Communication and sustainability science teams as complex systems

Sustainability of Information and Communication Systems (ICS)

Sustainability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is one of the main goals of today. The SAP AG phrases this task in the following way: “SAP is committed to improving its own operations to become more sustainable and to delivering customer solutions to improve sustainability on a grand scale.” (SAP AG 2009) Sustainability is first of all related with aspects of economic, enviro...

Design Teams , Complex Systems and Uncertainty

The design process can be viewed as a series of actions for reducing uncertainty in product or system design specifications. At the beginning of the design process, the uncertainty is high because the design space has yet to be explored and decisions have not been made. This uncertainty contributes to design risk, risk due to the engineer’s lack of knowledge and/or information. In design teams,...

Ecological Systems as Complex Systems: Challenges for an Emerging Science

Complex systems science has contributed to our understanding of ecology in important areas such as food webs, patch dynamics and population fluctuations. This has been achieved through the use of simple measures that can capture the difference between order and disorder and simple models with local interactions that can generate surprising behaviour at larger scales. However, close examination ...

Virtual Teams as Sociotechnical Systems

In this chapter, we adopt a sociotechnical systems approach to understand the challenges faced by members of an organizational unit that is not constrained by geographical, temporal, organizational, or national boundaries. Specifically, we examine virtual team performance within the context of an open sociotechnical system, highlighting the effects that the technological subsystem (e.g., collab...

Responding to Communication Challenges in Transdisciplinary Sustainability Science