Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Chaos/complexity theory'

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2004.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The question of what it means to say one knows something, or has knowledge of something, triggered an epistemological study after the nature of knowledge and its acquisition. There are many different ways in which one can go about acquiring knowledge, manydifferent frameworks that one can use to search after truth. Because most real systems about which one could desire knowledge (organic, social, economic etc.) are non-linear, an understanding of non-linear systems is important for the process of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge exhibits the characteristics of a dynamic, adaptive system, and as such could be approached via a dynamic theory of adaptive systems. Therefore, chaos theory and complexity theory are two theoretical (non-linear) frameworks that can facilitate the knowledge acquisition process. As a modernist instrument for acquiring knowledge, chaos theory provides one with deterministic rules that make mathematical understanding of non-linear phenomenaa bit easier, but it is limited in that it can only provide one with certain knowledge up until the (system's) next bifurcation (i.e. when chaos sets in). After this, it is near impossible to predict what a chaotic system will do. Complexity theory, as a postmodern tool for knowledge acquisition, gives one insight into the dynamic, self-organising nature of the non-linear systems around one. By analysing the global stability complex systems produce during punctuated equilibrium, one can learn much about how these systems adapt, evolve and survive. Complexity and chaos, therefore, together can provide one with a useful framework for understanding the nature and workings of non-linear systems. However, it should be remembered that every observer of knowledge does so out of his/her own personal framework of beliefs, circumstances and history, and that knowledge therefore can never be 100 percent objective. Knowledge and truth can never be entirely relative either, however, for this would mean that all knowledge (and thereby all opposing claims and statements) is equally correct or true. This is clearly not possible. What is possible, though, is the fulfilling and successful pursuit of knowledge for the sake of the journey of learning and understandi ng.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die vraag na wat dit eintlik beteken om te sê mens weet iets, of dra kennis van iets, het na 'n epistemologiese soeke na die wese van kennis en die verwerwing daarvan toe gelei. Daar is baie maniere waarop mens kennis kan verwerf, baie verskillende raamwerke wat mens kan gebruik om te soek na waarheid. Omdat die meeste wesenlike stelsels waarvan mens kennis sou wou verkry (organies, sosiaal, ekonomies ens.) nie-lineêr is, is 'n verstaan van nie-lineêre stelsels belangrik vir die kennisverwerwingsproses. Kennis vertoon die eienskappe van I n dinamiese, aanpassende stelsel, en kan dus via 'n dinamiese teorie van aanpassendestelsels benader word. Daarom is chaosteorie en kompleksiteitsteorie twee teoretiese (nie-lineêre) raamwerke wat die proses van kennisverwerwing kan vergemaklik. As I n modernistiese instrument vir kennisverwerwing, verskaf chaosteorie deterministiese reëls wat die wiskundige verstaan van nie-lineêre verskynsels bietjie vergemaklik, maar dit is beperk deurdat dit net sekere kennis tot op die (stelsel se) volgende splitsing (d.w.s. waar chaos begin) verskaf. Hierna, word dit naasonmoontlik om te voorspel wat I n chaotiese stelsel gaandoen. Kompleksiteitsteorie, as I n postmodernistiese gereedskap vir kennisverwerwing, gee mens insig in die dinamiese, selforganiserende aard van die nie-lineêre stelsels om mens. Deur die globale stabiliteit wat komplekse stelsels gedurende onderbreekte ewewig ("punctuated equi/ibrium"}toon te analiseer, kan mens baie leer van hoe hierdie stelsels aanpas, ontwikkel en oorleef. Kompleksiteit en chaos, saam, kan mens dus van a nuttige raamwerk vir die verstaan van die wese en werkinge van nie-lineêre stelsels, voorsien. Daar moet egter onthou word dat elke waarnemer van kennis dit doen uit sy/haar persoonlike raamwerk van oortuiginge, omstandighede en geskiedenis, en dat kennis dus nooit 100 persent objektief kan wees nie. Kennis en waarheid kan egter ook nooit heeltemaal relatief wees nie, want dit sou beteken dat alle kennis (en hiermee ook alle teenstrydige aansprake en stellings) gelyk korrek of waar is. Hierdie is duidelik onmoontlik. Wat wel moontlik is, is die vervullende en suksesvolle strewe na kennis ter wille van die reis van leer en verstaan.

In this master thesis two different worldviews are compared: a mechanistic, and an organic worldview. The way we think the world and the nature work reflects on how we think organizations work, or how they ought to work. The mechanistic worldview has dominated our way of thinking since the seventeenth century, and it compares the world with a machine. The organic worldview could use a number of different metaphors, but the one addressed in this thesis is complexity theory. Complexity theory is related to chaos theory and is concerned with complex adaptive systems (cas). Complex adaptive systems exist everywhere and are systems such as the human immune system, economies, and ecosystems. What complexity theory tries to do is to understand these systems—how they arise, how they function and how order emerge in them. When looking at complex adaptive systems you can’t just look at the different parts. You must take a more holistic view and look at the whole and the interaction of the parts. If you just look at the parts you will miss the emergent properties that have emerged as the system has self-organized. One prominent aspect of these systems is that they don’t have any central authority, but somehow order do arise. In relation to organizations, complexity theory has something to say about almost all aspects of organizations: from what kind of leadership is needed, and how teams should be organized to the physical structure of the organization. To understand what complexity theory is and how to relate that to (software developing) organizations is the main focus of this thesis. Scrum is an agile and lightweight process which can be applied on development projects in general, but have been used in such diverse examples as software development projects, marketing programs, and business process reengineering (BPR) initiatives. In this thesis Scrum is used as an example of how to apply complexity theory to organizations. The result of the thesis showed that Scrum is highly influenced and compatible with complexity theory, which implies that complexity theory is of some use in software development. However, there are more work to be done to determine how effective it is, how to introduce it into organizations, and to explore more specific implementations. This master thesis should give the reader a good understanding of what complexity theory is, some specific issues to consider when applying complexity theory on organizations, and some specific examples of how to apply complexity theory on organizations.

Strategic decision-making is a fundamental process in business management as strategic decisions affect the long-term health of the organisation. However, a constantly and unpredictably changing business environment, becoming progressively more complex as time passes makes strategy formulation increasingly difficult. Shock events such as terrorist attacks, rapidly spreading communicable diseases, and unexpected business failures of large and well-established companies greatly affect organisations by making it difficult to effectively plan for the future. This thesis contributes to the strategic decision-making literature by investigating the role of shock events in a complex system, namely strategic decision-making. Using chaos/complexity theory as an intellectual platform this thesis argues that strategic decision-making is a complex, open, dynamic and non-linear system and that shock events can represent an opportunity in strategic decision-making. A number of contemporary writers are calling for more integrated models. In response this research proposes a generic and integrative framework that highlights the complexity of strategic decision-making and its processes. The research is qualitative and a single-case study approach was chosen, examining the decision-making processes in a large Australian regional airport. Data collection was triangulated, consisting mainly of in-depth interviews with executives but also included questionnaires, and quantitative and qualitative archival data. It was found that shock events influenced strategic decision-making by causing evolutionary changes in the strategic decision-making processes. In addition it was found that shock events impacted on internal drivers such as cognition and organisational culture. The shock event was perceived as an opportunity, which resulted in changing decision-making processes a change in business strategy. It was concluded that environmental perception, intuition and an opportunity-seeking culture can play an important part in strategic decision-making following a shock event.

Strategic decision-making is a fundamental process in business management as strategic decisions affect the long-term health of the organisation. However, a constantly and unpredictably changing business environment, becoming progressively more complex as time passes makes strategy formulation increasingly difficult. Shock events such as terrorist attacks, rapidly spreading communicable diseases, and unexpected business failures of large and well-established companies greatly affect organisations by making it difficult to effectively plan for the future. This thesis contributes to the strategic decision-making literature by investigating the role of shock events in a complex system, namely strategic decision-making. Using chaos/complexity theory as an intellectual platform this thesis argues that strategic decision-making is a complex, open, dynamic and non-linear system and that shock events can represent an opportunity in strategic decision-making. A number of contemporary writers are calling for more integrated models. In response this research proposes a generic and integrative framework that highlights the complexity of strategic decision-making and its processes. The research is qualitative and a single-case study approach was chosen, examining the decision-making processes in a large Australian regional airport. Data collection was triangulated, consisting mainly of in-depth interviews with executives but also included questionnaires, and quantitative and qualitative archival data. It was found that shock events influenced strategic decision-making by causing evolutionary changes in the strategic decision-making processes. In addition it was found that shock events impacted on internal drivers such as cognition and organisational culture. The shock event was perceived as an opportunity, which resulted in changing decision-making processes a change in business strategy. It was concluded that environmental perception, intuition and an opportunity-seeking culture can play an important part in strategic decision-making following a shock event.
Thesis (Masters)
Master of Philosophy (MPhil)
Griffith Business School
Griffith Business School
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This dissertation examines the nexus of complexity theory and peace education and its implications for developing educational praxis that engages with the demands of global complexity. In this thesis, I argue that as societies become more globalized and complex (global complexity) there is an onus upon education to adapt its methods so people can understand the workings of these processes better and further develop the ethical and creative resources needed for responding to system dynamics effectively. My central thesis is that the most appropriate way to do this is to use methods that are congruent with the subject matter of global complexity - that is to align one's pedagogy with one's subject area. This dissertation therefore investigates the situated and contingent responses of peace educators working in the field to the challenges and opportunities that arise when attempting to adapt to local/global dynamics. It utilizes ethnography, narrative inquiry, and autoethnography and draws its data from interviews with over 50 educators in India, Japan, and the US. This research demonstrates that when engaging with global complexity, peace educators adapt both their ontological understanding and methodological orientation in ways congruent at times with the insights of complexity theory. While this understanding can be at odds with mass educational methodologies, this tension also is a touchstone for peace educator's creative formulation of novel praxis in response to the demands of global complexity. This dissertation thus examines some of the possibilities for learning within complex knowledge production systems and highlights the need for further research into the dynamics and processes at play within global educational 'networks'.

This research explores the idea of complexity for the express purpose of contributing to and expanding upon the lexicons of Art and Design. This exploration of complexity is undertaken by questioning a sensorial response to complex form, particularly through touch. The question in plain terms is, do we like to touch simple things or complex things? Touch is of course but one aspect of the suite of haptic senses, so proprioceptive, vestibular, and kinaesthetic senses are addressed, as is the deep and intertwined relationship between hapticity and sight. The research methodology is practice-led and has encompassed the methods of action research and participant study. I offer that the primary contributions to research are in the method of dialogue between creative practitioner and fractal algorithms expressed through novel technical methods of procedure explored and conveyed through object and through analysis in this thesis.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Queensland College of Art
Arts, Education and Law
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This thesis examines the utility of mathematical complexity measures for the analysis of stratospheric dynamics. Through theoretical considerations and tests with artificial data sets, e.g., the iteration of the logistic map, suitable parameters are determined for the application of the statistical entropy measures sample entropy (SE) and Rényi entropy (RE) to methane (a long-lived stratospheric tracer) data from simulations of the SOCOL chemistry-climate model. The SE is shown to be useful for quantifying the variability of recurring patterns in a time series and is able to identify tropical patterns similar to those reported by previous studies of the ``tropical pipe'' region. However, the SE is found to be unsuitable for use in polar regions, due to the non-stationarity of the methane data at extra-tropical latitudes. It is concluded that the SE cannot be used to analyse climate complexity on a global scale. The focus is turned to the RE, which is a complexity measure of probability distribution functions (PDFs). Using the second order RE and a normalisation factor, zonal PDFs of ten consecutive days of methane data are created with a Bayesian optimal binning technique. From these, the RE is calculated for every day (moving 10-day window). The results indicate that the RE is a promising tool for identifying stratospheric mixing barriers. In Southern Hemisphere winter and early spring, RE produces patterns similar to those found in other studies of stratospheric mixing. High values of RE are found to be indicative of the strong fluctuations in tracer distributions associated with relatively unmixed air in general, and with gradients in the vicinity of mixing barriers, in particular. Lower values suggest more thoroughly mixed air masses. The analysis is extended to eleven years of model data. Realistic inter-annual variability of some of the RE structures is observed, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. By calculating a climatological mean of the RE for this period, additional mixing patterns are identified in the Northern Hemisphere. The validity of the RE analysis and its interpretation is underlined by showing that qualitatively similar patterns can be seen when using observational satellite data of a different tracer. Compared to previous techniques, the RE has the advantage that it requires significantly less computational effort, as it can be used to derive dynamical information from model or measurement tracer data without relying on any additional input such as wind fields. The results presented in this thesis strongly suggest that the RE is a useful new metric for analysing stratospheric mixing and its variability from climate model data. Furthermore, it is shown that the RE measure is very robust with respect to data gaps, which makes it ideal for application to observations. Hence, using the RE for comparing observations of tracer distributions with those from model simulations potentially presents a novel approach for analysing mixing in the stratosphere.

A proposta da tese é contribuir para um melhor entendimento das organizações por meio da utilização de conceitos da teoria da Complexidade e Caos. Entendendo a organização como um sistema adaptativo complexo, busca-se, através de aspectos relacionados à conectividade, interdependência e diversidade, a identificação de padrões de estrutura organizacional em empresas brasileiras. Foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória a partir de bases de dados de 417 empresas, 118 mil de seus funcionários, de 22 setores de atividades diferentes que se candidatam ao prêmio de \"Melhores Empresas para se Trabalhar\", organizado pela FIA - Fundação Instituto de Administração e Você S/A. Para análise foram utilizadas técnicas diversas de mineração de dados, de escalonamento multidimensional e desenvolvidos algoritmos para o delineamento de formações gráficas da amplitude de controle e rotinas para análise da estrutura de tarefas e da tensão adaptativa entre objetivos individuais e da organização. Os resultados da pesquisa revelaram que foram identificados padrões relacionados à conectividade e interdependência interna. Especificamente, observou-se também que fatores como a amplitude de controle e tensão adaptativa entre objetivos pessoais e organizacionais também manifestaram a emergência de padrões estruturais, independente do setor de atividade.
The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a better understanding of organizations through the use of the concepts of the Chaos and Complexity theory. Assuming the organization as a complex adaptive system, it aims to identify patterns of organizational structure in Brazilian companies through connectivity, interdependence and diversity organizational aspects. The study entails an exploratory research in databases in 417 companies (22 economic sectors) and 118 thousands employees that applied for the award of the best companies to work for (Melhores Empresas para se Trabalhar) organized by FIA - Fundação Instituto de Administração and Você S/A. In the analysis it was used data mining techniques, multidimensional scaling and algorithms developed for the design of graphical formations, the span of control, structure and tasks and the adaptive tension between individual goals and the ones found in organizations where the employee works at. The results of the study point to patterns identified and related to organizational characteristics that denote the internal connectivity and interdependence. Structural patterns on information from different economic sectors companies were identified and related to factors such as span of control and adaptive tension between individual goals and perceived characteristics in organizations.

Este estudo aborda a aplicação da teoria do caos e complexidade à gestão das cadeias de suprimentos. Seu objetivo consiste em responder a questão orientadora da pesquisa, se a teoria do caos e complexidade pode enriquecer o entendimento e compreensão da gestão das cadeias de suprimentos. A fim de contextualizar essa discussão, este trabalho procurou resgatar alguns dos principais autores e conceitos do processo de mudança da visão do determinismo clássico científico do século XIX para as novas abordagens não determinísticas dos séculos XX e XXI, em especial o surgimento e consolidação da abordagem não linear da teoria do caos e complexidade. O método de pesquisa utilizado foi o estudo de caso, o qual focou uma rede brasileira de franquias empresariais do setor de perfumaria e cosméticos. A análise dos resultados obtidos sugere evidências de que, pelo menos parcialmente, a teoria do caos e complexidade pode sim enriquecer e ser relevante para a compreensão da gestão das cadeias de suprimentos.
This study approaches the use of theory of chaos and complexity on supply chain management. Its purpose consists on answering the main research question, whether the theory of chaos and complexity can contribute to enlarge the understanding of supply chain management. In order to contextualize the discussion, the dissertation sake to disclaim the main authors and concepts of the process that changed the 19th century vision of the classic determinism to the 20th and 21st centuries non deterministic approaches with focus on the raise and consolidation of the chaos and complexity theory non linear approach. The research method used was the case study with focus on a Brazilian franchising company of perfumes and cosmetics. The results analysis suggests evidence that, at least in some aspects, theory of chaos and complexity can indeed be relevant to the understanding of supply chain management.

Les années soixante ont laissé libre expression aux pionniers d’une musique nouvelle — leurs expérimentations et l’avènement de la musique électroacoustique ont fait apparaître d’innombrables formes et théories qui ont définitivement changé les fondements du langage de la musique savante et la façon dont on l’aborde. Face à la musique contemporaine on se trouve dans une impasse quand on cherche à expliquer, par une démarche analytique classique, les interactions complexes de cette musique qui produisent des formes et des sons inédits. Nous cherchons à éviter cette impasse en nous appuyant sur une méthodologie innovante fondée sur les théories de la systémique, approche adoptée par les sciences contemporaines parce qu’elle donne priorité au qualitatif sur le quantitatif. Appliquée à une œuvre qui intègre les éléments électroacoustiques en interaction avec les instruments traditionnels, cette méthodologie nous permet de dégager et d’expliquer les processus qui permettent au compositeur d’intervenir à l’intérieur même du son et de créer les illusions et les paradoxes sonores, autrement dit, les émergents. L’objet de cette analyse sera l’approche de la composition de Gérard Pape, artiste singulier, pour lequel, l’énergie musicale est une force transcendante. Sa vision innovante de la composition contemporaine intègre la notion d’émergence dans une écriture complexe et dynamique. Les paradoxes sonores frappent l’auditeur alors qu’ils échappent en partie à l’écriture de la partition. Nous cherchons à dégager les éléments définis par la partition au regard des effets dits « émergents » produits par l’interrelation dynamique de ces éléments. En utilisant la systémique comme approche d’analyse musicale, nous voulons développer une approche transversale qui permet de souligner l’apparition de structures et de propriétés nouvelles, proches de celles du vivant. Par elles, l’écriture musicale explose pour aller, comme en témoigne l’œuvre de Gérard Pape, de l’harmonie au chaos
The free expression of the sixties gave rise to a generation of pioneers that we now call the avant-garde. The arrival of electroacoustic music fuelled their experimentation and as a result, numerous new musical genres and theories appeared which have not only changed the language of music at a fundamental level, but have also redefined the ways we perceive it. Contemporary music now finds itself confronted by an analytical dilemma. The limits of a traditional approach simply don’t take into account the complex interactions in this music that are responsible for its unusual forms and original sounds. We hope to resolve this dilemma by integrating an innovative methodology based on systems theory, a scientific approach that takes into account the qualitative aspects of scientific problems, reason for which it has gained momentum over the past thirty years. By applying this approach to a musical work we aim to develop a methodology that will permit us to explain the process by which the composer intervenes at the molecular level of sound and thus creates illusions and musical paradoxes, which we might consider emergent effects. The objective of this analysis is to gain an understanding of Gerard Pape’s particular musical approach, for whom musical energy seems to be a transcendental force. His innovative musical vision engages the principles of emergence in the dynamic complexity of his writing. Sonic paradoxes strike the listener but are less evident to transcribe into a musical score. We hope to find a link between the notated score and the emergent effect produced by the dynamic interrelations of its content. By undertaking a systems approach to musical analysis, we hope to develop a transversal model that will enable us to highlight the elusive new structures and properties that seem to grow out of this process. In Pape’s music, these emergent features distort the musical surface, and although engendered by the score, seem to burst out of nowhere, leading the listener from harmony into chaos

This dissertation focuses on predictability problems regarding the behaviour of the professional librarians in public-, school- and research libraries in specific crucial situations. The material was obtained by observations/participations (over 10 years) in the daily work in Swedish libraries by non-structured interviews and “free” discussions with librarians and library visitors. Over 200 interviews with 87 librarians and over 300 discussions with 261 library visitors are the fundament of the empirical basis of my study. These findings build up a theoretical basis (a heuristic model) grounded in ideas of deterministic chaos and complexity theory. Deterministic means, that the current state is the consequence of its preceding states, in my terms, the corporate memory in organizations. Chaotic means the sensitivity of initial condition. Deterministic chaos describes behaviour which satisfies the conditions of determinism but even shows the characteristics of chaos. The study shows that differences between the behaviour of the librarians and the predictions of the behaviour in crucial situations from the political leadership are essentially grounded in ·The history of Swedish libraries (deterministic rationality and self-rationality). ·The asymmetric information between librarians and politicians. ·Self-organization of librarians in the daily work. ·The “free” will of librarians in crucial situations grounded in the philosophy of Kant. The behaviour I could observe was studied in the following situations: ·The demand of a law, which secures the existence of public- and school libraries. ·The selection, development and installation of appropriate computer based information systems in public- school- and research libraries. ·The GÖK- and KUR-projects, which was based on the assumption that new ways to work with the daily patterns in libraries should open the library for more visitors, book loaners and information seekers. The issues discussed in this dissertation gave the following results: ·That the long time, in many cases even short time, unpredictability of librarian behaviour in for the library crucial situations is not only understandable – but also necessary for the development of the library. ·That the deterministic chaotic behaviour of the librarians is generated by self-rationality, asymmetric information, and self-organization. ·That the library is not a chaotic organization but a deterministic chaotic organization. Further I could see tendencies for the same behaviour in other professional, knowledge based Non Profit Organizations like schools, universities and hospitals.

Esta tese de doutorado analisa dois romances do escritor Norte-Americano Robert Coover como exemplos de escrita hipertextual e de hiperficção no suporte do livro de papel. A complexidade dos romances John's Wife e The Adventures of Lucky Pierre integra os elementos culturais característicos da atual fase do capitalismo e as práticas tecnologizadas que vêm forjando uma subjetividade diferente na escrita e leitura hipertextual, a subjetividade pós-humana. Os modelos da complexidade dos romances derivam do conceito de atratores estranhos da Teoria do Caos e de rizoma da Nomadologia. As transformações no grau de corporeidade dos personagens estabelecem o plano em que se discute a turbulência e a pós-humanidade. As noções de padrões dinâmicos e atratores estranhos e os conceitos do Corpo sem Órgãos e do Rizoma são interpretados para se revisar a narratologia e chegar a categorias apropriadas ao estudo dos romances. A leitura exercitada nesta tese põe em prática a proposta de leitura corpórea de Daniel Punday. As mudanças no grau de materialidade dos personagens são associadas aos estágios de ordem, turbulência e caos na estória, agindo sobre a constituição da subjetividade ao longo do processo de leitura. A inscrição dos planos de consistência que Coover realiza para se contrapor à linearidade e acomodar as feições hipertextuais nas narrativas em papel descreve a trajetória rizomática dos personagens. O presente estudo leva a concluir que a narrativa hoje se constitui antes como um regime numa relação rizomática com outros regimes na prática cultural do que como forma e gênero predominantemente literários. Também se conclui que a subjetividade pós-humana emerge alinhada a uma identidade de classe que tem nos romances hipertextuais a sua forma literária predileta.
This doctoral dissertation analyzes two novels by the American novelist Robert Coover as examples of hypertextual writing on the book bound page, as tokens of hyperfiction. The complexity displayed in the novels, John's Wife and The Adventures of Lucky Pierre, integrates the cultural elements that characterize the contemporary condition of capitalism and technologized practices that have fostered a different subjectivity evidenced in hypertextual writing and reading, the posthuman subjectivity. The models that account for the complexity of each novel are drawn from the concept of strange attractors in Chaos Theory and from the concept of rhizome in Nomadology. The transformations the characters undergo in the degree of their corporeality sets the plane on which to discuss turbulence and posthumanity. The notions of dynamic patterns and strange attractors, along with the concept of the Body without Organs and Rhizome are interpreted, leading to the revision of narratology and to analytical categories appropriate to the study of the novels. The reading exercised throughout this dissertation enacts Daniel Punday's corporeal reading. The changes in the characters' degree of materiality are associated with the stages of order, turbulence and chaos in the story, bearing on the constitution of subjectivity within and along the reading process. Coover's inscription of planes of consistency to counter linearity and accommodate hypertextual features to the paper supported narratives describes the characters' trajectory as rhizomatic. The study led to the conclusion that narrative today stands more as a regime in a rhizomatic relation with other regimes in cultural practice than as an exclusively literary form and genre. Besides this, posthuman subjectivity emerges as class identity, holding hypertextual novels as their literary form of choice.

This thesis employs perspectives inspired by General Systems Theory to address issues in philosophy, including moral philosophy and philosophy of mind. I present an overview of a range of ideas from the study of physical systems that may be used to provide a firm physicalist foundation to explorations of some common questions in philosophy. I divide these topics into three categories: the Physical Category, the Relevance Category and the Signal Elements Category. I interpret concepts from General Systems Theory, including information and entropy, in a way that I believe facilitates their incorporation into philosophical discussion. I also explain various points arising from General Systems Theory, such as order and disorder, stability, complexity, and self-organisation, and show how ideas from these areas can be applied to certain philosophical problems. I explain relevance in terms of stability, in order to link these scientific perspectives to questions in moral philosophy. I suggest a possible physical foundation for a theory of morality, which takes the form of a variety of Utilitarianism, intended to balance the competing needs of open systems to manage entropy. Such a theory of morality must be capable of dealing with limitations arising from the physicality of information; I propose game theory as a solution to this problem. This thesis also covers issues connected to the above points regarding the nature of consciousness and communication. In particular, I examine the role of linguistic associations in consciousness; and some related features of language and other non-linear representational schemes.

En aquest treball es busca desenvolupar i provar un nou model de recerca en la Gestió de Projectes per tal de conèixer en profunditat el Èxit de la Gestió de Projectes però sota un marc conceptual d'estudi que consideri les perspectives tècniques existents així com les teories relacionades ja que a la data els Models de maduresa (Jugdev & Thomas, 2002), Lògica Difusa (Liberatore, 2002), Models de Simulació Dinàmica (Doloi & Jaafari, 2002), Treball en Equip (Loo, 2002) i de presa de decisions (McCray, Purvis, McCray, 2002) no han pogut explicar com és que el Èxit de la Gestió de Projectes, encara amb el personal més idoni i amb els millors recursos, falla (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). El fet és que actualment les organitzacions estan optant més per projectes que per operacions per millorar els seus rendiments (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007), i els models actuals no estan sent capaços d'explicar el baix valor de l’Èxit que és identificat en els informes de" The Standish Group "i de" eGov4Dev "(Herzog, 2001). Esta manca de capacitat potser és perquè els models no han reparat en considerar el suport d'una Teoria de Projectes la qual si bé no ha estat establerta formalment com la Teoria Organitzacional, molts autors acusen la seva existència en un context pluridisciplinari emparat en les bases teòriques d'altres ciències que tenen implicació directa en el desenvolupament organitzacional, com la Teoria de la Complexitat i de l'estructuració. En aquest sentit, es construeix un nou model aprofundint en les Teories de Projectes així com en les Teories Relacionades pero des d'un punt de vista determinístic aconseguint identificar l’eficàcia de Equips com un element clau en el Èxit de la Gestió de Projectes així com a factors tradicionals i dinàmics que tenen suport a la Teoria Organitzacional i en la Teoria de la Complexitat. Una metodologia que considera l’anàlisi de factors socials i factors dinàmics és aplicada en aquest nou model en el qual necessariament s'ha de fer servir paral•lelismes epistemològics de manera de poder extreure variables d'altres camps d'investigació i provar-los en la disciplina de la Gestió de Projectes comuna forma de coneixement vàlid (Arnoult, 1976). Aquest model és provat en 6 empreses mineres que desenvolupen projectes al Perú mitjançant una regressió lineal jeràrquica i considera una mostra de 52 equips de projectes amb 5 i 6 persones per equip. Esta investigació confirma que la composició de l'equip, l’eficàcia de l'equip així com la identificació organitzacional són significatius constructes que expliquen l’Èxit de la Gestió de Projectes, així també que una elevada eficàcia d'equips de projectes i identificació organitzacional no sempre asseguren l’Èxit de la Gestió de Projectes.
En este trabajo se busca desarrollar y probar un nuevo modelo de investigación en la Gestión de Proyectos con el fin de conocer en profundidad el Éxito de la Gestión de Proyectos pero bajo un marco conceptual de estudio que considere las perspectivas teóricas existentes así cómo las teorías relacionadas ya que a la fecha los Modelos de madurez (Jugdev & Thomás, 2002), Lógica Difusa (Liberatore, 2002), Modelos de Simulación Dinámica (Doloi & Jaafari, 2002), Trabajo en Equipo (Loo, 2002) y de Toma de Decisiones (McCray, Purvis, McCray, 2002) no han podido explicar cómo es que el Éxito de la Gestión de Proyectos, aún con el personal más idóneo y con los mejores recursos, falla (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). El hecho es que actualmente las organizaciones están optando más por proyectos que por operaciones para mejorar sus rendimientos (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007), y los modelos actuales no están siendo capaces de explicar el bajo valor del Éxito que es identificado en los reportes de "The Standish Group" y de "eGov4Dev" (Herzog, 2001). Está falta de capacidad tal vez se debe a que los modelos no han reparado en considerar el respaldo de una Teoría de Proyectos la cual si bien no ha sido establecida formalmente cómo la Teoría Organizacional, muchos autores acusan su existencia en un contexto pluridisciplinario amparado en las bases teóricas de otras ciencias que tienen implicancia directa en el desarrollo organizacional, cómo la Teoría de la Complejidad y de la estructuración. En ese sentido, se construye un nuevo modelo profundizando en las Teorías de Proyectos así cómo en las Teorías Relacionadas pero desde un punto de vista deterministico logrando identificar a la Eficacia de Equipos cómo un elemento clave en el Éxito de la Gestión de Proyectos así cómo a factores tradicionales y dinámicos que tienen respaldo en la Teoría Organizacional y en la Teoría de la Complejidad. Una metodología que considera el análisis de factores sociales y factores dinámicos es aplicada en este nuevo modelo en el que necesariamente se tiene que usar paralelismos epistemológicos de modo de poder extraer variables de otros campos de investigación y probarlos en la disciplina de la Gestión de Proyectos cómo una forma de conocimiento valido (Arnoult, 1976). Este modelo es probado en 6 empresas mineras que desarrollan proyectos en el Perú mediante una regresión lineal jerárquica y considera una muestra de 52 equipos de proyectos con 5 y 6 personas por equipo. Está investigación confirma que la composición del equipo, la eficacia del equipo así cómo la identificación organizacional son significativos constructos que explican el Éxito de la Gestión de Proyectos, así también que una elevada eficacia de equipos de proyectos e identificación organizacional no siempre aseguran el Éxito de la Gestión de Proyectos.
This paper seeks to build and test a conceptual framework of study to evaluate in depth the Success of Project Management through a new model that considers the existing theoretical perspectives as well as related theories as to the date of maturity models (Jugdev & Thomás, 2002), Fuzzy Logic (Liberatore, 2002), Dynamic Simulation Models (Doloi & Jaafari, 2002), Teamwork (Loo, 2002) and Decision Making have been unable to explain how the success ofthe Project Management even with the best staff and the best resources, fails (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). The fact is that organizations today are opting for operations rather than projects (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007), and current models are not being able to explain the low value of the success that is identified in the reports of "The Standish Group "and" eGov4Dev" (Herzog, 2001). This lack of capacity may be because the models have not noticed considered the back of a Project theory which although it has not been formally established as organizational theory, many authors accuse their existence in a multidisciplinary context covered in theoretical foundations of other sciences which have direct implications on organizational development, as the theory of complexity and structure. On this respect, we construct a new model deepening in Project and Related Theories but considering •a deterministic point of view achieving to identify Equipment Effectiveness as a key element in the successful management of projects as well as traditional and dynamic factors that have support in organizational and complexity theory. A methodology that considers the analysis of social factors and dynamic factors is applied in this new model in which necessarily have to use parallels epistemological such that extract variables from other fields of research and testing will be tested in discipline of Project Management as a form of valid knowledge (Arnoult, 1976). This model is tested on 6 companies that develop mining projects in Peru with a Hierarchical linear regression on a sample of 52 project teams with 5 or 6 people per team. This research confirms that the composition of the team, team effectiveness and identification are significant organizational constructs that explain the success of project management, so that a high effectiveness of project teams and organizational identification does not always ensure success Project Management.

Supply chain exchange relationships are complex and sometimes chaotic sociological and organisational phenomena. This complexity is compounded by the boundary spanning necessity of forming supply chain partnerships that are further exacerbated by goal divergence and asymmetric information. One of the main questions for consideration is how these dyadic exchange relationships are maintained and develop over time in response to the various channel behaviours of the actors (the buyer and seller)? In particular, exchange relationships are theorised to be sensitive in some degree to attempts at economic appropriation, and conversely coordinative efforts. Such efforts manifest themselves into the mutually opposing forces broadly labelled as opportunistic and collaborative behavioural paradigms. Drawing from the concepts of Systems and Chaos/Complexity theories, it is theorised that the movement from one form of relational arrangement to another is enacted in a non-linear and dynamic manner with periods of relational equilibrium disrupted by bifurcations resulting in the emergence of new levels of relationship. However, not all exchange relationships are susceptible to constant change, rather, there should be some threshold barrier or relationship inertia that must be overcome before a bifurcation occurs. Yet what is not known is how strong these bonds are to the enactment of opportunistic and collaborative partner behaviours. Hence, 189 manufacturing supply chain relationships were survey-interviewed in order to determine the impact that collaborative and opportunistic behaviours have on supply chain relational movement. The results show that generally exchange relationships do in fact change in response to these enacted behaviours, and that actual levels of supply chain behaviour over a range of 12 variables could be measured. Indeed, the level of opportunistic behaviour experienced by the sample was disturbing. In addition, the level of tolerance (zone of tolerance) for specific behaviours was measured for the first time in the field. Overall, it was found that supply chain exchange relationships do indeed evolve in a non-linear dynamic manner in response to opportunistic and collaborative manoeuvres by the dyadic actors. Finally, these ideas were summarised in the Dynamic Relational Development (DRD) concept that explains how supply chain relationships dynamically change. In addition, the dualistic nature of the collaborative versus opportunistic behaviour choice for exchange actors is tentatively reconciled by the deontological approach of the Supply Chain Citizen theory offered in this research.

This thesis examines the utility of the Rényi entropy (RE), a measure of the complexity of probability density functions, as a tool for finding physically meaningful patterns in geophysical data. Initially, the RE is applied to observational data of long-lived atmospheric tracers in order to analyse the dynamics of stratospheric transitions regions associated with barriers to horizontal mixing. Its wider applicability is investigated by testing the RE as a method for highlighting internal boundaries in snow and ice from ground penetrating radar (GPR) recordings. High-resolution 500 MHz GPR soundings of dry snow were acquired at several sites near Scott Base, Antarctica, in 2008 and 2009, with the aim of using the RE to facilitate the identification and tracking of subsurface layers to extrapolate point measurements of accumulation from snow pits and firn cores to larger areas. The atmospheric analysis focuses on applying the RE to observational tracer data from the EOS-MLS satellite instrument. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is shown to exhibit subtropical RE maxima in both hemispheres. These peaks are a measure of the tracer gradients that mark the transition between the tropics and the mid-latitudes in the stratosphere, also referred to as the edges of the tropical pipe. The RE maxima are shown to be located closer to the equator in winter than in summer. This agrees well with the expected behaviour of the tropical pipe edges and is similar to results reported by other studies. Compared to other stratospheric mixing metrics, the RE has the advantage that it is easy to calculate as it does not, for example, require conversion to equivalent latitude and does not rely on dynamical information such as wind fields. The RE analysis also reveals occasional sudden poleward shifts of the southern hemisphere tropical pipe edge during austral winter which are accompanied by increased mid-latitude N2O levels. These events are investigated in more detail by creating daily high-resolution N2O maps using a two-dimensional trajectory model and MERRA reanalysis winds to advect N2O observations forwards and backwards in time on isentropic surfaces. With the aid of this ‘domain filling’ technique it is illustrated that the increase in southern hemisphere mid-latitude N2O during austral winter is probably the result of the cumulative effect of several large-scale, episodic leaks of N2O-rich air from the tropical pipe. A comparison with the global distribution of potential vorticity strongly suggests that irreversible mixing related to planetary wave breaking is the cause of the leak events. Between 2004 and 2011 the large-scale leaks are shown to occur approximately every second year and a connection to the equatorial quasi-biennial oscillation is found to be likely, though this cannot be established conclusively due to the relatively short data set. Identification and tracking of subsurface boundaries, such as ice layers in snow or the bedrock of a glacier, is the focus of the cryospheric part of this project. The utility of the RE for detecting amplitude gradients associated with reflections in GPR recordings is initially tested on a 25 MHz sounding of an Antarctic glacier. The results show distinct regions of increased RE values that allow identification of the glacial bedrock along large parts of the profile. Due to the low computational requirements, the RE is found to be an effective pseudo gain function for initial analysis of GPR data in the field. While other gain functions often have to be tuned to give a good contrast between reflections and background noise over the whole vertical range of a profile, the RE tends to assign all detectable amplitude gradients a similar (high) value, resulting in a clear contrast between reflections and background scattering. Additionally, theoretical considerations allow the definition of a ‘standard’ data window size with which the RE can be applied to recordings made by most pulsed GPR systems and centre frequencies. This is confirmed by tests with higher frequency recordings (50 and 500 MHz) acquired on the McMurdo Ice Shelf. However, these also reveal that the RE processing is less reliable for identifying more closely spaced reflections from internal layers in dry snow. In order to complete the intended high-resolution analysis of accumulation patterns by tracking internal snow layers in the 500 MHz data from two test sites, a different processing approach is developed. Using an estimate of the emitted waveform from direct measurement, deterministic deconvolution via the Fourier domain is applied to the high-resolution GPR data. This reveals unambiguous reflection horizons which can be observed in repeat measurements made one year apart. Point measurements of average accumulation from snow pits and firn cores are extrapolated to larger areas by identifying and tracking a dateable dust layer horizon in the radargrams. Furthermore, it is shown that annual compaction rates of snow can be estimated by tracking several internal reflection horizons along the deconvolved radar profiles and calculating the average change in separation of horizon pairs from one year to the next. The technique is complementary to point measurements from other studies and the derived compaction rates agree well with published values and theoretical estimates.

This thesis analyses research into the evolution and adaptation of the communities in Rotorua and Kaikoura by using a complex systems perspective. This perspective requires that the analyst look beyond the obvious impacts of tourism such as employment, crowding, and congestion, to the processes that underlie the experiences of local people in relation to tourism. The configuration of the destination, the flows of people in the area, the visitor types and the ratio of hosts to guests all influence a community's interactions with tourists. In small destinations, the effect of host interactions with guests is potentially much greater than is the case in larger destinations. However, in using a complex systems perspective to analyse the effects of tourism on these two destinations, it becomes clear that the impacts of tourism are more than just the impacts of tourists. The impacts of tourism are intertwined with the processes of trust, leadership and decision making occurring both within the community and within the wider regional and national socio-economic systems. As such, local perceptions of tourism are associated with history, geography, local politics and local social processes. As concepts, the meanings of both 'tourism' and 'community' emerge from the experiences people have, and the associations that they make with the two terms. Thus, the meaning of both 'tourism' and 'community' are idiosyncratic and locally defined. Each term means different things to residents in Rotorua and Kaikoura, and each affects how residents perceive tourism in their respective towns. For example, the associations that people make between historical events and processes such as restructuring are quite different in each of the two communities. In Rotorua, tourism is seen as a source of stability, as a phenomenon that confers a higher level of perceived control on the community. In Kaikoura, tourism is seen as a source of change and it confers a lesser sense of perceived control on the community overall. Likewise, the relationship between the local council and the community underlies the sense of security people feel about local decision making processes. This relationship is mediated by a range of processes including the effort that the council put into communicating with community members, the leadership shown by the council, the way in which they facilitate community visioning processes, which then provide a basis for both leadership and decision making. Underlying these processes are community processes of rivalry, competition, cooperation, labelling and stereotyping that all affect the levels of trust that the community have in those around them. Community cohesion (which is not the same as community agreement) underlies a community's ability to work together to manage tourism. Thus using a complex systems approach to analyse the impacts of tourism in two destinations has shown that there is much more to tourism than the impacts of tourists and their activities. Instead, the way the community system interacts with the tourism system gives rise to the impacts of tourism. Tourism can be usefully conceptualised as a process that is inextricably interwoven with history, politics and community interaction processes at the destination level. Perceptions of tourism reflect these processes and the understanding that local people have of them, and the level of control that they feel they have over tourism development. With little trust in local decision making processes, people have a low sense of control over how tourism development affects them. In tourism planning, therefore, it may be more effective to focus primarily on the processes by which tourism development and management occurs in the local area and to look at mitigating the effects of tourists only after building community capacity to adaptively manage tourism in their area. Communities need a sense of control over their world, and this is only undermined when experts and institutions try to advise courses of action without involving a range of community players in the process of managing tourism. Thus, government and other organisations and institutions at local level must focus on working with communities to build local capacity to manage tourism, without imposing on those communities to convince them to 'treat tourists well' or to manage their environment better, so they become more attractive as a destination.

The neural net computer simulations which will be presented here are based on the acceptance of a set of assumptions that for the last twenty years have been expressed in the fields of information processing, neurophysiology and cognitive sciences. First of all, neural networks and their dynamical behaviors in terms of attractors is the natural way adopted by the brain to encode information. Any information item to be stored in the neural net should be coded in some way or another in one of the dynamical attractors of the brain and retrieved by stimulating the net so as to trap its dynamics in the desired item's basin of attraction. The second view shared by neural net researchers is to base the learning of the synaptic matrix on a local Hebbian mechanism. The last assumption is the presence of chaos and the benefit gained by its presence. Chaos, although very simply produced, inherently possesses an infinite amount of cyclic regimes that can be exploited for coding information. Moreover, the network randomly wanders around these unstable regimes in a spontaneous way, thus rapidly proposing alternative responses to external stimuli and being able to easily switch from one of these potential attractors to another in response to any coming stimulus.

In this thesis, it is shown experimentally that the more information is to be stored in robust cyclic attractors, the more chaos appears as a regime in the back, erratically itinerating among brief appearances of these attractors. Chaos does not appear to be the cause but the consequence of the learning. However, it appears as an helpful consequence that widens the net's encoding capacity. To learn the information to be stored, an unsupervised Hebbian learning algorithm is introduced. By leaving the semantics of the attractors to be associated with the feeding data unprescribed, promising results have been obtained in term of storing capacity.
Doctorat en sciences appliquées
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Transdisciplinarity emerged from the urge to grasp the elusive knowledge in the most fertile zone in between and beyond disciplines that escapes even the most elaborate interdisciplinary operations. While interdisciplinary protocol enables experts to operate within foreign disciplines, in the extreme case as diverse as art and science (by inviting artists into scientific departments and vice versa), the production of knowledge remains confined to particular domains. To transcend these confinements and access the knowledge that evades institutionalisation Basarab Nicolescu’s Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity sets up conditions for an open structure to be grown outside the current compartmentalisation into a living knowledge. This thesis imagines a possible evolution of transdisciplinarity into knowledge to be lived internally rather than learnt externally in order to overcome the anxiety in transcending the established culture of disciplinary research. By entering the transdisciplinary zone, the identity of experts-specialists dissolves, even the crudest separation into artists and scientists becomes obsolete. From the illusion of losing control over knowledge arises the fear of a return to archaic, mystic or even shamanic ways of knowing. Far from proposing a return to shamanism in its ancient forms this thesis imagines the way of polyphibianism – an imaginary solution to navigate efficiently the protoplasmic state of knowledge that would be indigenous to culture of disciplinary researchers. With every significant discovery the disciplinary researchers already intuitively trespass into the very zone that the Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity invites them to enter intentionally. From examination of documented introspective inquiries into their act of discovery the thesis infers the necessary sensibilities and adaptabilities of the individuals to cross the borders of their disciplines. Their seemingly lost identity is temporarily restored with the term polyphibian (analogous to amphibian) designating their ability to survive and explore multiple environments. With each change of circumstances in research a polyphibian adapts by swiftly reinventing its instinctive instruments, mutating its organs of knowing, indifferently to conventional habits of thought. Through their introspective writings this thesis investigates the polyphibic aptitude of Henri Poincaré, Henri Bergson and Marcel Duchamp to scout at the periphery of physics, metaphysics and ‘pataphysics, to intuitively anticipate the role of chance, chaos and complexity in both arts and sciences. A threshold of complexity has to be surpassed in order to bring the current apparatus of knowledge to life. Bergson’s insight on laughter and dreams suggests how intellect could transcend itself. The thesis proposes to consider laughter as faculty that could induce self-awareness in the intellectual apparatus while dreams are considered to facilitate self-organisation of intellect on higher orders of awareness. In Deleuzian manner of mutating Bergson’s work into Bergsonism, polyphibianism is a mutation in transcribing the code of Creative Evolution where Bergson insisted on interdependency between the theory of knowledge and the theory of evolution. The scholarly dispute on Bergsonian and anti-Bergsonian tendencies present in Marcel Duchamp’s work is revisited in the thesis by interpreting the higher dimensional Bride as a polyphibic organism of living knowledge with access to higher orders of awareness, able to guide the Bachelor’s apparatus of mechanical production and preservation of knowledge out of its predicament. Informed by peculiar Duchampian experiments that challenged both the domain of art and science the research projects in this thesis consist of an intervention at CERN that tested the impenetrability of institutionalised art-science collaborations and installation of the Interval of Suspended Judgement with high mathematical precision at the threshold between physics and ‘pataphysics. With these projects the problems of categorising researchers into artists and scientists are revealed. As Deleuze suggested, to effectively formulate the problem, to realize it in multiplicity of contexts, a new concept must be invented, a new organism must be conceived. This thesis gave birth to an imaginary organism of living knowledge in order to relieve the unnecessary anxieties and to fully engage in transdisciplinary research.

This thesis is a historical case study tracing the establishment and evolution of Regional Tourism Organisations (RTOs) in New Zealand. It describes their role, structure and functions and the political processes that have influenced how they have operated and changed from 1980 to 2005. RTOs are examined in the context of government policies, local and national politics and tourism private and public sector relationships. RTOs were central to many of the key recommendations of the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010 (NZTS 2010) released in 2001. The NZTS 2010 attempted to address a range of tourism policy gaps created by a policy vacuum in the 1990s whereby the public and private tourism sectors focused mainly on international marketing. This strategy shaped government policy during this decade. The research findings show that although public and private sector institutional arrangements impacting on RTOs have changed, there remains, as in the past, no uniformity in their role, structure, functions and their future financial and political viability remains insecure. The NZTS 2010 raised destination management and its alignment with destination marketing as a major policy issue that needed to be addressed in the decade leading up to 2010 with RTOs having a pivotal role. A generic regional destination management model is presented. Structures and processes incorporated into this model include: a national destination management tourism policy; support for tourism by local government at the national level; a well defined destination management team; community collaboration; and tourism being integrated into the wider planning processes of local government. The model identified requisite building blocks to support regional destination management such as: the provision of staff and financial resources for regional tourism; the building of a high tourism profile in the community; the availability of statistics and research data at the regional level; local government planners acknowledging the impacts of tourism; and the existence of a legal mandate for tourism at the regional and/or local government level. When applying this model to the New Zealand context, it was found that a number of the structures and processes required for effective regional destination management were lacking, such as regional statistics and research data, staffing and financial resources for both RTOs and local government, the ability of council planners to understand and integrate tourism into the wider planning processes and a legislative mandate for tourism. The thesis concluded that a vacuum remains in the alignment of destination marketing and management. The historical and political processes of RTO change were also examined in the context of chaos and complexity theory. Chaos and complexity theory provided a complementary and different means to view change. This thesis also presented the opportunity to reflect upon the research process which led to the adoption of a multi-paradigmatic and bricoleur research methodology. Further reflexivity and reflection towards the end of the research process articulated ontological and epistemological philosophical investigations that underlay the multi-paradigmatic approach. A model is presented emphasising that a multi-paradigmatic research approach rests on ultimate reality (metaphysics) which informs the ontology. The model then highlights that ontology precedes and directs epistemology and that both inform the multi-paradigmatic research framework.

research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree: Master of Science in Engineering. 03 November 2015
South African technology businesses are seeing an increasing number of young professionals from diverse backgrounds joining their ranks. Managing diversity in the workplace is perceived to be poorly handled in the South African business arena and may be responsible for the large turnover of employed professionals observed. There is a high rate at which young professionals are changing jobs, leaving the country and/ or becoming unproductive or complacent within relatively short periods of time. This situation is of serious concern due to the severe shortage of skills in the country, especially in the technology sector. On the one hand it creates a major upset or disruption for companies that invest significant resources in the training and development of these individuals. On the other hand, it leads to a vast knowledge gap within the industry since the time horizon of incumbents in specific positions or in companies is seldom long enough to fully develop specialist knowledge within the various technical niches. Chaos and complexity theories are applied in the study to understand this problem better in the context of interactions between constituent parts of a dynamic system within itself and with the environment, and, specifically, to determine the degree to which the problem is influenced by leadership interactions. In the process a framework for designing leadership architecture was developed with the aim of helping business leaders better manage the problem. A mixed method approach was used to conduct the research, in which a survey with over ninety respondents and focus group of selected individuals were used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The data were then analysed to provide useful insight. The results showed that leadership, particularly the relationship between professionals and their direct managers, has a significant influence on the decision to stay or leave a company and/ or to change professions.

More than ever, organisations are recognising that they need to build and sustain healthy relationships with stakeholders in order to survive, grow and be successful. When an organisation is threatened by environmental changes – such as a crisis or competition as a result of information technology developments, increased customer demands, new legislations, even the threat of AIDS – the need for better communication increases. Successful organisations use the potential of communication management, not only to ease the transformation process, but also to improve their relationships with key stakeholders and the environment, and uphold their reputation. In this sense, communication practitioners are playing managerial, ethical and strategic roles during times of instability because change complexities involve having to deal with stakeholders’ trust and commitment. This thesis attempts to clarify the growing importance of communication management, particularly the role of relationship management. Proposed here is a different way of thinking about change communication strategies and building healthy relationships when organisations and their stakeholders have to make or adjust to change. Existing literature shows that most organisations tend to take a planned approach to change which is structured, consists of specific goals and objectives, and tightly controlled by management. Management sees its role within this paradigm as reducing conflict, creating order, controlling chaos and simplifying all the complexities created by the environment. Possible outcomes are predicted and alternatives for action are planned. Structures determine the information needed, and perceptions are managed by feeding the ‘right’ information or withholding information that might give rise to disorder and chaos. An alternative paradigm is the postmodern perspective, drawing specifically from chaos and complexity theories. These ‘emergent’ approaches to management consider organisations as living and holistic systems, more organic and ecological, seeking less control and more freedom. Organisations that operate like living systems are open, flexible, creative, caring and willing to adjust their strategies to adapt to the environment. While strategic planning is still considered important within the positivistic paradigms of management, it is nevertheless moving from the basic premise of control and prediction to scenario planning and processes of open communication, facilitation and networking. The emphasis is on relationship building via the full participation of the stakeholders involved. This two-way, symmetrical approach is also considered the more ethical. When an organisation is confronted by a problem, and if the constraints on communication are low, the organisation’s publics (employees/stakeholders) tend to feel connected to the problem and want to do something about it. Their need to actively seek information about the problem opens up many communication potentialities, including a willingness to change their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. The result is a culture of shared responsibility, participation in decision-making, open and honest communication, which leads to a positive working climate and higher productivity. So an important assumption that can be made here is that an empowered public will strive for a positive relationship with the organisation. It can further be derived that a positive relationship between an organisation and its publics, particularly its internal stakeholders (employees), will lead to greater communication and a greater willingness to change. These assumptions were tested in this study. The research questions were: (1) What is the connection between the communication management strategy followed during change in organisations and the relationship and behavioural effects on internal stakeholders (employees)? (2) What are the effects of the communication management strategy followed during high change on relationships and behaviours with internal stakeholders (employees)? The methodology was an experimental approach which allows for the manipulation of independent variables and measurement of influences thereof on dependent variables. The independent variables were the communication and change strategies followed in organisations; the dependent variables were the relationship characteristics (trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction). The use of scenarios was most effective in this experimental context because different scenarios can project different outcomes. The researcher, therefore, had the opportunity to analyse the effects of the change strategies, as well as the changes that would take place. Data collection from 9 different organisations resulted in, more or less, 10–40 employees from different levels of management and non-management of each organisation. Each respondent evaluated 2 different scenarios, which resulted in 372 evaluations in total (186 for each scenario). The scenarios addressed changes in general and were about various issues. Basic descriptive statistics, as well as hypotheses testing using MANOVA (to test for meaningful differences between groups), were conducted. Other data analyses included testing for validity and reliability, analysis of variance and the Scheffe’s Test for significance of correlations. The findings showed significant proof of the internal validity of the experimental design used, indicating that: (a) the experimental manipulation (the two different change management strategies) had a definite effect on the relationship that internal stakeholders would have with organisations, and that except for the size of the organisation and the educational level of the employees, no other variables had an influence; (b) strong correlations exist between the strategy followed during change and the resulting projected relationships with internal stakeholders of the organisation; (c) high participation during high change led to significantly more positive overall relationships between an organisation and its internal stakeholders, as compared to low participation with a planned approach. In brief, the findings support a strong participative, two-way public relations strategy to be followed when organisations go through major change processes. The significance of these findings calls for a new paradigm in strategic communication and relationship management. Change cannot be solely based on plans and projections, but rather on understanding the complexities of situations and weighing different options available. Well-developed organisational change, therefore, is a strategically managed process that takes into consideration all the possibilities of change in the environment. Traditional studies and models of change management have either ignored the importance of strategic communication as a contribution to successful change, or saw communication as only a tool in the first stages of ransformation. However, to facilitate successful strategic change management is to recognise communication management as contributing significantly to guiding the complete transformation process in building important relationships internally and externally. Alternative emergent approaches to change recognise that change and, more specifically, transformation should be viewed as a continuous process linking to the complexities of the changing market, nature of work environments, new management approaches, organisational boundaries and relationships. Chaos and complexity theories, in particular, stress the importance of interconnectivity between subsystems of societies and organisations. Central to these theories is the observation that relationships built on open communication have the potential of producing something greater for an organisation. The complex and dynamic nature of the environment, structural alteration, and the need for employee flexibility are all recognised. Another important insight is the view that organisations can create visions and perform strategic planning around scenarios that guide actions. Another way of adapting to change is to influence back on change, that is, steer change through relationship building and participative decision-making. To become a true learning organisation requires the building of knowledge architecture with a strong supporting technical infrastructure. The main function of the communication manager, therefore, is to establish networks and structures for the collection and dissemination of information, and ultimately, the translation to knowledge. Communication leaders can connect teams and workgroups by driving communication and building trust. Involving staff in change management decision-making stimulates debate and criticisms, thus creates opportunities for innovation and revolutionary change. These are some of the main preconditions for sustainable change, and all can be achieved through sound communication management and the building of relationships with stakeholders.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2006.
Communication Management
PhD
Unrestricted

Author also known as Heather Sladdin
Major creative work: 'Patterns of Being' – a verse novel. The major creative work is a narrative in open verse. The fictional narrative was inspired by an interview with Rupert Max Stuart in The Age on August 19, 2002, titled, 'Max Stuart reflects, finds peace'. Rupert Max Stuart is a South Australian Aboriginal man who was imprisoned in the 1950s for the murder and rape of Mary Hattam, a young white girl. The case created controversy around issues of race and capital punishment for many years. 'Patterns of Being' is a fictional narrative about grief and reconciliation. A girl named Dawn is murdered and police accuse a carnival worker named Rufus. The story is told by Annie, who is Dawn's cousin. She recalls her own experiences but also imagines the remembrances of Lilly, Dawn's mother and Aril, a nymph-like girl who moves through dimensions of time and space. The imagery is inspired by the environment of regional South Australia and the narrative shows Annie's psychic evolution. Annie is 'both the agent and the theatre of individuation' (Simondon). 'Patterns of Being' shows how Annie uses the collective voices of her interior to navigate a path through grie
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2014

The fragmented and unequal system of technical and vocational education and training in South Africa is a consequence of the apartheid era. Since 1994 comprehensive legislation has been introduced to create a transformed system of Further Education and Training (FET) guided by the principles of redress, equity and lifelong learning and aimed at producing graduates who can contribute to making South Africa a key player in the global economy. In particular, the Technical College sector requires transformation. This in turn demands new knowledge, attitudes and skills from college managers and educators. Therefore, relevant staff development programmes is a key instrument of change in colleges. Against this background this study examines the management of staff development programmes in FET colleges in Gauteng Province by means of a literature study and an empirical investigation. The former addresses the management of change, human resource management, staff development and organisational development with an emphasis on the application of chaos/complexity theory. Moreover, the dynamic FET landscape in South Africa is sketched and FET policies and legislation since 1994 are discussed. The empirical investigation adopts a qualitative approach using focus group and individual interviews, observation and document analysis to gather data from a small sample of participants: educators and members of senior and middle management. Participants were selected by purposeful sampling from three former Technical Colleges (one previously advantaged and two previously disadvantaged) in Gauteng, which have recently merged to create a new multi-campus college, the Tshwane North College. The findings of the interviews present the experience of participants according to six themes: the management of change; communication during change; stakeholder involvement in change; the impact of FET legislation; human resource management and the role of staff development programmes in this process. These findings were integrated with observations of staff development programmes and their management and analysis of key documents. It was concluded that people are complex and may resist change; during change effective communication, stakeholder participation, adequate funding for staff development and its effective management are essential. Recommendations for the improvement of practice are presented based on the findings of the literature and empirical study.
Educational Studies
D. Ed. (Education Management)

This dissertation deals with the notion of centration in the work of Teilhard de Chardin, the notion being examined with regard to two related aims: 1) to illustrate the logical structure of Teilhard's Christian theory of evolution, and 2) to explain the relation between centration carried out by created beings and centration assigned to God as the focal point of evolution. In other words: to explore the connection between fundamental freedom attributed by Teilhard to created beings and culminating in human beings according to him, and God's freedom demonstrating itself in controlling the universe and directing it to a goal being the fullness of being (pleroma). The first part presents Teilhard's life and the contexts of his work. The second part explains the main notions of Teilhard's theory and metaphysics, such as "consciousness", "spirit", "energy", "centro-complexity", and "matter", and relates them to the notion of centration. Centration is presented here as an activity of the consciousness consisting in the unifying formation of multitude by its interconnection with different types of relations around one centre. In such unification, the main law of evolution manifests itself - the Law of Differentiating Unity. This means that parts unified in such way start differentiating again. What is...