Description
About the Authors

Business sustainability and sustainable development are of great importance in modern-day socio-economic study. Despite this, the impact of recent contributions from systems and complexity sciences in addressing these issues has not yet filtered down into effective practice. This book argues that there is a need for urgency in the application of analytical tools which embody the principles of complexity management in sustainability research, in particular in the context of the global climate change. The approach presented is based on the concept of clusters of whole systems coming together through collaboration, in order to create larger wholes capable of dealing with the issues facing our socio-economic environmental systems.

In this updated second edition, the authors further clarify the viability and sustainability (V&S) approach, and the criteria and framework needed for sustainable governance. It includes a more detailed perspective on the implications of the V&S approach to businesses and networks towards changes in structure, strategy and processes, inspired by specific case studies. Key additions include a criteria for designing more viable and sustainable self-governed organizations, the methodologies and tools to design and implement self-transformations towards sustainability, and how these tools support sustainability management individually and globally, for businesses and society.
Angela Espinosa was born in Bogota, Colombia. She graduated as a computer and systems engineer in 1981 and received a PhD in Organisational Cybernetics from Aston Business School, UK in 1995. She worked originally as an Information Systems Manager, in private and public enterprises, and then as the Director of the Secretariat of Information and Systems of the Colombian President's Office (1990–1992).

Jon Walker received a PhD in cybernetics in Aston University in the 1980s. He has over thirty years' experience working in the co-operative business sector. He has established and co-managed a range of businesses including retail outlets, a small-scale manufacturing plant, a warehouse and a chain of supermarkets dealing mainly with wholefood, organic and fairly-traded products. Concurrently, Jon has lectured, published, consulted and provided training courses in both private and public sectors, internationally on organisational structures.

Authors

A Complexity Approach To Sustainability