Building community resilience in a context of climate change: The role of social capital.

Social capital is considered important for resilience across social levels, including communities, yet insights are scattered across disciplines. This meta-synthesis of 187 studies examines conceptual and empirical understandings of how social capital relates to resilience, identifying implications for community resilience and climate change practice. Different conceptualisations are highlighted, yet also limited focus on underlying dimensions of social capital and proactive types of resilience for engaging with the complex climate change challenge. Empirical insights show that structural and socio-cultural aspects of social capital, multiple other factors and formal actors are all important for shaping the role of social capital for guiding resilience outcomes. Thus, finding ways to work with these different elements is important. Greater attention on how and why outcomes emerge, interactions between factors, approaches of formal actors and different socio-cultural dimensions will advance understandings about how to nurture social capital for resilience in the context of climate change.

Quantum ergonomics: shifting the paradigm of the systems agenda.

A paradigm is an accepted world view. If we do not continually question our paradigm then wider trends and movements will overtake the discipline leaving it ill adapted to future challenges. This Special Issue is an opportunity to keep systems thinking at the forefront of ergonomics theory and practice. Systems thinking prompts us to ask whether ergonomics, as a discipline, has been too timid? Too preoccupied with the resolution of immediate problems with industrial-age methods when, approaching fast, are developments which could render these operating assumptions an irrelevance. Practical case studies are presented to show how abstract systems problems can be tackled head-on to deliver highly innovative and cost-effective insights. The strategic direction of the discipline foregrounds high-quality systems problems. These are something the discipline is well able to respond to provided that the appropriate operating paradigms are selected. Practitioner Summary: High-quality systems problems are the future of the discipline. How do we convert obtuse sounding systems concepts into practical interventions? In this paper, the essence of systems thinking is distilled and practical case studies used to demonstrate the benefits of this new paradigm.