This book investigates the fundamental rethinking required by the transition to a production system whose guiding intelligence is self-organizing networks. Utilizing an exploding literature in the science of complexity and evolutionary economics, plus six detailed case studies of complex technologies that have experienced repeated innovation, this study identifies distinct innovation patterns and explores what happens when changes in these patterns occur. This volume also identifies the conditions that signal the approach of such changes and investigates the appropriate strategy and policy responses used to deal with them.

There is an increased interest in integrating insights from the complexity sciences to studies of governance and policy. While the issue has been debated, and the term of ‘complexity’ has multiple and sometimes contested interpretations, it is also clear the field has spurred a number of interesting theoretical and empirical efforts. The book includes key thinkers in the field, elaborates on different analytical approaches in studying governance, institutions and policy in the face of complexity, and showcases empirical applications and insights.

One striking feature of modern political and social development has been the construction of social systems encompassing more and more groups. The increase in social complexity, the authors of this volume contend, has reached a point where accepted concepts fail to describe social and political phenomena adequately. The studies in this book reevaluate traditional assumptions. Part One defines organized social complexity and discusses the effects of technological change. Part Two assesses national planning and systems analysis, approaches supposed to provide direct control over social matters. Part Three describes methodological aspects and research applications, and Part Four provides retrospective and prospective views of theories on social complexity. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Education for a viable future has never been more important than in our era of climate change, fake news, self-illusions, and political upheaval. Whether humanity will have a dignified future hangs in the balance. The urgency of finding sound solutions to a number of complex problems is obvious. We can’t really allow ourselves to get it wrong, but the temptation to fall for easy, convenient answers is considerable. This book focuses on emerging insights from various fields which allow us to collectively build evidence-based and wise solutions. This requires us to clarify how to arrive at a sound understanding of reality, which belief-systems and ideologies impede this understanding, and which issues need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We cannot solve the climate crisis or any other pressing problems besetting humanity by using mental models which are demonstrably flawed. We ignore important findings and insights in fields unfamiliar to us at our peril. Whatever our professional field, we need to self-critically reflect on the conclusions presented in this book in order to increase the quality and efficacy of our educational interventions for a better world.

For the first time, David Benjamin and David Komlos of Syntegrity share their cutting-edge, highly engaging step-by-step formula for cracking incredibly knotty and important challenges in mere days, while mobilizing those who must execute. Foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, #1 NY Times bestselling author, Thinkers50 - #1 Executive Coach and the only two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the World Complexity has met its match! Today, organizations are grappling with ambiguity, volatility and paradox surrounding the challenges they face. This is complexity. But too many leaders approach complexity the wrong way - they push their people harder and harder and tackle problems one at a time over months, sometimes even years, and nearly always in a linear fashion. It's like setting a pot of water on "low" and waiting for it to boil. To solve the seemingly intractable challenges that leaders bang their heads against for months - to get the metaphorical water to boil - you must generate a high amount of heat very quickly. In this book, the authors share their proven formula for dramatically shortening the process and solving an organization's toughest challenges in mere days.

Providing a critique of the ways that complexity theory has been applied to understanding organizations, and outining a new direction, this book calls for a radical re-examination of management thinking.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

A key aspect of cyber-physical systems (CPS) is their potential for integrating information technologies with embedded control systems and physical systems to form new or improved functionalities. CPS thus draws upon advances in many areas. This positioning provides unprecedented opportunities for innovation, both within and across existing domains. However, at the same time, it is commonly understood that we are already stretching the limits of existing methodologies. In embarking towards CPS with such unprecedented capabilities, it becomes essential to improve our understanding of CPS complexity and how we can deal with it. Complexity has many facets, including complexity of the CPS itself, of the environments in which the CPS acts, and in terms of the organizations and supporting tools that develop, operate, and maintain CPS. This book is a result of a journal Special Issue, with the objective of providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange their latest achievements and to identify critical issues, challenges, opportunities, and future directions for how to deal with the complexity of future CPS. The contributions include 10 papers on the following topics: (I) Systems and Societal Aspects Related to CPS and Their Complexity; (II) Model-Based Development Methods for CPS; (III) CPS Resource Management and Evolving Computing Platforms; and (IV) Architectures for CPS.

Offers a one-stop reference on the application of advanced modeling and simulation (M&S) in cyber physical systems (CPS) engineering This book provides the state-of-the-art in methods and technologies that aim to elaborate on the modeling and simulation support to cyber physical systems (CPS) engineering across many sectors such as healthcare, smart grid, or smart home. It presents a compilation of simulation-based methods, technologies, and approaches that encourage the reader to incorporate simulation technologies in their CPS engineering endeavors, supporting management of complexity challenges in such endeavors. Complexity Challenges in Cyber Physical Systems: Using Modeling and Simulation (M&S) to Support Intelligence, Adaptation and Autonomy is laid out in four sections. The first section provides an overview of complexities associated with the application of M&S to CPS Engineering. It discusses M&S in the context of autonomous systems involvement within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The second section provides a more detailed description of the challenges in applying modeling to the operation, risk and design of holistic CPS. The third section delves in details of simulation support to CPS engineering followed by the engineering practices to incorporate the cyber element to build resilient CPS sociotechnical systems. Finally, the fourth section presents a research agenda for handling complexity in application of M&S for CPS engineering. In addition, this text: Introduces a unifying framework for hierarchical co-simulations of cyber physical systems (CPS) Provides understanding of the cycle of macro-level behavior dynamically arising from spaciotemporal interactions between parts at the micro-level Describes a simulation platform for characterizing resilience of CPS Complexity Challenges in Cyber Physical Systems has been written for researchers, practitioners, lecturers, and graduate students in computer engineering who want to learn all about M&S support to addressing complexity in CPS and its applications in today’s and tomorrow’s world.

This book is about dealing with messes. Sometimes known as 'wicked problems', messes (or messy situations) are fairly easy to spot:it's hard to know where to startwe can't define them everything seems to connect to everything else and depends on something else having been done first we get in a muddle thinking about them we often try to ignore some aspect/s of themwhen we finally do something about them, they usually get worse they're so entangled that our first mistake is usually to try and fix them as we would fix a simple problem.