ThinkWorks News

Researcher Relates Complexity and Social Change Initiatives

August 29th, 2008

Ithaca, NY - In an article published in the journal MAZI, evaluator Virginia Lacayo discusses the status of public policies that effect broad social change.  She criticizes the traditional comparison of organizations to machines.  Drawing on the study of complexity, she instead describes social change as "a nonlinear, long-term and often unpredictable" process.

While she sees broad implications for her work, Lacayo is currently focused on the field of evaluation.  She cites research conducted by ThinkBlocks inventor Dr. Derek Cabrera.  His work revealed that most evaluation models are grounded in a traditional point of view.  From this traditional perspective, organizations and policies are like machines to be tinkered with, and evaluators believe change can be measured in incremental and predictable chunks.  Instead, Cabrera argued, evaluators should incorporate systems thinking into their practice.  This would enable them to better evaluate efforts to influence complex systems like human behavior.

The full article is available online and for download in PDF format.

MAZI is published by the Communication for Social Change Consortium.  The non-profit organization works in developing and industrialized countries to increase the "capacity of people living in poor and marginalized communities to use communication in order to improve their own lives."  The organization partners with several agencies of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank.