the application of analytical tools that embody the principles of complexity management. The authors describe a theoretical framework based on complexity science with a focus on organisational and second order cybernetics, one that presents a powerful new insight into the concept of sustainability. The book also describes actual applications of the ideas in the area of organisational, societal and environmental management, and reflects upon the impact of such an approach on current practice.


Governance and Business Models for Sustainable Capitalism

Governance and Business Models for Sustainable Capitalism

Author: Atle Midttun

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-20

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1315454912

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Governance and Business Models for Sustainable Capitalism touches upon many of the central themes of today’s debate on business and society. In particular, it brings attention to a recurrent tension between efficiency, innovation, and productivity on the one hand, and fairness, equity, and sustainability on the other. The book argues that we need radical rethinking of business models and economic governance, beyond the classical doctrine, which sees social and ecological responsibility as lying with public-policy regulation of purely profit-seeking firms. In spite of the popular CSR agenda, business – as we know it today – is both too transient and too limited in its motivation to carry the regulatory burden. We need to adopt a much wider concept of 'partnered governance', where advanced states and pioneering companies work together to raise the social and environmental bar. The book suggests that civil engagements based on moral rather than formal rights, and amplified through the media, may provide a healthy challenge both to autocratic planning and to solely profit-centered commercialization. The book also proposes a triple cycle theory of innovation for sustainability: a novel framing of the efficacy of green and prosocial entrepreneurship as intertwined with political visions and supportive institutions. In addition, the book offers reflections on the ways in which further digital robotizaton may enable transition to an ‘Agora Economy’ where productive efficiency is combined with expanded civic freedoms. Aimed primarily at researchers, academics, and students in the fields of political economy, business and society, corporate governance, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability, the book will additionally be of value to practitioners, supplying them with information regarding the challenges associated with the shaping of sustainable or ‘civilised’ market capitalism for a better world.


Critical Systems Thinking

Critical Systems Thinking

Author: Michael C. Jackson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2024-07-11

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1394203578

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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 methodologies has become a potential liability. Critical systems thinking (CST) shows how this diversity can be a strength rather than a weakness by revealing how different systems methodologies address various aspects of complexity and how they can be used in combination to resolve the messiest of wicked problems. Critical Systems Thinking: A Practitioner’s Guide offers, in a single volume, an account of the value of systems thinking and CST in the modern world, an explanation of the pragmatic philosophy and expansion in mindset necessary to embrace CST, and detailed instructions on how to undertake critical systems practice (CSP) using the variety of systems approaches to navigate multi-dimensional complexity. Readers will find: An accessible introduction to systems thinking and CST. A description and critique of the best-known systems methodologies. A guide to the mindset changes, the steps required, and the toolkit necessary to undertake successful CSP. Case studies and examples of CSP. A discussion of the nature of systemic leadership. Critical Systems Thinking: A Practitioner’s Guide is ideal for leaders and managers in government, business, the public sector, the professions, and beyond who want to understand the potential of systems thinking and use it in their work. It is essential for systems researchers and practitioners who want a deeper understanding of the field.


Business and Sustainability

Business and Sustainability

Author: Achim Lang

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-09-01

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 3319072390

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Demands for sustainability policies have set new challenges for business both on the individual firm level and on the level of organized business interests. This edited volume brings together economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions of sustainability that comprise different challenges for business processes and activities. The aim is to develop an overarching framework to the study of sustainability and business and to advance an interdisciplinary analytical perspective. The book establishes a balanced account that equally represents business as problem causers as well as problem solvers, and therefore responds to the urgent need to investigate the intersection between sustainability issues and business participation.


Environmental and Natural Resources Economics

Environmental and Natural Resources Economics

Author: Steven Hackett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-18

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 1317471288

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Extensively revised and updated, this popular text presents an accessible yet rigorous treatment of environmental and natural resources economics, including climate change and the economics of sustainability. Completely revised and updated, the fourth edition now includes new figures and tables, definitions to assist the reader, and updated policy information. New advances in the science, economics and policy approaches to climate change have been integrated into essentially all-new chapters on incentive regulation and global climate change. This innovative textbook integrates economics with science and public policy in a balanced and accessible way that will be appreciated by students from disciplines ranging from economics and natural resources management to environmental studies and energy policy.


The Elgar Companion to Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals

The Elgar Companion to Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals

Author: Karla A. Boluk

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2024-07-05

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1802203214

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This Elgar Companion comprises theoretical, empirical, and conceptual chapters from leading international scholars reflecting on critical debates on the role of tourism in progressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during a polycrisis era.


Partnerships, Governance and Sustainable Development

Partnerships, Governance and Sustainable Development

Author: P. Glasbergen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1847208665

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. . . this is a book to read for anybody who wants a good overview of ongoing research on environmental partnerships in public administration, business administration, political science and sociology. Thomas Sikor, Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences The profit of this book is the well-proportioned mixture of theoretical reflections . . . and empirical findings, mostly presented in the form of case studies. . . the volume offers a well-structured and recommendable account of the current state of governance and partnerships in the field of sustainable development. Thomas Krumm, Political Studies Review This well-structured volume brings together a group of leading experts on an important emerging topic of global and local environmental policy. The book is highly recommended for every student and scholar in the field of environmental governance. Martin Jänicke, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Partnerships have emerged as a critical best practice in the pursuit of sustainability. Glasbergen, Biermann and Mol s book explores the partnership issue from a variety of empirical and theoretical perspectives highlighting how to understand them and what (not) to do. Highly recommended. Daniel C. Esty, Yale University, US This significant study discusses the emergence of partnerships for sustainable development as an innovative, and potentially influential, new type of governance. With contributions from leading experts in the field, the partnership paradigm is discussed and the contributors explore the process, extent and circumstances under which partnerships can improve the legitimacy and effectiveness of governance for sustainable development. Scientific research on partnerships within the context of governance theory is fairly new, and there is a clear need to systemize a knowledge base to further define the international research agenda. In addition, there is an urgent demand from governments and international organizations, as well as from non-governmental actors, for strategic insights to build upon their activities in this field. This book is designed to address the questions, debates and agendas related to this new mode of governance. This multi-disciplinary book brings together unique perspectives from organizational theory, policy science, sociology and political science. As such, it will be warmly welcomed by academics of environmental policy and politics as well as scholars and researchers interested in governance for sustainable development. It will also appeal to public policy scholars.


Complexity Approach To Sustainability, A: Theory And Application (Second Edition)

Complexity Approach To Sustainability, A: Theory And Application (Second Edition)

Author: Angela Espinosa

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2017-03-23

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 1786342057

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Business sustainability and sustainable development are of great importance in modern-day socio-economic study. Despite this, the impact of recent contributions from systems and complexity sciences in addressing these issues has not yet filtered down into effective practice. This book argues that there is a need for urgency in the application of analytical tools which embody the principles of complexity management in sustainability research, in particular in the context of the global climate change. The approach presented is based on the concept of clusters of whole systems coming together through collaboration, in order to create larger wholes capable of dealing with the issues facing our socio-economic environmental systems.In this updated second edition, the authors further clarify the viability and sustainability (V&S) approach, and the criteria and framework needed for sustainable governance. It includes a more detailed perspective on the implications of the V&S approach to businesses and networks towards changes in structure, strategy and processes, inspired by specific case studies. Key additions include a criteria for designing more viable and sustainable self-governed organizations, the methodologies and tools to design and implement self-transformations towards sustainability, and how these tools support sustainability management individually and globally, for businesses and society.


Environmental and Natural Resources Economics

Environmental and Natural Resources Economics

Author: Steven C. Hackett

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780765601094

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Integrating aspects of philosophy, political science, and some environmental science, this text provides a multidisciplinary approach to environmental economics and natural resources policy. Included is a chapter on value systems and the role of ethics.