Table of Contents

I: A Word of Values.- 1 Systems thinking and human values: towards understanding performance in organizations.- 2 The role of values in measuring performance of social systems.- 3 Towards an axiological systems theory.- II: Some Models for Defining Social Performance.- 4 Some problems in the observation of performance.- 5 The resolution of dilemmas and conflicts in approaching the performance of social systems through representation, evaluation and quantification.- 6 A model for measuring the performance of social systems.- 7 The potentialities of the sociocybernetic model in assessing political performance in a non-stable society.- 8 Criteria of systems performance from a macro-sociological viewpoint.- 9 Distributed control in social systems.- 10 Space of state and performance’s optimization: lessons of Russians’ failures.- 11 Conditions for testing performance.- III: Operational Approaches to the Concept of Social Performance.- 12 Environmental balance and the performance of social systems.- 13 The performance of education systems.- 14 Performance of health care units and the influence of management.- 15 Indicators of social performance in the heartland of the United States.- 16 Global modeling and international performance.- 17 The performance of the world system: a critical viewpoint.- 18 An exploration into the measurement of social efficiency on the Internet.

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`The book is well produced to a high standard, and is well referenced and well written, which is useful for those readers wishing to gain a foothold in this area. Overall and interesting read.'
Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 19:3 (2002)