Publisher's Synopsis
Leaders who must deal with crises afflicting their communities often discover that these crises depend upon normative factors transcending mere economics. The factors include such things as ethics, justice and belief. They also discover that there are not many tools available to analyse them and to assist their decision-making. The author presents a method to identify the primary factors that are threatening communities, to collect information about such factors, organise it and analyse it. More importantly, leaders can develop models to examine how factors interact with each other to sustain or to threaten the viability of a community. These models can also be used to redesign and manage the community and ensure its long-term viability.
Although solidly based on theory, the object of this book is fully practical. The method is illustrated with a real life application to Boden (a town in northern Sweden), furthermore, it incorporates an especially designed computer modelling tool (separately distributed) to assist its application.
While the focus is on communities, the method can also be applied to other social systems, such as business organisations, voluntary associations, and government departments. The book should be of interest to managers, project leaders and other community leaders.
