No início dos anos 70, emergiu a preocupação com a produção orgânica, mais respeitosa com o meio ambiente, procurando integrar o homem e a natureza, percebendo aquele como parte e dependente desta, além de possibilitar maiores retornos econômico-financeiros. Hoje, esse movimento está alinhado aos preceitos do desenvolvimento sustentável, principalmente, considerando-se o triple bottom line: dimensões social, econômica e ambiental. O desenvolvimento sustentável, por sua vez, é um tema que permeia o quotidiano do indivíduo, das organizações, da sociedade e da academia. O imbricamento das distintas dimensões e dos diferentes níveis, numa sociedade cada vez mais interativa, gera dilemas e paradoxos, que requer a necessidade de se fazer análises, numa lógica sistêmica e complexa. Quando se analisa uma cooperativa, na presente pesquisa, a COTRIMAIO, pela sua própria natureza econômico-social, a complexidade fica maior ainda. A cooperativa é vista como um sistema, assim como a sua cadeia orgânica de suprimentos na sua relação com seus cooperados. O objetivo da pesquisa é o de analisar como a cadeia da soja orgânica da COTRIMAIO, internaliza os preceitos do desenvolvimento sustentável, de forma complexa. Como método de estudo se utilizou da abordagem qualitativa, partindo-se de uma perspectiva descritiva. O método de procedimento foi o do estudo de caso, com foco na cooperativa e cooperados. Em seus resultados a pesquisa evidenciou: a pertinência do uso de uma visão complexa para representar o desenvolvimento sustentável em uma cooperativa e na sua cadeia de suprimentos de soja orgânica e com seus cooperados; a necessária utilização de dois triângulos, imbricados um no outro, com 6 dimensões do desenvolvimento sustentável, o primeiro sendo o próprio triple bottom line (dimensões econômica, social e ambiental), e o segundo, composto pelas dimensões cultural, territorial e tecnológica. Por fim, a constatação de uma permanente dialógica, nas decisões atuais e para o futuro, dos agricultores familiares produtores de soja orgânica, em várias das dimensões examinadas, assim como no cruzamento entre elas, sendo a mais ameaçadora para o futuro do sistema orgânico de produção de soja: continuar a produzir de maneira orgânica, mesmo que isso seja mais lucrativo em relação à produção convencional, diante da possibilidade da incidência da ferrugem asiática da soja, sendo que até o momento, isso não aconteceu. / In the early 70s, emerged the care with organic production, more respectful with the environment, seeking to integrate man and nature, perceiving him as a part and dependent on it, besides allowing greater economic and financial returns. Today, this movement is aligned with the requirements of sustainable development, mainly, considering the triple bottom line: social, economic and environmental dimensions. Sustainable development is a theme that permeates the individuals' everyday, organizations, society and academy. The position of different sizes and different levels in a society more and more interactive creates dilemmas and paradoxes, which require the need to analyze, in a systemic and complex logical .When a cooperative is analyzed, in this research, COTRIMAIO, by its social-economic nature, the complexity is still greater. The cooperative is seen as a system, as well as the organic supply chain in relation to its members. The aim of this research is to examine how the organic soybean supply chain of COTRIMAIO internalizes the sustainable development precepts in a complex way. As a method of studying the qualitative approach was used, starting from a descriptive perspective. The procedure method was the case study, focusing on the cooperative and the member. In the results the research showed: the relevance of the use of a complex vision to represent the sustainable development in a cooperative and its supply range with its incorporates, the need of using two triangles, woven in one another, with 6 dimensions of sustainable development, the first being the own triple bottom line (economic, social and environmental dimensions ) and the second is composed by the cultural, territorial and technological dimensions, and finally the establishment of a permanent dialogue in current and future decisions, from the familiar farmers who produce organic soybeans, in many examined dimensions, as well as in the junction between them, being the most threatening for the future organic production of soybeans: to continue producing in an organic way, even if this is more profitable in relation to conventional production, in the presence of possibility of asian soybean rust happens, so far, it has not happened.

A questão a ser abordada na tese se encontra sob o tema do planejamento urbano, enfatizando a dissonância entre os avanços dos estudos acerca da Ciência das Cidades e a prática de planejamento usual, cujo caráter é extremamente normativo e prescritivo. Destarte, por um lado, se revisa o planejamento urbano - seu desenvolvimento, bases teóricas, processos e ferramentas; aproximando-se da realidade brasileira; e, por outro lado, se revisa o estado da arte da Ciência das Cidades, evidenciando-se como o entendimento acerca deste fenômeno se desenvolveu. Portanto, com o objetivo de discutir as possibilidades e delinear as prováveis e desejáveis características de uma estrutura de planejamento que possa responder de modo mais acurado à dinâmica intraurbana, foi sugerida uma macroestrutura baseada em uma Panarquia. A microestrutura envolve um processo que inicia a partir da demanda pontual de um agente, cujos impactos são percebidos nos outros níveis da estrutura urbana, determinando âmbitos de agentes envolvidos. Na sequência, se estabelecem processos classificatórios, informativos, avaliativos, decisórios e de retroalimentação. Por fim, sugere-se que seja estabelecida uma substituição gradual das regras normativas apriorísticas por critérios mais amplos e regras locais de interação. / The question to be addressed in the thesis is under the theme of urban planning, emphasizing the dissonance between the advances of studies on the science of cities and the usual planning practice, whose character is extremely normative and prescriptive. Thus, on the one hand, it reviews urban planning – its development, theoretical foundations, processes and tools; approaching the Brazilian reality; and, on the other hand, it reviews the state of the art of the science of cities, demonstrating how the understanding of this phenomenon has been developed. Therefore, in order to discuss the possibilities and outline the probable and desirable characteristics of an alternative planning framework that can respond more accurately to the intra-urban dynamics, it is suggested a panarchy based macrostructure. The microstructure involves a process that starts with a punctual demand of an agent, whose impacts are perceived in other levels of the urban structure, determining levels of stakeholders. Following are established classification, information, evaluation, decision-making and feedback processes. Finally, it is suggested a gradual replacement of normative rules by broader criteria and local interaction rules.

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.

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.

The understanding and conceptualization of cities and its constituent systems such as transportation and healthcare as open and complex is shifting the debates around the technical and communicative rationales of planning. Viewing cities in a holistic manner presents methodological challenges, where our understanding of complexity is applied in a tangible fashion to planning processes. Bridging the two rationales in the tools and methodologies of planning is necessary for the emergence of a 'non-linear rationality' of planning, one that accounts for and is premised upon complexity. Simulations representing complex systems provide evidence and support for planning, and have the potential to serve as an interface between the more abstract and political decision making and the material city systems. Moving beyond current planning methods, this thesis explores the role of simulations in planning. Recognizing the need for holistic representations, the thesis integrates multiple disparate simulations into a holistic whole achieving complex representations of systems. These representations are then applied and studied in an interactive environment to address planning problems in different contexts. The thesis contributes an approach towards the development of complex representations of systems; improvements on participatory methods to integrate computational simulations; a nuanced understanding of the relative value of simulation constructs; technologies and frameworks that facilitate the easy development of integrated simulations that can support participatory planning processes. The thesis develops contributions through experiments which involved problems and stakeholders from real world systems. The approach towards development of integrated simulations is realized in an open source framework. The framework creates computationally efficient, scalable and interactive simulations of complex systems, which used in a participatory manner delivers tangible plans and designs. / <p>QC 20170602</p>

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

If we understand development as an emergent property of a complex system, then effective development assistance needs to adapt and evolve in-context. This thesis explores how learning and adaptation practices might help aid organizations apply complexity thinking to improve their effectiveness. Based on a new framework of organizational practices, this study uses a mixed methods approach to assess the extent to which 12 small and medium international aid organizations in Haiti learn and adapt. The study supports the assumption that learning and adaptation contribute to effectiveness, and finds that organizations vary significantly in their learning and adaptation practices. It finds that development organizations employ more learning practices than humanitarian assistance organizations, and that organizations are generally better at collecting information and adopting learning attitudes, than they are at establishing the structures and processes they need to be truly adaptive. The research also finds that the barriers that make learning and adaptation more difficult for organizations are largely structural and related to aid system dynamics, while organizations benefit from enablers that are largely attributed to individual agency. This thesis argues for the important role that aid organizations can, and must play in making aid more effective – at the project, organization, and aid system levels. However, the aid system itself does not encourage learning. International aid organizations will therefore need to actively engage in learning if they are to play an effective role in development, and be a meaningful part of the system-level aid effectiveness dialogue.

This dissertation focuses on the findings of a multi-case study centered around two public-private partnership (P3s) projects in Ontario: the Royal Ottawa Hospital and the Brampton Civic Hospital. Partnerships have become particularly important as a part of infrastructure procurement for all levels of government in Canada. While infrastructure public-private partnerships have grown in popularity, they remain a controversial means of procuring public assets. Considerable questions remain as to whether the mechanisms related to partnerships with the private sector represent a sufficient response to the challenges facing health care systems. As such, major avenues exist for contributions in the form of evidence-based examinations to the field of knowledge pertaining to hospital procurement. A body of research literature and review of public-private partnerships, including those with a particular focus on health-sector projects in Canada, has grown over the past two decades. This study contributes an analysis of the relationship between public and private partners to that literature, utilizing a conceptual lens developed out of complex evolutionary systems theory. The study is intended to examine the capacity of public managers entering into a public-private partnership arrangement to successfully activate agents and utilize the skill and knowledge of these agents, conduct joint fact finding and consensus building, and better understand how they have arranged and organized joint interactions between the public and private sector. The two case studies demonstrate the key inputs into the decision-making processes for what were formative health infrastructure partnership projects in Ontario, providing an assessment of the degree to which the government of Ontario was successful in managing a cooperative decision-making process that stressed inclusion and horizontal steering. Results find that public managers struggled in some ways to leverage an effective horizontal management style and engage in smart interventions to utilize expert knowledge to address knowledge gaps, contributing to stagnating negotiations and driving up transaction costs for the projects. Some noteworthy successes were experienced in the case of the Royal Ottawa Hospital in leveraging private-sector knowledge to develop performance metrics, and the approach to stakeholder engagement in this case presents positive lessons-learned for future P3 infrastructure projects.

No description available.

In this thesis, we study the discrete logarithm problem in the context of TFNP - the complexity class of search problems with a syntactically guaranteed existence of a solution for all instances. Our main results show that suitable variants of the discrete logarithm problem, which we call Index and DLog, are complete for the classes PPP and PWPP, respectively. Additionally, our reductions provide new structural insights into PWPP by establishing two new PWPP-complete problems. First, the problem Dove, a relaxation of the PPP-complete problem Pigeon. Dove is the first PWPP-complete problem not defined in terms of an explicitly shrinking function. Second, the problem Claw, a total search problem capturing the computational complexity of breaking claw-free permuta- tions. In the context of TFNP, the PWPP-completeness of Claw matches the known intrinsic relationship between collision-resistant hash functions and claw-free permuta- tions established in the cryptographic literature. 1