Integral Dynamics: Political Economy, Cultural Dynamics and the Future of the University (Transformation and Innovation) - Hardcover

'Our quest for a more sustainable world demands a fundamental re-orientation of higher education. Many valuable books have been published critiquing universities for becoming partners in economic globalization and enabling graduates to accelerate unsustainability. This book takes the crucial next step by offering a compelling and feasible alternative based on connectedness, boundary-crossing, integrative thinking, co-creation and collaborative action. Required reading for anyone interested in creating the university for the future with people, planet and prosperity in mind.' Arjen Wals, Professor and UNESCO Chair in Social Learning and Sustainable Development and Editor of Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change'As our world struggles to deal with economic collapse, moral decline and spiritual malaise, the authors have developed an approach entitled Integral Dynamics, which challenges the reader to consider how insights from various cultures [trans-cultural] as well as seeking guidance from diverse disciplines [trans-disciplinary] might provide direction for finding viable solutions. Their ideas both critique and challenge historical and prevailing ideas on how to address issues which threaten our current way of life.'Wilbur P. Stone, Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, MN

The theory of integral dynamics is based on the view that the development of individual leaders or entrepreneurs requires the simultaneous development of institutions and societies. It seeks a specific way forward for each society, fundamentally different from, but drawing on, its past. Nearly every natural science has been transformed from an analytically-based approach to a dynamic one: now it is time for society and culture to follow suit locally and globally. Each culture, discipline and person is incomplete and is in need of others in order to develop and evolve. This book sets out a curriculum for a new integral, trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary area of study, inclusive of, but extending beyond, economics and enterprise. It embraces a trans-personal perspective, linking self with community, enterprise and society, and focusing on the vital relationship between local identity and global integrity. For the government policy maker, the enlightened business practitioner, and the student and researcher into economics and enterprise, the new discipline is set out here in complete detail by a multi-national team of Gower's Transformation and Innovation Series authors. Illuminated with examples relating the conceptual to the practical, this is a text, not for a pre-modern, modern, or even post-modern era, but for what has been called our trans-modern age.