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“The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. That is, without critically inquiring into the knowledge of life, which is well-being and valuable, life is not worth living. Critical thinking questions existing theories and their unexamined and obsessive assumptions and generalizations, constraints, and the so-called “best” practices of the prevailing system of management and tries to replace them with more valid assumptions and generalizations that uphold the dignity, uniqueness, and inalienable rights of every individual and the community. In our diverse and pluralistic cultural environment, the promise of a truly generative dialogue among occidental (western) and oriental (eastern) cultures and civilizations holds great hope for the future. Critical thinking can facilitate this dialogue such that all of us have a meaningful place in this universe. In this chapter, we explore introductory working definitions of critical thinking so that we can early enough understand its demanding domains, moral calls, and ramifications in its current critical applications. Specifically, in Part I, we examine the structured layers of our thinking and reasoning to dismantle them progressively, and in Part II, in support of our claims, we explore complexity and chaos theories as a new resource for critical thinking.

This paper seeks to address complexity in project management via an innovative course that focuses on systems thinking.

Intuitions about systems thinking evident in everyday language are developed and applied to phases of the system development life cycle.

Complexity in project management may be tamed by systems thinking. Surprisingly, project managers do not seem to use simple systems thinking tools even though these provide unique benefits in framing and solving problems that arise from multiple perspectives and relationships.

The findings are broadly conceptual. They introduce only some elements of a tertiary curriculum developed by the authors and certified by a major project management practitioner group.

The findings are of value to educators, practitioners and researchers who seek a practical approach to integrating complexity theory into modern project management practices.

An individual's educational choices – and institutional policies – are now caught up in a complex dance of cause and effect that is difficult to understand. This research article investigates one educational response, which is to provide practical guidance for coordinated goal‐directed activities (including policies, procedures and projects) in an increasingly interconnected and uncertain world.

The approach of addressing complexity via a project management course certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI) is innovative, perhaps unique.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how holistic thinking and the use of systems methodologies can help organisations handle increased problem complexity. The paper provides a critical discussion of the development of applied systems thinking and examines how its main strands can deal with problem complexity, multiple perceptions of reality and the unequal access to power resources in organisations.

The paper uses social theory and a systems meta-theoretical framework to examine the different ontological and epistemological assumptions that each strand of applied systems thinking makes about the nature of problems and the way in which an intervention will be made.

Complex problems require joined-up thinking and the use of systems ideas. Viewing the problem situation from a holistic perspective and applying appropriate systems methodologies and tools can help managers handle the complexities that their organisations face.

The paper makes a clear link between systems approaches and social theory and emphasises the need to understand the different assumptions that theories, methodologies or people make when they intervene in complex problem situations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the external environment on the strategic thinking dimensions in Malaysia and Palestine on the banking sector.

This paper focuses on dynamism and complexity in political and economic external environments. This study uses qualitative methodology through a comparative case study method. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from in-depth semistructured interviews with 33 bank executives from Malaysia and 17 from Palestine.

The findings revealed that the banking sector in both Malaysia and Palestine shared five common strategic thinking dimensions, including vision, creativity, conceptual thinking, futurism and opportunity. However, a sixth dimension, intent-focused, was unique to Palestinian bank executives. This study indicates that Palestine’s financial strategic thinking environment is more dynamic and complex than Malaysia’s. Additionally, the study highlights the significant influence of both microenvironments (such as types of banks) and the macroenvironment (such as political and economic situations). These findings hold important implications for decision-makers in the banking sector of both countries.

As with many studies, this study has some limitations. First, the analysis examines only the turbulent and stable environment in the two countries by using a qualitative approach which enables the analysis of thoughts and actions and exposes the beliefs, perceptions, mental maps and structures of belief in their perceptions (Cavana et al., 2001). As such, the results are limited to a particular time, date and geographical location; thus, opinions and perceptions might be altered due to changes in the external political and economic environment. The second limitation of this work is that the case study might not be appropriate for generalization (Stake, 1978). Finally, the limited number of female participants in Palestine shows a high level of inequality compared to Malaysian participants.

This study explores the implication of uncertain environments at the national level on executives’ cognition and actions, links the micro- and macro-environment of the banking industry to a theoretical perspective and develops a conceptual circular model to show the effect of macro environments on bank performance. The findings offer practical contributions to the current literature, providing insights for executives to navigate a dynamic and complex banking industry.

This study fills the literature gap by exploring how strategic thinking dimensions triggered by macro- and micro-environments impact banking sector performance in Malaysia and Palestine.

This paper seeks to make an assessment of the value and veracity that complexity theory makes as a “new” approach to futures thinking, and the implications that the approach holds for futures studies.

There are three sections. In the first, the notion of complexity theory is explained and its robustness considered, leading to a commentary on its status as a theory. In the second section, the applications of complexity approaches to change and futures thinking are examined, including its perspective on forecasting and scenario analysis. The final section comments on the compatibility of complexity theory and the relevance of conventional analytical forecasting techniques.

Complexity thinking implies that the causes of events cannot be known and that forecasting and scenario planning are doomed to failure. However, this perspective assumes that complexity has achieved status as a theory, a possibility which is rejected in this analysis.

It is proposed that complexity theory offers a neat metaphor for considering aspects of change, but that there is insufficient evidence to impel managers to dispose of forecasting techniques based on the flawed assumption that all change will be emergent and fundamentally unpredictable. In fact, complexity and analytical scenario techniques might be more compatible than is suggested by complexity advocates, and might be helpful in conceptualising alternative scenarios, as it encourages an awareness of emerging patterns.

This paper makes an assessment of the contribution that complexity theory may make to futures thinking, provides some practical guidance concerning its application, comments on the utility of conventional futures analysis methods and offers a view on the relevance of analytical forecasting techniques.

Culture is a complex process. Many authors show the importance of the concept of culture in organizations. The question which arises is how to approach the cultural problematic of organizations. The paper proposes that the traditional ways – based on the Cartesian epistemology – do not match with the cultural complexity, since it simplifies too much to be satisfying. This paper proposes a new paradigm called “complexity thinking” which seems to be more appropriate for studying culture in organizations. Furthermore, the paper outlines the concepts and principles of this epistemology that could be seen more as a strategy than a ready‐for‐use method in approaching culture in learning organizations.

This paper aims to discuss how the theory of complex thinking can be considered an interesting element in engineering education, especially in the context in which challenges toward sustainable development are multidisciplinary.

This viewpoint synthesizes the main reflections and discussions generated during a process of debate, research and creation of a proposal for an undergraduate engineering course at a higher education institution in Brazil. The literature on engineering education, sustainability and complexity was considered in an integrated way. Debates were conducted considering the authors’ knowledge and experience as professors of engineering courses and researchers in the field of sustainability. A qualitative and reflexive approach was used to organize the main discussions.

The prevailing classical engineering paradigm trains professionals to think from a Cartesian, reductionist perspective, appropriate for solving well-structured problems with known solution paths and convergent answers. However, addressing sustainability challenges requires a different kind of thinking capable of dealing with situations characterized by uncertainty, emergence and incompleteness of knowledge. Complexity thinking can be useful for this purpose as it provides a broad system approach to deal with ill-defined, ill-structured and unpredictable problems. This study can be understood as a call to researchers and professionals to consider the value and importance of complexity thinking to advance engineering education for sustainability.

The need to overcome the limits of the classical engineering paradigm is emphasized in the context of sustainability. Complex thinking is considered as a path toward a paradigm shift in engineering education for sustainability. It can contribute to the training of professionals to face pressing challenges now and in the future. This viewpoint provides some insights to enhance debates on education engineering.

This paper aims to expose the inadequacy of social marketing to tackle complex social problems, while proposing an expansion in the discipline’ conceptual repertoire. The goal is to incorporate complexity tools, in particular from the system dynamics field, and the promotion of mindware within a true transdisciplinary paradigm.

This paper uses literature review to support the proposed theoretical development. It also presents a short case study.

Most problems that plague our modern societies have a distinctive complex nature that is not amenable to traditional social marketing interventions. Social marketing has simplified the problem of bringing about societal change by thinking that upstream social actors can be influenced in the same way as downstream individuals. This paper shows that this is not the case while proposing a framework to close this gap.

The proposed framework is a theoretical one. It depends on further refinements and actual application to wicked problems.

Complex social problems – or wicked problems – remain widespread in modern societies. Moreover, they are getting worse over time. The paper presents a proposal to redefine the limits of the social marketing discipline so it can be more useful to tackle such problems. Practical approaches such as measuring the success of mindware in the marketplace of ideas are implied in the proposed framework.

The increase in complexity of social problems has not been accompanied by an evolution in the discipline of social marketing. The lack of proper conceptual tools has prevented the discipline from contributing to tackling these problems effectively. Some interventions may actually worsen the underlying problems, as illustrated in the paper.

This paper identifies two major gaps associated with the social marketing discipline, in particular the lack of complexity and systems thinking and the forsaking of ideas (mindware) as a legitimate goal of the discipline. This realization corroborates the claim that boundaries among disciplines are often artificial, hindering the proper understanding of complex social problems. In turn, only the use of adequate conceptual lenses makes it possible to devise interventions and programs that tackle actual causes (instead of symptoms) of complex social problems.