The world of management is in crisis - the old remedies no longer work and organizations are failing at an increasing rate. Although many talk of 'joined up thinking', few offer practical guidance on how to achieve this in organizations. The Fractal Organization sets down the practical implications of a well tested systemic approach to building organizations that are capable of surviving and flourishing in these turbulent times. "An excellent read...Many organizations fail at the mercy of their own ignorance. The author has done an excellent job in making ‘the science of effective organization’ accessible to management, providing them with a new knowledge to deal with the uncertainties that the markets place upon them." Stephen J. Brewis, Business Architect, British Telecom "...one of the most interesting, thorough and rigorous guides to management that I have ever read, ... introduces new insights in every chapter... carries a credibility which acts as a counterbalance to the sometimes difficult message which he conveys which is that a lot of mainstream management practice is at best ineffective and at worst downright destructive. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in management or systems thinking." Penny Marrington, Course Chair, Systems Group, Open University "In my opinion this book manages to present sound academic theory that is relevant and helpful to the practitioner in the business. I experienced several A-HA moments." Pauline Marsh, Strategy Director, CS&S International, BAE SYSTEMS "The insights of the Viable System Model have been open only to a select few for much too long. Hoverstadt has gone furthest in bringing these ideas to a wider audience...Management books have too often been serious but not practical, or practical but not serious. This book is both brilliantly serious and practical, and often entertaining too." Professor Peter Kawalak, Manchester Business School "Integrates mainstream management ideas with the systems ideas underpinning the VSM, and flows and reads well. As a starting point for developing understanding of the VSM in today's world this book improves greatly on all books that have gone before, I would certainly recommend it to colleagues, clients, and students." Dr. Robin Asby, Course Chair, Communication and Systems, Open University

This book provides a theoretical basis to the arrangement of river basins and networks.

Patterns of Strategy shows how the strategic fit between organisations drives strategic direction. It is essential reading for those who wish to understand how to manoeuvre their organisation to change its strategic fit to their advantage. The 80 ‘patterns’ of strategy help you explore options for collaboration and competition within your strategic ecosystem. A practical and authoritative guide, you can use it to plan and navigate your strategic future.

The biggest challenge facing leaders today is the creation of organizations that are capable of surviving and flourishing in these uncertain times. How does one create an organization that is sustainable in the long run, how can organizations be ready for uncertainties that the markets place upon them, how can an organization be simply brilliant by design? This book leverages the proposed meta-theory for progressive organizational design and dynamics real-world reflections to create fractal-based sustainable enterprises of tomorrow. In this meta-theory all instances of organization, from the smallest, such as an idea or a person, to the largest, such as global markets and planet earth herself, are fractals: the essence of their way of being is repeated on scales both smaller and larger than themselves. There is however, a particular class of fractals, that of progress, of which The Fractal Ladder is an ever-present manifestation, which spawns organizations that are truly progressive and sustainable in nature. In the scheme of things this class of fractals is of critical importance, and to master its replication and to fully understand the impact it will have in creating sustainable and dynamic organizations is a practical necessity. Divided into three parts, Part I – Theory, will present the theory behind the Fractal Organization. Part II – Exercises, will translate key elements of the fractal-based world-view into practical activities and exercises at the personal and workplace levels. Part III – Reflections, will apply the basic logic of the sun-marked physical-vital-mental fractal to many practical problems and situations we are faced with daily to suggest ways to address them.

Creating Knowledge Based Organizations brings together high quality concepts and techniques closely related to organizational learning, knowledge workers, intellectual capital, and knowledge management. It includes the methodologies, systems and approaches that are needed to create and manage knowledge based organizations.

Fractals suggest recursivity, infinity and the repetition of a principle of order. They are digital pictures of the universe's continuous movement ignored by mankind during millennia. This book investigates the relationship existing between geometries and technology, and how it guided cognitive processes and thus the organization of narrative spaces. The author proposes a new approach for the study of media remarking that from Bacon's camera obscura to von Neumann's computers both geometries and technology strongly influenced the organization of narrative spaces, which acquired a fractal character.

A deeply detailed discussion of fractals in biology, heterogeneous chemistry, polymers, and the earth sciences. Beginning with a general introduction to fractal geometry it continues with eight chapters on self-organized criticality, rough surfaces and interfaces, random walks, chemical reactions, and fractals in chemisty, biology, and medicine. A special chapter entitled "Computer Exploration of Fractals, Chaos, and Cooperativity" presents computer demonstrations of fractal models: 14 programs are included on a 3 1/2" MS-DOS diskette which run on any PC with at least 1 MB RAM and a EGA or VGA graphics card, 16 colors.

The author describes the predicament of an industry which is coming under increasing pressure in the world market and is seeking new approaches to the challenges arising. Then, by drawing an analogy to the paradigm shift taking place in the natural sciences, he discerns the need for product engineering to similarly cast aside existing deterministic philosophies. Self-similarity, self-organization and dynamics are the principles from which the manufacturing corporation of the future, perceiving its identity as a service enterprise, will draw its models. Constant structural development and the maximum exploitation of staff potential will provide new ways of utilizing one's own strengths to best advantage. This insight creates a long-term perspective for retaining competitiveness in the twenty-first century.

Fractal Cities is the pioneering study of the development and use of fractal geometry for understanding and planning the physical form of cities, showing how this geometry enables cities to be simulated throughcomputer graphics. The book explains how the structure of cities evolve in ways which at first sight may appear irregular, but when understood in terms of fractals reveal a complex and diverse underlying order. The book includes numerous illustrations and 16 pages full-color plates of stunning computer graphics, along with explanations of how to construct them. The authors provide an accessible and thought-provoking introduction to fractal geometry, as well as an exciting visual understanding of the formof cities. This approach, bolstered by new insights into the complexity of social systems, provides one of the best introductions to fractal geometry available for non-mathematicians and social scientists. Fractal Cities is useful as a textbook for courses on geographic information systems, urban geography, regional science, and fractal geometry. Planners and architects will find that many aspects of fractal geometry covered in this book are relevant to their own interests. Those involved in fractals and chaos, computer graphics, and systems theory will also find important methods and examples germane to their work. Michael Batty is Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and analysis in the State University of New York at Buffalo, and has worked in planning theory and urban modeling. Paul Longley is a lecturer in geography at the University of Bristol, and is involved in the development of geographic information systems in urban policy analysis. Richly illustrated, including 16 pages of full-color plates of brilliant computer graphics Provides an introduction to fractal geometry for the non-mathematician and social scientist Explains the influence of fractals on the evolution of the physical form of cities

na broad sense Design Science is the grammar of a language of images Irather than of words. Modern communication techniques enable us to transmit and reconstitute images without needing to know a specific verbal sequence language such as the Morse code or Hungarian. International traffic signs use international image symbols which are not specific to any particular verbal language. An image language differs from a verbal one in that the latter uses a linear string of symbols, whereas the former is multi dimensional. Architectural renderings commonly show projections onto three mutual ly perpendicular planes, or consist of cross sections at different altitudes capa ble of being stacked and representing different floor plans. Such renderings make it difficult to imagine buildings comprising ramps and other features which disguise the separation between floors, and consequently limit the cre ative process of the architect. Analogously, we tend to analyze natural struc tures as if nature had used similar stacked renderings, rather than, for instance, a system of packed spheres, with the result that we fail to perceive the system of organization determining the form of such structures. Perception is a complex process. Our senses record; they are analogous to audio or video devices. We cannot, however, claim that such devices perceive.