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Purpose -This paper seeks to address complexity in project management via an innovative course that focuses on systems thinking.Design/methodology/approach -Intuitions about systems thinking evident in everyday language are developed and applied to phases of the system development life cycle.Findings -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.Research limitations/implications -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.Practical implications -The findings are of value to educators, practitioners and researchers who seek a practical approach to integrating complexity theory into modern project management practices.Social implications -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.Originality/value -The approach of addressing complexity via a project management course certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI) is innovative, perhaps unique.

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Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to reduce ambiguity in diverse approaches to health knowledge management by surfacing key issues, perspectives and philosophical assumptions. Design/methodology/approach-Knowledge management research in health is critically reviewed. Issues are grouped into research domains, and examined in the light of associated knowledge management perspectives, and philosophical assumptions. Findings-Systemic complexity in health knowledge management derives from tensions within and between issues in three domains: specific value-laden aspects of clinic practice (knowledge creation); integration of workplace practice into generic process flows (knowledge normalization); and the technical integration of disparate information systems (knowledge application). These concepts are related to three knowledge management perspectives, viz., personal values, social norms and objective facts, respectively. Both domains and perspectives are anchored in philosophical assumptions about the interests served by knowledge (viz., emancipatory, practical, and technical), and in approaches to inquiry (critical pluralist, interpretivist, and positivist). Research limitations/implications-The findings are based on selected literature about Western health care practices Practical implications-The framework assists understanding of the practical reasoning that motivates the use of technology in health knowledge management. The conceptual linkages that are developed are of value to practitioners and researchers sensitive to the intertwining of facts, norms and values. Originality/value-In total, the concepts and relations developed in this paper constitute both a framework for inquiry in health knowledge management, and a normative theory for a critique of patient care. Recognising, and articulating, the relative importance one ascribes to facts, norms, and values is crucial in tackling the hard problems in health knowledge management.

Abstract.Concepts of media efficiency and media richness are employed to describe the impact of communication media on two key aspects of negotiation behavior--reducing uncertainty about the task, and managing equivocality about negotiator's bargaining orientation. A controlled experiment was conducted to examine how the use of either audio or text forms of verbal communication, and the presence or absence of visual communication, impacts negotiation performance in a bilateral monopoly task. Each member of a pair of negotiators received private instructions either to maximize joint profit (a cooperative bargaining orientation) or to maximize individual profit (an individualistic bargaining orientation). Negotiation performance was measured via the total amount of relative cooperativeness of verbal communication and joint profit. In the audio mode as opposed to the text mode, the total amount of verbal communication and joint profit was increased. In the presence of visual communication the relative cooperativeness and joint profit of pairs of individualistic negotiators was less than that of cooperative negotiators. In the absence of visual communication the relative cooperativeness and joint profit of pairs of individualistic negotiators was no less than that of cooperative negotiators. In sum the findings suggest that uncertainty regarding the logical structure of the task was reduced primarily via verbal communclation, while equivocality regarding the bargaining orientation of the other negotiator was reduced primarily via visual communication. The implications for group decision and negotiation research and practice are explored.