Values

Combining subjectivity and objectivity in systems thinking: The SOS sandwich

By James Stauch and Daniela Papi-Thornton.

mosaic_authors_james-stauch_daniela-papi-thornton
1. James Stauch (biography)
2. Daniela Papi-Thornton (biography)

In seeking to understand, map, and then act to intervene in a system, how can we make the best use of both subjectivity and objectivity? How can we effectively toggle between facts and norms, between what is true (or at least broadly verifiable) and what is valued (or valuable)?

In the book that this i2Insights contribution is based on (Stauch et al., 2025), the case is made for people to spend far more time understanding a problem, and proportionally less time acting to “solve” the problem. To help frame this approach, the SOS (subjective-objective-subjective) sandwich is used as a simple heuristic to show where subjectivity and objectivity can be taken into account when dealing with a system.

In this work, objectivity is considered as a vector, not a destination, with true objectivity always out of reach, as we can never be completely objective in our approach to research. That said, we can strive for it by recognizing our biases and seeking diverse viewpoints.

Read more

Principles for place-based community participation

By James A. Turner.

james-turner_2025
James A. Turner (biography)

How can a community’s sense of connection and responsibility to care for their place be strengthened? How can this lead to ground-up change, driven by communities, to tackle complex social, economic, and environmental issues? How can such change draw on the deep sense of care and belonging people feel for their communities and environments to tailor solutions to the unique needs and context of a place?

We identified eleven key principles associated with successful place-based community-led projects. These are the first principles to be developed in-country, rather than being imported from overseas and, because these are place-based, they are specific to Aotearoa New Zealand. We share them here to illustrate what specific place-based principles look like.

Read more

Mindset matters for interdisciplinary teams: Choose a collaborative one

By L. Michelle Bennett

l-michelle-bennett_2023
L. Michelle Bennett (biography)
  • How often do you think about what you are thinking about?
  • How about what you believe? What your values are? Or your deep set needs?
  • Do you recognize that everything you say, do, or write as a member of an interdisciplinary team is influenced by what is in your head? And your team members by what is in theirs?

We can all relate to what it is like to be doing a project with close colleagues when things work seamlessly, the group is productive, everyone innately seems to know what to do and how to do it, people are comfortable pointing out things that need to be changed or fixed, and everyone is fully present.

I’m guessing we can all also relate to what it is like when there is tension among colleagues. Maybe there is something amiss that everyone sees or notices, but no one is willing to surface for discussion, so everyone sidesteps.

Read more

Team development is an essential team science competency

By Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano, L. Michelle Bennett and Yianna Vovides

authors_gaetano_lotrecchiano_l-michelle-bennett_yianna-vovides
1. Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano (biography)
2. L. Michelle Bennett (biography)
3. Yianna Vovides (biography)

How does a team develop purposefully from an assembly of individuals with a shared research interest to an integrated and interdependent team? What process can they put in place to explore and discover not just their own but each other’s motivations, needs, and values? What needs to be put in place to collaboratively establish a team culture, norms, and processes from which they can agree to operate?

Here we describe the Reflective-Reflexive Design Method that addresses intra- and inter-personal dynamics for team development. Two assumptions underpin it:

  1. reflection and reflexivity are necessary dynamics for teaming success, and
  2. interventions that build successful teams take advantage of both dynamics in context and as intersection points.

Read more

Tips for influencing government policy with research

By John Thwaites

john-thwaites
John Thwaites (biography)

Considering three questions can help researchers interested in better use of evidence in government policy making:

  1. how is evidence used by politicians?
  2. why is best evidence not always followed?
  3. what can be done to improve the likelihood that evidence will inform policy?

How evidence is used by politicians

It is useful to start with an appreciation that politicians look to many forms of evidence other than academic research, including the grey literature, government reports, reports from Royal commissions, various other forms of expert evidence (including the politician’s favourite expert), the experience of citizens, anecdotal evidence, reports from interested parties produced by consultants, the media and Google searches.

Read more

Achieving change by transforming engagement

By Katja Jäger

katja-jager
Katja Jäger (biography)

How can civil society organisations, which rely on volunteer efforts, contribute more effectively to societal change? How can they position engagement with volunteers in a forward-looking way, so as to unleash the potential of committed people? What lessons does this have for researchers interested in social change efforts and in stakeholder engagement?

As a leader of a civil society organisation which works in the field of volunteer support, I am interested in how organisational engagement with volunteers can be most effective in supporting change efforts. Here I share a framework that we have found useful, along with four sets of questions for civil society organisations to reflect on in cooperation with their volunteers.

This work also aims to give researchers interested in social change insight into how they might effectively partner with civil society organisations, as well as how they might expand their thinking about engagement.

As a starting point, I have used the AQAL (All Quadrants All Levels) model shown in the figure below, which was developed by Ken Wilbur (1995) in his framework of integral theory. The model as shown was drawn by Keks Ackermann in Breidenbach and Rollow (2019).

Read more

The Strategic Choice Approach in shaping public policies

By Catherine Hobbs

catherine-hobbs_2021
Catherine Hobbs (biography)

How can we be inspired, rather than overwhelmed, by differing perspectives in the inter-organisational planning required to more effectively address cross-cutting issues, or interacting areas of policy? How can we learn from the achievements of public policy action research, in the light of the local and global uncertainties of the 2020s?

Strategic Choice Approach was developed by John Friend with Allen Hickling, originating during the 1960s and 1970s. It emerged through a series of collaborative action research projects applied to public policy challenges in a number of countries, so that its origins are empirical rather than theoretical.

Friend described Strategic Choice Approach as being helpful as a practical approach to planning under pressure where “people of different outlooks and allegiances are working together with a shared concern to move rapidly towards commitments to action or to changes of policy on difficult issues of shared concern” (Friend, no date).

Read more

Understanding diversity primer: 5. Values

By Gabriele Bammer

primer_diversity_5

How can differences in values be understood? How do differences in values affect research on complex societal and environmental problems, especially how problems are framed, understood and responded to, as well as how well those contributing to the research work together?

Ten basic personal values

Shalom Schwartz’s theory of basic values (2012) identifies ten broad personal values, which are differentiated by their underlying goal or motivation, as described in the table below. These values seem to be culturally robust.

Overall, each value helps humans cope with one or more of three requirements of existence, namely the needs of:

  • individuals as biological organisms
  • coordinated social interaction
  • group survival and welfare.

Read more

Understanding values: Schwartz theory of basic values

By Shalom H. Schwartz

shalom-schwartz
Shalom H. Schwartz (biography)

Why are values important for tackling complex societal and environmental problems? Can personal values that are robust across cultures be identified? Can these personal values help explain conflicts in values?

Six main features of values

All values have six features in common and these illustrate why values are important in researching and acting on complex problems.

1. Values are beliefs linked inextricably to affect. When values are activated, they become infused with feeling.

2. Values refer to desirable goals that motivate action.

Read more

Intentional ecology: Building values, advocacy and action into transdisciplinary environmental research

By Alexandra Knight and Catherine Allan

authors_alexandra-knight_catherine-allan
1. Alexandra Knight (biography)
2. Catherine Allan (biography)

As a society, how do we encourage early and ethical action when building our knowledge and confronting serious challenges?

In this blog post we explore the conceptual framework of intentional ecology and apply it to a case study to illustrate how it deals with the question raised above.

Intentional ecology – foundations and actions

Intentional ecology, illustrated in the figure below, is a new conceptual framework that enables early, applied and relevant integrated action, as well as reflexive and dynamic approaches to implementation of conservation and sustainability measures. It’s a better way of doing science.

Read more

Basic steps for dealing with problematic value pluralism

By Bethany Laursen, Stephen Crowley and Chad Gonnerman

authors_bethany-laursen_stephen-crowley_chad-gonnerman
1. Bethany Laursen (biography)
2. Stephen Crowley (biography)
3. Chad Gonnerman (biography)

Have you ever been part of a team confronting a moral dilemma? Or trying to manage deep disagreements? For that matter, on a more down-to-earth level, how many times has your team tried to settle an agreed file naming convention? Many team troubles arise from value pluralism—members having different values or holding the same values in different ways. Below, we describe problematic value pluralism and suggest steps for dealing with it.

What are values, and how do they cause problems?

Here, we’re talking about a “value” as a desire (conscious or unconscious) that directs a person’s actions.

Read more

Core competencies for implementation practice

By Sobia Khan and Julia E. Moore

authors_sobia-khan_julia-moore
1. Sobia Khan (biography)
2. Julia E. Moore (biography)

How can implementation practitioners – those who are implementing in practice rather than for research – become more effective? How can the pragmatism required to apply implementation science principles to practice be taught and fostered? What are the core competencies of implementation practice?

We conducted a scan of the literature and grey literature and then consolidated six existing core competency documents, covering implementation practice, knowledge translation, and knowledge mobilization. The core competencies outlined across these six documents required some synthesis and re-framing in order to really make sense and resonate with practitioners, particularly to address differences across settings.

Our report, Core Competencies for Implementation Practice (Moore and Khan, 2020), highlights the many different roles and responsibilities implementation practitioners and intermediaries may take on, so it is translatable to different initiatives and settings.

Read more