Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: systems theory

• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World

  by Margaret J. Wheatley

  Leadership and the New Science launched a revolution by demonstrating that ideas drawn from quantum physics, chaos theory, and molecular biology could improve organizational performance. Margaret Wheatley called for free-flowing information, individual empowerment, relationship networks, and organizational change that evolves organically -- ideas that have become commonplace. Now Wheatley's updated classic, based... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  The Fifth Discipline

  The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

  by Peter M. Senge

  "The Fifth Discipline" is based on fifteen years of experience in putting the book’s ideas into practice. As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline , many of which seemed radical when first published in... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Two's Company, Three is Complexity

  by Neil Johnson

  What do traffic jams, stock market crashes, and wars have in common? They can all be explained by complexity, an unsolved puzzle which is the most important scientific development since general relativity, and considered by many to be the 'Science of Sciences'. In Two's Company, Three is Complexity, Neil Johnson draws on his experience as a leading researcher in the field to explore the surprising ways in which... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Social Systems (Writing Science)

  by Niklas Luhmann

  In this presentation of a general theory of systems, Germany’s most prominent and controversial social thinker sets out a contribution to sociology that reworks our understanding of meaning and communication. It closely interrelates such different traditions as German idealism, phenomenology, systems theory, sociological functionalism, and the epistemology of contemporary biology.
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue

  by Edwin H. Friedman

  This groundbreaking volume applies the concepts of systemic family therapy to the emotional life of congregations and their leaders. Challenging many of the conventions of pastoral counseling, Edwin H. Friedman shows how family theory points to a less stressful approach to the full range of the clergy's responsibilities. He also illuminates how congregational dynamics can be a useful model for the study of any... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  The Web of Life : A New Understanding of Living Systems

  by Fritjof Capra

  In his international bestsellers The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point, Fritjof Capra juxtaposed physics and mysticism to define a new vision of reality. Now, in The Web of Life, he takes yet another giant step forward, offering a brilliant synthesis of such recent scientific breakthroughs as the theory of complexity, Gaia theory, and chaos theory. 25 line drawings.
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Love: A Sketch

  by Niklas Luhmann

  Love seems like the most personal experience, one that touches each of us in a unique way that is more personal than social, and hence it is not surprising that it has been largely neglected by sociologists and social theorists. While it has long been a central preoccupation of writers and novelists, love has rarely attracted anything more than the most cursory attention of social scientists. This short text,... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  The Prince of Tides

  by Pat Conroy

  The stirring saga of a man’s journey to free his sister—and himself—from a tragic family history.Tom Wingo has lost his job, and is on the verge of losing his marriage, when he learns that his twin sister, Savannah, has attempted suicide again. At the behest of Savannah’s psychiatrist, Tom reluctantly leaves his home in South Carolina to travel to New York City and aid in his sister’s therapy. As Tom’s... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  On Complexity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences)

  by Edgar Morin

  In this extremely valuable volume of essays Morin turns his attention to the technical and philosophical underpinnings of complexity theory and applies it to a wide-ranging number of issues. These essays will certainly stimulate the critical debate within complexity circles, but is also essential reading for anybody interested in our complex world and how to live in it.
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy (Cultural Memory in the Present)

  by Niklas Luhmann

  “I believe that Luhmann is the only true genius in the social sciences alive today. By this, I mean that not only is he smart, extremely productive, and amazingly erudite, though all this is true enough, but also that he has, in the course of an improbable career, elaborated a theory of the social that completely reinvents sociology and destroys its most cherished dogmas.” So wrote Stephen Fuchs in his ... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Art as a Social System (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

  by Niklas Luhmann

  This is the definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system by Germany’s leading social theorist of the late twentieth century. It not only represents an important intellectual step in discussions of art—in its rigor and in its having refreshingly set itself the task of creating a set of distinctions for determining what counts as art that could be valid for those creating as well as those receiving... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Method: Towards a Study of Humankind : The Nature of Nature (American University Studies Series V, Philosophy)

  by Edgar Morin

  Text: English (translation) Original Language: French
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  The Reality of the Mass Media (Cultural Memory in the Present)

  by Niklas Luhmann

  Text: English (translation) Original Language: German
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  House Thinking: A Room-by-Room Look at How We Live

  by Winifred Gallagher

  Ethan Allen and HGTV may have plenty to say about making a home look right, but what makes a home feel right? In House Thinking , journalist and cultural critic Winifred Gallagher takes the reader on a psychological tour of the American home. By drawing on the latest research in behavioral science, an overview of cultural history, and interviews with leading architects and designers, she shows us not only how our... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  The Tip of the Iceberg

  Managing the Hidden Forces That Can Make or Break Your Organization

  by David Hutchens

  A group of enterprising penguins with a yen for juicy clams teams up with some walrus colleagues to harvest aseemingly endless supply for all. The good news attracts penguins and walruses from icebergs far and wide who join in the work and the delectation. But on the way to establishing a clam lovers' paradise, territorial skirmishes arise, clumsy walruses flatten penguins, and confusion reigns. Can the penguins... (more)
• 

  

  • plan to read
  • reading now
  • I’ve read it
  • favorite
  • want to own
  • own it
  • remove book

  Church Conflict: The Hidden System Behind the Fights (Effective Church)

  by Charles H. Cosgrove

  If church is like a family, it fights like one too! As in any family, conflict in the church family is natural and inevitable. But the way the church family handles its fights can make or break ministry. By using stories and examples of real problems at actual churches, Cosgrove and Hatfield have applied family-systems theory to help us identify the hidden structural boundaries in any group relationship. They... (more)