Issue: Human Society

Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition

Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition

Posted by | Sep 17, 2020 | |

Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

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Making Sense of the Organization

Making Sense of the Organization

Posted by | Sep 12, 2020 | |

This volume brings together the best-known and most influential articles on sensemaking in organizations by one of its most distinguished exponents, Karl Weick.

Brings together the best most influential articles written by one of the gurus of sensemaking – Karl Weick.
Helps readers develop a thorough understanding of the sensemaking process – essential for effective management.

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How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers and Project Teams

How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers and Project Teams

Posted by | Sep 12, 2020 | |

Every successful organization needs high-performance teams to compete and succeed. Yet, technical people are often resistant to traditional “touchy-feely” teambuilding.
To improve communication, performance, and morale among NASA’s technical teams, former NASA Astrophysicist Dr. Charlie Pellerin developed the teambuilding process described in “How NASA Builds Teams”—an approach that is proven, quantitative, and requires only a fraction of the time and resources of traditional training methods. This “4-D” process has boosted team performance in hundreds of NASA project teams, engineering teams, and management teams, including the people responsible for NASA’s most complex systems — the Space Shuttle, space telescopes, robots on Mars, and the mission back to the moon. How NASA Builds Teams explains how the 4-D teambuilding process can be applied in any organization, and includes a fast, free on-line behavioral assessment to help your team and the individual members understand each other and measure the key driver of team performance, the social context.

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Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations: Learning and Knowledge Creation

Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations: Learning and Knowledge Creation

Posted by | Sep 12, 2020 | |

The past decade has seen increasing focus on the importance of information and knowledge in economic and social processes, the so-called ‘knowledge economy’. This is reflected in the popularity amongst practicing managers and organizational theorists of notions of learning, sense-making, knowledge creation, knowledge management and intellectual capital in organizations and more recently, of emotional intelligence as an important management skill. This insightful book:

argues that the information processing view of knowledge creation held by systems thinkers is no longer tenable

develops the alternative perspective of Complex Responsive Processes of relating, drawing on the complexity sciences as a source for analogies with human action

places self-organizing interaction at the centre of the knowledge creating process in organizations.

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