A praxeology is outlined for stakeholder responsibility and response-ability in natural resource management. It is argued that capacity building in systems practice, involving systemic inquiry and the design of learning systems, is central to this praxeology. The research reported is a response to a perceived need by natural resource managers and researchers to think about their thinking and to...

Science begins with the question, what do I want to know? Science becomes science, however, only when this question is justified and the appropriate methodology is chosen for answering the research question. Research question should precede the other questions; methods should be chosen according to the research question and not vice versa. Modern quantitative psychology has accepted method as p...

Organizational problem spaces can be viewed as complex, uncertain and ambiguous. They can also be understood as open problem spaces. As such, any engagement with them, and any effort to intervene in order to pursue desirable change, cannot be assumed to be just a matter of ‘complicatedness’. The issue is not just a need to cope with dynamics of system. It is also the perceptual ‘boundedness’ of...

The concept of strategic sourcing recognizes that procurement is not just a cost function, but supports the firm’s effort to achieve its long-term objectives. Organizations more and more expect from their chief procurement officer (CPO) to develop long-term and short-term plans in procurement. Typically, however, procurement is driven by a tactical spend management sourcing process aimed at cos...

The field of health and social care in the UK has been very receptive to systemic thinking in recent years and has been extensively and successfully modelled. This paper describes two trends in health care thinking in the UK which build upon this receptivity and are creating market pulls for whole systems ideas. These are the related areas of health needs analysis and service-line reporting, tw...