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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to solving the complexity problem as increased complexity is a main reason why projects fail to reach their goals, and it is unclear what complexity is.

Conceptual development integrating theories of materiality, teleology, and complexity, decision-making theory, communication theory, coordination theory, and qualitative, quantitative and participatory approaches are used in this paper.

To understand complexity, it is necessary to develop a material-systemic process approach and to distinguish structured from unstructured complexity. The social actors construct a complex material-systemic process between themselves and nature to handle unwieldy outer nature. The material-systemic approach reveals how materiel life-world arenas are developed through increased complexity and specialization. Handling complexity is possible by materiality in general and structural material in special, the interplay between inner time (planning) and outer time (production), and between human subjects and an underlying coordination mechanism. It is a systematic organizational blockade that reproduces internal complexity as unstructured and incomprehensible complexity.

The practical models of organizing are tested to the highest degree in construction industry. It is a task to try and examine the models in other types of projects.

The paper offers a proposal to a theoretical solution to the complexity problem going back to the roots in Enlightenment and shows at the same time through practical models how increased complexity may be the most important productive force in future projects.

Purpose – In this chapter, we explore how normalization of exclusionary practices and of privilege for seemingly same professionals and disadvantage for seemingly different professionals in academic healthcare organizations can be challenged via meaningful culturalization in the interference zone between system and life world, subsequently developing space for belonging and difference.

Methodology – This nested case study focusses on professionals’ narratives from one specific setting (team) within the broader research and research field of the Dutch academic hospital (Abma & Stake, 2014). We followed a responsive design, conducting interviews with cultural minority and majority professionals and recording participant observations.

Findings – In the Netherlands, the instrumental, system-inspired business model of diversity is reflected in two discourses in academic hospitals: first, an ideology of equality as sameness, and second, professionalism as neutral, rational, impersonal and decontextual. Due to these discourses, cultural minority professionals can be identified as ‘different’ and evaluated as less professional than cultural majority, or seemingly ‘same’, professionals. Furthermore, life world values of trust and connectedness, and professionals’ emotions and social contexts are devalued, and professionals’ desire to belong comes under pressure.

Value – Diversity management from a system-based logic can never be successful. Instead, system norms of productivity and efficiency need to be reconnected to life world values of connectivity, personal recognition, embodied knowledge and taking time to reflect. Working towards alternative safe spaces that generate transformative meaningful culturalization and may enable structural inclusion of minority professionals further entails critical reflexivity on power dynamics and sameness–difference hierarchy in the academic hospital.

When using information communication technology (ICT) devices it is easy to be trapped by purely the purpose of their design, how they are marketed, product reviews and noting, or even copying, the behaviour of the younger, Net Generation. The purpose of this column is to argue for encouraging all to contribute to deepening our understanding of fully exploiting technology. This includes encouraging people who may be less techno‐savvy but with a richer life‐world and life‐experience to share their use of devices such as tablets, and to allow all to benefit from the idiosyncrasy in use that should be aimed at a life‐fit with personality, learning style, preferences, etc., and widening information spaces and information horizons.

The column is written against the background of research from information behaviour, and the learning sciences (especially andragogics).

There are many reasons to explore more than the obvious ways in which ICT devices such as tablets can be used, and for encouraging a spectrum of users to share the idiosyncrasies in their use thereof. Library and information (LIS) services should move from merely teaching people information literacy and ICT skills to creating grounds for sharing practices and experiences in using devices such as tablets. The focus should move to exploiting the benefit of exploring idiosyncrasies in ICT use and how to encourage people to reflect their life‐world and life‐experience in their use of ICT devices such as tablets to widen their (and our) information spaces and information horizons.

Although much has been published on ICT in the library and information science literature and more recently in relation to the Net Generation, the author is not aware of publications exploiting idiosyncrasy and the value that can be added by considering the life‐world and life‐experience of people in their choices in using ICT devices such as tablets. This paper sets the background for further reflection.

The present study aims to focus on workplace learning and understanding learning as creation (Kessels, 1995, 1996, 2001; Verdonschot, 2009; Billett and Choy, 2013) to bridge the gap between education and practice addressing the complex real world issue of poverty and social exclusion in The Netherlands. When researchers and practitioners are confronted with the dynamic complexity of the real world (Mahoney and Sanchez, 2004), it becomes evident how limited the ability of researchers and managers is to fully comprehend, describe, explain and (perhaps) predict the world as it is and as it is becoming. A mission of reconnecting theory-building from the outside and theory-building from the inside requires a process of interconnected research and practice in which interactions between managers and researchers have a purposeful focus on theory-building.

The study is an example of engaged scholarship as proposed by Van de Ven and Johnson (2006) and a baseline study of a time series design from 2001-2008 comparing the effects of a “current treatment” in social work in The Netherlands at t0; explaining the collaborative design between practitioners, innovation consultants and scholars of a “new treatment”; and measuring the effects on social quality at t1.

The paper provides insight in the level of social quality of clients in a situation of poverty and social exclusion. Lessons learned from workplace learning as creation in social work practice provides input for improving work practices through training and development of social workers.

Early notions for a potential new “treatment” have clearly not been fully dealt with in this baseline study. As stated this base-line study aims at overcoming the lack of insight in the client’s life-world and open the black box to gain fresh insights. This is clearly just a first step of a much longer learning and creation process. Now that more insight in the clients life world is available, engaged researchers have proposed a new, more productive mindset of clients in a situation of poverty and social exclusion that they should not be regarded as a “granite base”, but rather as “architects and builders” of their own life–worlds, with the social services as the “main contractor” to build trust, empower by helping to explicate personal survival strategies and planning for social inclusion (Van Damme, 1999). The limited number of respondents (N = 31) in this study is a limitation of this study, and findings cannot be generalised. Findings are no more than early indications and are not representative for other populations. Further research on a larger scale and in other research settings is needed.

Implications are that design principles for a new and more participatory and socially oriented approach for workplace learning as creation should include the role of building trust in establishing relational quality between the public service organisation, other institutions and the client. First indications are that trust and empowerment may better enable clients in a situation of poverty and social exclusion to take charge of the design of their own lives and to construct and co-construct it accordingly. The role of actors from social services to build trusted relations, empower and co-construct an improved reality bear both elements of social learning, through dialogue (construct and co-construct knowledge = to know) and elements from social empowerment as part of the social quality concept (to act). Understanding the effects of the “current treatment” as input for workplace learning allows for an improved connection between practice and theory on workplace learning and social quality, thereby making a decisive contribution in closing the gap between real-world complex issues and education.

A better understanding of the aspects of social quality and social exclusion from theory and from social work practice.

The original contribution of the research is the provision of insight into the complexity of workplace learning in social work when dealing with poverty and social exclusion. The focus on both the process of learning, as well as the outcome of learning, can be considered original.

According to neo-institutional scholars, experts need to support decoupling, yet doing so may be more or less subjectively understandable for those who are employed as experts. The authors mobilize the phenomenological concept of the life-world as a lens for reconstructing how individuals give meaning to decoupling processes. Based on a hermeneutic analysis of a human resource management expert’s reflections on his activities, the authors highlight the subjective experience of decoupling as a process of solving tensions between an individual’s convictions and the relevances imposed by an organization. The authors conclude that a phenomenological lens enriches microfoundations debates by focusing on an individual’s learning within the framework of an imposed organizational reality.

Purpose – Based on a case study of citizens’ summits in Amsterdam, this chapter examines competing aims bound up in attempts to create an in-between space where participants struggle to obtain a sense of belonging against the background of (non)diversity.

Methodology/Approach – A qualitative case study approach is used based on participant observation, informal talks with participants, and interviews with the summit organizers.

Findings – A citizens’ summit can be seen as an in-between space where narratives of citizens should dominate instead of (local) governmental rhetoric. Citizens´ summits create a voice for citizens who are normally less heard in the public debate. To what extent this can be achieved depends on how a summit enables a diversity of participants to practice dialogue, create common ground and share ownership of ideas, problems and solutions. Our findings provide insight into contested belonging within the democratic system in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Social Implications – We suggest that belonging, space and diversity affect social boundaries between those in the electoral democratic system and those participating in citizens’ summits. Focussing on these can lead towards more inclusive democratic systems for all.

Originality/Value of the Paper – Citizens’ summits are often seen as a democratic tool that supplements the electoral democracy. This study looks at the interactions between participants, revealing much about the functioning of deliberative space in citizens’ summits. We also focus on the issue of participant diversity and how senses of belonging include or exclude sections of society.

Health care services are typically viewed as institutions or agencies offering professional care or care supervised by professionals. The concept of availability of health care services involves the degree to which persons can readily find professional care. Few scholars have considered the relevance of these notions to life-circumstances of older homebound women who experience emergent situations (ES) at home such as falls, unintentional injuries, or health problems. During a larger descriptive phenomenological study of the experience of reaching help quickly, 33 of 40 homebound women, aged 85–98 years, who were living alone, reported 57 situations of interest during open-ended interviews over 18 months. The purposes of this facet of the study were (a) to describe the life-world of women who had fortuitous help with ES at home, (b) to categorize helpers involved, and (c) to elaborate the reported influence of such situations on recognizing the risk of being unable to reach help quickly in the future. Life-world was featured by having help right now from someone on the scene. We categorized involved helpers into six types, including four previously identified types of home care helpers as well as (a) “on-the-spot” helpers, acquaintances not among the woman's home care helpers and (b) “at-this-scene-only” helpers, who were not likely to encounter the woman afterwards. In these ES, the home – not the health care institution – was the setting. On-the-scene helpers served as critical health care resources. In contrast to the typical focus on availability of health care services in a public space, availability of on-the-scene helpers in the home, a private space, was critical to the well-being of these old homebound women. This work raises new notions about availability of health care services for older homebound women and offers new perspectives on the key support network concepts of proximity and frequency of contact.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the symbolic forms used in selected mainstream management models and to assess whether it would be expedient for enforcing the connection between leadership and individual human reality if such management models were fundamentally inspired by a successful manager and artist.

The theoretical starting point of this article is Cassirer's philosophy on symbolic forms. The paper analyses the symbolic forms embedded in the management discourse practice of art in the way that the concept is practiced by Kasper Holten, the highly successful Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera.

The analysis shows that conventional management control models are rooted in the symbolic form of science, but are at risk of getting caught in assumptions of the form gliding into the symbolic form of religion and myth, where all the forms tend to oppress essential aspects of individuality. Kasper Holten integrates the symbolic forms of art and science, which makes him capable of binding to the individual's life‐world.

Analysing Kasper Holten's views on management reveals features and structures for a new management discourse practice which is far better suited to most of the knowledge jobs in contemporary society than the more conventional management discourse.

The paper provides novel insight into the interrelationship between the specific way of using language and the way of managing and constructing a world. It paves the way for another way of doing management control and accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss some underdeveloped issues in Community of Practice theory and their practical implications for the study of the organization.

The paper shows that, in order to achieve this goal, first the blind spots are identified (such as power issues and the relation of the community with its environment) based on a literature review. Then, a case study is presented, carried out in a large Dutch organization (referred to as the Design Company), which designs and produces complex technology. The focus is on one community of practice (The User Interface Design Team) and the process of its development (internal and external) within a particular environment. The consequences of this development on the environment are examined. The methodology employed is mainly ethnographical observation and qualitative interviews.

The paper finds that the case study demonstrates the relevance of considering such concepts as power, conflict, and ideology in CoP theory. Enriched in this way, CoP theory can account for both the internal and external development of communities (in terms of empowerment), as well as the conditions that constitute a favorable context for such development. It can also explain how the bottom‐up process of change that was induced by the User Interface Design community takes place within the organizational life‐world.

The paper reveals that the insights provided by this research have the potential to enrich the body of knowledge surrounding CoP theory. The results of this research are considered to be useful for organizations that present similar conditions to the one presented in this case study.