National healthcare as executed through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was introduced in 2010, but was discussed for several decades prior to its enactment. Section 5210 of the ACA established funding for a Regular and Ready Reserve Corps (RRRC) to provide support to local healthcare entities with emergency preparedness. It is unknown what impact Section 5210 of the ACA has had on local emergency preparedness, as well as what obstacles are encountered with implementing this piece of legislation at the local level. The purpose of this case study was to understand the obstacles encountered at a local level by healthcare entities by combining rational choice theory and complex adaptive systems through Ostrom's institutional analysis and development theory. Data for this case study were obtained through interviews with 6 hospital emergency coordinators of hospitals in the Tennessee Highland Rim Region. These data were coded and analyzed following Moustakas' modified Van Kaam procedure. Findings from this study concluded that participants perceived that Section 5210 of the ACA did not impact hospital operations at the local level. However, other obstacles including employee turnover, communication, and process standardization and education are perceived to exist in terms of planning and emergency preparedness. The results of this study may impact social change by enhancing state and local policy makers' ability to identify and create a future roadmap for health care policy implementation at local and regional levels.

The external competitive environments and internal group dynamics of organizations are increasing in complexity resulting in new challenges for organizational leaders to improve performance in underperforming teams. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to address what factors led to high-innovation outcomes in complex adaptive systems using a framework constructed from elements of complexity leadership theory and group dynamics research. An in-depth interviewing approach was used to collect data on the lived experience and meaning the participants attributed to their experiences regarding improved team performance. A total of 21 participants were selected from multiple business settings where their team experienced adaptive tension and improved group cohesion. Their stories were reduced into themes using an inductive process and later analyzed through the lens of complexity leadership theory. The factors that emerged in this study, leveraging tension in the group dynamics enabled through objectivity, roles, alignment, capability, execution, purpose, and work ethic that led to mutual respect, directness, and reliance, offer leaders an effective method for achieving sustained team performance. These factors can be used by organizational leaders to improve team performance and consistency in team outcomes over traditional command and control approaches with a work exchange that benefits individual team members. The findings from this study contribute to social change by improving not only team performance, but also member satisfaction. When leadership is viewed from the perspective of the whole system instead of from the perspective of the individual, the relationships between people emerge as the primary enabling factor for high-innovation outcomes.

“much of what we know about leadership is today redundant because it is literally designed for a different operating model, a different context, a different time” (Pascale, Sternin, & Sternin, p. 4). This thesis describes a project that was designed with a focus on exploring ways to enhance leadership capacity in non-government organisations operating in Christchurch, New Zealand. It included 20 CEOs, directors and managers from organisations that cover a range of settings, including education, recreation, and residential and community therapeutic support; all working with adolescents. The project involved the creation of a peer-supported professional learning community that operated for 14 months; the design and facilitation of which was informed by the Appreciative Inquiry principles of positive focus and collaboration. At the completion of the research project in February 2010, the leaders decided to continue their collective processes as a self-managing and sustaining professional network that has grown and in 2014 is still flourishing under the title LYNGO (Leaders of Youth focussed NGOs). Two compelling findings emerged from this research project. The first of these relates to efficacy of a complexity thinking framework to inform the actions of these leaders. The leaders in this project described the complexity thinking framework as the most relevant, resonant and dynamic approach that they encountered throughout the research project. As such this thesis explores this complexity thinking informed leadership in detail as the leaders participating in this project believed it offers an opportune alternative to more traditional forms of positional leadership and organisational approaches. This exploration is more than simply a rationale for complexity thinking but an iterative in-depth exploration of ‘complexity leadership in action’ which in Chapter 6 elaborates on detailed leadership tools and frameworks for creating the conditions for self-organisation and emergence. The second compelling finding relates to efficacy of Appreciative Inquiry as an emergent research and development process for leadership learning. In particular the adoption of two key principles; positive focus and inclusivity were beneficial in guiding the responsive leadership learning process that resulted in a professional learning community that exhibited high engagement and sustainability. Additionally, the findings suggest that complexity thinking not only acts as a contemporary framework for adaptive leadership of organisations as stated above; but that complexity thinking has much to offer as a framework for understanding leadership development processes through the application of Appreciative Inquiry (AI)-based principles. A consideration of the components associated with complexity thinking has promise for innovation and creativity in the development of leaders and also in the creation of networks of learning. This thesis concludes by suggesting that leaders focus on creating hybrid organisations, ones which leverage the strengths (and minimise the limitations) of self-organising complexity-informed organisational processes, while at the same time retaining many of the strengths of more traditional organisational management structures. This approach is applied anecdotally to the place where this study was situated: the post-earthquake recovery of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Submitted by Cláudia Bueno (claudiamoura18@gmail.com) on 2015-10-16T21:23:43Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Sergio Almeida Loiola - 2014.pdf: 8526084 bytes, checksum: 2948c2f6e11578a77db5880e24463e41 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2015-10-19T13:30:31Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Sergio Almeida Loiola - 2014.pdf: 8526084 bytes, checksum: 2948c2f6e11578a77db5880e24463e41 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-19T13:30:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Sergio Almeida Loiola - 2014.pdf: 8526084 bytes, checksum: 2948c2f6e11578a77db5880e24463e41 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-04-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This thesis proposes hypothesis about the evolution of complex adaptive systems in the context of the interaction between society and the paleoclimate variability, based on comparative studies of bibliographic sources available in the literature: articles, research reports and data. The research was oriented in one cognitive and evolutionary perspective, subsidized by the complex geographical approach, structured by the author. Founded on archaeological evidence, the thesis argues that complex adaptive systems developed after 40 thousand years ago are between the main factors which cooperated in the social and cultural complexity, fixing on the territory, organizing large groups, the continuous pursuit of innovation and acceleration of cultural evolution and cognitive, established before the Holocene, as well as diversification of similar adaptive strategies in different parts of the world during this period; case of systematic collect, cultivation, domestication and agriculture. Between complex adaptive systems developed before the Holocene is cited: the science, the belief system, art, spoken language, symbolic communication, and the socio-political organization to manage large groups. Transferred by cultural exchanges, complex adaptive systems migrated with people, giving great adaptive differential to their carriers to favorable conditions in interglacial Holocene: an increase of temperature, humidity, rainfall, CO² in the atmosphere from 180 ppm to 280 ppm, and expansion the diversity and productivity of the species. Under non- linear processes, the successive period of intensification of innovation were associated with severe glacial and interglacial transitions of the 26 Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events (D-O and H), during the Würm Glacial, especially from 40,000 years ago, after “great leap” of modern humans. Based on the successes and failures of societies, imprevisibility and frequency of abrupt paleoclimatic changes, we present a proposal for Adaptive Sustainability Panel, focusing on three scenarios: global warming (Plan A), global cooling (Plan B) and climatic instability (Plan C), in order to increase the potential for proactive resilience in societies. / Esta tese propõe hipótese acerca da evolução de sistemas complexos adaptativos no contexto da interação entre a sociedade e a variabilidade paleoclimática, pautada em estudos comparativos de fontes bibliográficas disponíveis na literatura: artigos, relatórios de pesquisa e dados. A pesquisa foi orientada numa perspectiva cognitiva e evolutiva, subsidiada pela abordagem geográfica complexa, estruturada pelo autor. A partir de evidências arqueológicas, a tese argumenta que sistemas complexos adaptativos desenvolvidos após 40 mil anos atrás estão entre os principais fatores que cooperaram para a complefixificação sociocultural, fixação no território, organização de grandes grupamentos, a continua busca de inovação e a aceleração da evolução cultural e cognitiva, estabelecidas antes do Holoceno, bem como a diversificação de estratégias adaptativas similares, em diferentes partes do globo nesse período; caso da coleta sistemática, do cultivo, da domesticação e da agricultura. Entre os sistemas complexos adaptativos desenvolvidos antes do Holoceno estiveram à ciência, o sistema de crenças, a arte, a linguagem falada, a comunicação simbólica, e a organização sociopolítica para gerir grandes grupos. Transferidos por trocas culturais, os sistemas complexos adaptativos migraram junto com os povos, conferindo grande diferencial adaptativo aos seus portadores às condições favoráveis do interglacial Holoceno: incremento da temperatura, da umidade, das chuvas, do CO² na atmosfera de 180 ppm para 280 ppm, e a ampliação da diversidade e a produtividade das espécies. Sob processos não lineares, os sucessivos período de intensificação da inovação estiveram correlacionados com severas transições glaciais e interglaciais dos 26 eventos Dansgaard-Oeschger e Heinrich (D-O e H), durante o Glacial Würm, especialmente a partir de 40 mil anos atrás, após o grande salto dos humanos modernos. Com base nos sucessos e fracassos das sociedades, a imponderabilidade e a frequência das alterações paleoclimáticas abruptas, apresentamos uma proposta para um Painel da Sustentabilidade Adaptativa, focando três cenários: de aquecimento global (Plano A), resfriamento global (Plano B) e instabilidade climática (Plano C), a fim de elevar o potencial pró-ativo de resiliências nas sociedades.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-20T14:24:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Gisele Medina Nunes.pdf: 1856118 bytes, checksum: 605a212410288dd200904246fb033632 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-08 / In the search for an approach that embraced language learning in a more global and dynamic way, applied linguists such as Larsen-Freeman (1997) and Paiva (2005) resorted to Chaos/Complexity theories as a metaphor to deal with the learning process. In this perspective, we defend that learning a language is a complex adaptive system (CAS), since it has all of its characteristics: it is open, susceptible to external factors and to initial conditions, unpredictable, non-linear, ruled by low level rules and self-organized. Besides, in order to keep functioning, active, a CAS needs the interaction among its constituting elements. In this study, we also worked with the concept of interlanguage, developed through five central processes (SELINKER, 1972) which we understand to have some points in common with the characteristics that constitute the CAS. It is also relevant to ponder the fact that the learning process of a foreign language can be affected by many factors through time, as well as that it does not follow a determined pattern of development, something that could be predicted. Likewise, innate factors should be taken into account in the learning process, since the context in which it takes place also plays an important role in the success of learning a language. Thus, the aim of this research was to investigate, through the writing ability being practiced and shown in a blog, the development of the interlanguage of two students of a teaching course in Languages/English of a public university. The intention was to verify how the interlanguage of the two students behaves during the sixth and seventh semester of English Language when the online activity was developed, analyzing the fluency, accuracy and grammatical complexity of their published texts. Besides, we observed how the collaborative correction of these texts, when the students worked as proofreaders of one another, making linguistic as well as communicative adjustments in the productions using the online tool, can influence their interlanguage, contributing to their improvement in writing in English. / Na busca por uma abordagem que abarcasse a aprendizagem de línguas de uma forma mais global e dinâmica, linguistas aplicados como Larsen-Freeman (1997) e Paiva (2005) recorreram às teorias do Caos/Complexidade como metáfora para tratar desse processo. Nessa perspectiva, defende-se que aprender uma língua é um sistema adaptativo complexo, pois possui todas as suas características: é aberto, sensível a fatores externos e a condições iniciais, imprevisível, não-linear, regido por regras de baixo nível e auto-organizável. Além disso, considera-se também que para um sistema se manter ativo, funcionando, é necessária a interação de suas partes, já que é por meio da interação que os elementos que constituem o sistema são mantidos em constante movimento. Neste estudo também se trabalhou com o conceito de interlíngua, desenvolvida por meio de cinco processos centrais (SELINKER,1972), os quais se entende que possuem pontos de contato com as características que delineiam os sistemas complexos. É também relevante atentar para o fato de que o processo de aprendizagem de um idioma pode ser afetado por diversos fatores ao longo do tempo, além de não seguir um padrão determinado de desenvolvimento que possa ser previsto. Da mesma forma como questões inatas devem ser consideradas na aquisição de uma língua, o meio onde esse processo se dá também desempenha um papel importante para o sucesso na aprendizagem. Assim, o foco da presente pesquisa foi investigar o desenvolvimento da interlíngua em duas alunas de um curso de Licenciatura em Letras Habilitação em Língua Inglesa de uma universidade federal por meio da observação da presença da interlíngua na habilidade escrita trabalhada em um blog. Pretendeu-se verificar, por meio da fluência, precisão e complexidade gramatical dos textos publicados pelas alunas, como sua interlíngua comportou-se durante o sexto e o sétimo semestres da disciplina de Língua Inglesa em que a atividade de produção online nessa língua foi proposta. Além disso, se observou como o trabalho colaborativo mediado pela ferramenta online, em que os colegas agiram como revisores dos comunicativa, pode influenciar a interlíngua dessas alunas, contribuindo para seu aprimoramento na escrita no idioma.

Between 2005 and 2010 and across 48 countries, including the United States, an increasing positive correlation emerged between national intellectual capital and gross domestic product per capita. The problem remains organizations operating with increasingly complex knowledge networks often lose intellectual capital resulting from ineffective knowledge management practices. The purpose of this study was to provide management opportunities to reduce intellectual capital loss. The first research question addressed how an enhanced intelligent, complex, and adaptive system (ICAS) model could clarify management's understanding of organizational knowledge transfer. The second research question addressed how interdisciplinary theory could become more meaningfully infused to enhance management practices of the organization's knowledge ecosystem. The nature of this study was phenomenological to gain deeper understanding of individual experiences related to knowledge flow phenomena. Data were collected from a single historical research dataset containing 11 subject interviews and analyzed using Moustakas' heuristic framework. Original interviews were collected in 2012 during research within a military unit, included in this study based on theme alignment. Organizational, knowledge management, emergent systems, and cognition theories were synthesized to enhance understandings of emergent ICAS forces. Individuals create unique ICAS flow emergent force dynamics in relation to micro- and macro-meso sensemaking and sensegiving. Findings indicated individual knowledge work significantly shapes emergent ICAS flow dynamics. Collectively enhancing knowledge stewardship over time could foster positive social change by improving national welfare.

The literature indicates that leaders influence the establishment of organizational learning culture (OLC) by the application of transformational (TFO), transactional (TAC), and passive-avoidant (PAV) styles. Further, the literature links OLC to the financial performance of organizations by leadership involvement in establishing learning organizations. However, the manner in which the practice of OLC occurs and the relationship of OLC with TFO, TAC, and PAV is unclear, as is the link between OLC and financial performance (ROA); especially for growing economies outside North America. The purpose of this study was to address this gap in the literature through a quantitative study of leadership styles and their relationship to OLC based on complexity and contingency leadership theories, and organizational learning theory. The research questions focused on establishing the association between TFO, TAC, and PAV and OLC, and the link between OLC and ROA. Data from 40 commercial banks in Kenya were collected and multiple regression models developed. TFO and PAV Leadership styles were associated significantly with OLC; TAC did not have a significant relationship with OLC. OLC was linked significantly to ROA. The results of this study show that leaders of commercial banks build relationships with followers and support learning within their institutions; however, the results of this study show that these leaders engage in a limited form of organizational learning practice. This study has potential to contribute to positive social change by providing information about leadership and organizational learning strategies that advance transformational engagement with followers and organizational performance.

Alignment of information technology (IT) projects remains a concern for business executives and negatively impacts IT investments through failed projects. Drawing from the theory of systems thinking and the concept of holism, the purpose of this correlational study was to provide executive leaders with information about influences associated with the independent variables of project alignment and performance outputs, and the dependent variable, project success rates. Accordingly, the research question addressed the relationship between the 2-predictor variables and the outcome variable. Data collection involved a nonprobability, purposive sample of 49 credentialed project managers from Arizona who completed an online survey. Results from multiple linear regression analysis indicated statistically significant relationships between the predictor variables (F (2, 46) = 111.08, p < .001). The regression model predicted 82% of the variation resulted from the independent variables. The study's findings provide corporate leaders with a better understanding of project alignment, performance outputs, and project success rates from the operations perspective of project management professionals who contribute to the organization's competitive advantage through the implementation of strategic IT projects. The positive social change implications of this study include increased organization benefits, such as substantiated IT investments and higher profits. Increased project success rates substantiate IT investments through improved customer satisfaction and financial performance. Improved financial performance leads to higher profits, which leads to higher wages. Higher wages contributes positively to society-at-large through an enhanced quality of life.

We extend the study of learning and generalization in feed forward Boolean networks to random Boolean networks (RBNs). We explore the relationship between the learning capability and the network topology, the system size, the training sample size, and the complexity of the computational tasks. We show experimentally that there exists a critical connectivity Kc that improves the generalization and adaptation in networks. In addition, we show that in finite size networks, the critical K is a power-law function of the system size N and the fraction of inputs used during the training. We explain why adaptation improves at this critical connectivity by showing that the network ensemble manifests maximal topological diversity near Kc. Our work is partly motivated by self-assembled molecular and nanoscale electronics. Our findings allow to determine an automata network topology class for efficient and robust information processing.

No description available.