A complexity theory perspective can be beneficial in
studying the packet of strategies and activities for sustainable development of LTH as
well. Such a perspective can enable us to:
· Design
different strategies and activities for development of education, research, employees, and
infrastructure at the faculty.
· Analyze and
learn from the dynamic economic, social, and [natural] environmental changes influenced by/influencing the strategies
and activities. The changes
can be considered from local and regional to national, continental, and global
levels.
·
Acknowledge enough diversity of strategies and activities. Diversity
can be traced in our education (first, second, and third cycles; commissionary;
philanthropic), research (projects, competencies, excellence centers, scholarships),
and employees (gender equality irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, sexual
orientation, personal believes, disability, and age).
In addition,
diversity can be considered in our communication and collaboration. It is
important to communicate our strategies and activities through different
channels like scientific journals, books, conferences, seminars, workshops,
fairs and exhibitions, meetings, and media. We should also develop our capacity to collaborate with
different stakeholders from academia, research and education organizations,
industries, businesses, consultants, authorities, and so on.
·
Analyze the antagonistic
effects of strategies and activities on each other as well as conflicts of a paradoxical character.
Some examples of conflicts of a paradoxical character
(i.e. existing at the same time) are: coopetition or horizontal collaboration
(cooperation and competition at the same time), investment during recession, freedom/creativity
and control/setting rules and restrictions, developing core competency and
being multi- as well as inter disciplinary/holistic, centralization and
decentralization of decision-making, internationalization and preserving the
cultural heritage like the Swedish language.
·
Acknowledge
enough freedom and decentralization of power at different departments as well
as interactions among them. Although common values and strategies can be
defined for whole of the faculty, each department should have enough freedom
and power to design/re-design the most fitted strategies.
· Acknowledge the latest scientific methods of management of changes
in complex systems. Such methods propose that for example: changes can be both
bottom-up and top-down, the effects of changes may be nonlinear, the values emerge by interactions among the
agents without direct control, everything cannot be completely regulatory (we cannot set a rule for every activity), reality is anti-positivistic (do not expect that
all agents behave rationally, deterministically, and stably in a same way),
reality is subjective (do not prejudge; wait until a pattern of behavior be
identified).
A complex
system functions better when it is non-hierarchical/flat (minimum
bureaucratic processes, informal and trustful relations among the motivated agents, decentralized power of decision making) and
avoids reductionism (taking responsibility for development of all its agents, solving
the problems and tackling the challenges instead of erasing/ignoring/simplifying
them).
