State slice 01Organizations
- S0
- Established routines
- Changing condition
- leadership, incentives, expectations
- Observation
- memory, identity, behaviour, adaptation
Organizations · Climate · Dynamics
Change becomes easier to study when conditions remain visible.
Modes of Change examines how researchers study transitions in organizations, climate decisions, and non-equilibrium physical systems while keeping the mechanisms and scales of each field distinct.
Independent educational resource
Three-state observationS0 Δ S1
State slice 02Climate decisions
- S0
- Existing incentives
- Changing condition
- policy, prices, uncertainty
- Observation
- timing, behaviour, distribution, resource use
State slice 03Non-equilibrium dynamics
- S0
- specified physical state
- Changing condition
- relaxation, dissipation, forcing
- Observation
- waves, shocks, transport, state evolution
A comparative learning device across distinct disciplines — not a claim that organizational, economic, and physical processes share the same causal mechanism.
Change needs a reference state
A transition is difficult to interpret unless we know what existed before it, what changed, and what evidence describes the response.
Initial conditions matter.
Constraints shape response.
Uncertainty changes decisions.
Scale limits comparison.
Four change domains
Different transitions require different kinds of evidence.
Organizations & Memory
Explore organizational culture, leadership, occupational groups, institutional memory, professional identity, academic labour markets, adaptation, and qualitative accounts of organizational change.
Futures & Research Systems
Study higher education, academic careers, research funding, foresight, megatrends, future scenarios, professional communities, and uncertainty in knowledge-producing institutions.
Climate Decisions
Explore environmental economics, climate policy, carbon pricing, resource scarcity, policy instruments, uncertainty, timing, distribution, energy, and behavioural responses to incentives.
Non-Equilibrium Dynamics
Examine hyperbolic systems, nonlinear waves, continuum mechanics, extended thermodynamics, shocks, relaxation, fluids, kinetic theory, and physical systems away from equilibrium.
Comparative views
Use the same broad question without assuming the same mechanism.
View 01 / Organizational research
Memory → Adaptation
How do groups interpret change through what they remember and what they forget?
Relevant conditions
leadership · occupational identity · organizational history · routines · professional roles · institutional narratives
Evidence may include
interviews · qualitative observations · documents · organizational histories
View 02 / Climate economics
Policy → Anticipation
How can expectations about future policy affect decisions made today?
Relevant conditions
carbon prices · resource scarcity · policy timing · uncertainty · market expectations · technology
Evidence may include
economic models · market data · policy analysis · behavioural responses
View 03 / Mathematical physics
Disturbance → Propagation
How does a disturbance evolve through a continuum governed by balance laws and constitutive assumptions?
Relevant conditions
hyperbolicity · relaxation · dissipation · material properties · thermodynamic state · scale
Evidence may include
mathematical models · analytical solutions · numerical calculations · physical theory
The State Method
Seven questions for examining a transition responsibly.
Define the system
What exactly is being studied?
An organization? An occupational group? A market? A policy? A fluid? A thermodynamic continuum?
Identify the reference state
What is known about the system before the observed change?
Name the changing condition
Which event, policy, force, parameter, expectation, or structural change is relevant?
Identify the constraints
What restricts, channels, delays, or modifies the response?
Observe the response
Which evidence describes what changed? Interviews? Economic behaviour? Policy outcomes? Wave propagation? Thermodynamic variables?
Check uncertainty and scale
Which observations are uncertain? Would the explanation change at another temporal, spatial, organizational, or analytical scale?
Limit the transfer
State clearly which concepts can help comparison and which mechanisms must remain specific to the original discipline.
Educational reference points
Six scholars across organizations, climate economics, and non-equilibrium dynamics.
These profiles are presented as educational reference points for exploring public academic work. They are not presented as members, employees, partners, collaborators, representatives, endorsers, or affiliates of Modes of Change.
Platform contact note
The first three email addresses are platform contact addresses supplied for this site and are not presented as verified university or institutional email accounts.
EKOrganization
Eneli Kindsiko
Associate Professor in Qualitative Research · Estonia
University of Tartu
School of Economics and Business Administration
Chair of Economic Modelling
Academic research on qualitative methodology, academic labour markets, higher education and research systems, future studies, foresight, megatrends, organizational memory, professional groups, institutional change, research careers, research funding, and how people interpret and adapt to changing organizational environments.
ORCID 0000-0001-9466-6070
Platform contacteneli.kindsiko@churchpictures.org
SJClimate
Svenn Jensen
Associate Professor · Norway
Oslo Metropolitan University
Oslo Business School · Faculty of Social Sciences
Economics and Methodology
Academic research in climate and environmental economics, including decision-making under uncertainty, petroleum and exhaustible-resource markets, climate policy, policy timing, environmental regulation, energy economics, resource scarcity, and the unintended responses that can arise when economic actors anticipate future policy changes.
ORCID 0000-0002-4572-0066
Platform contactsvenn.jensen@churchpictures.org
TRDynamics
Tommaso Ruggeri
Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Physics · Italy
University of Bologna
Department of Mathematics · Alma Mater Research Center on Applied Mathematics
Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering
Academic work in mathematical physics, continuum thermomechanics, nonlinear wave propagation, hyperbolic systems of balance laws, Rational Extended Thermodynamics, classical and relativistic fluids, shock waves, kinetic theory, mixtures, viscoelasticity, non-Newtonian fluids, and mathematical formulations of physical systems away from equilibrium.
ORCID 0000-0002-7588-2074
Platform contacttommaso.ruggeri@churchpictures.org
MVOrganization
Maaja Vadi
Professor of Management · Estonia
University of Tartu
School of Economics and Business Administration · Chair of Management
Academic research in management and organizational behaviour, including organizational culture, leadership, organizational innovation, synergy, management practices, workplace behaviour, institutional environments, organizational memory, professional groups, and how organizations respond to leadership and contextual change.
ORCID 0000-0002-4148-0712
Educational reference point
TSClimate
Thomas Sterner
Senior Researcher and Professor of Environmental Economics · Sweden
University of Gothenburg
Department of Economics · School of Business, Economics and Law
Academic research in environmental and resource economics with particular emphasis on environmental policy instruments, carbon pricing, taxation, policy acceptability, distributional effects, climate economics, biodiversity, pollution, energy use, resource efficiency, aviation emissions, and the design of economically effective and socially acceptable environmental policies.
ORCID 0000-0003-4771-3545
Educational reference point
TADynamics
Takashi Arima
Associate Professor · Japan
National Institute of Technology, Tomakomai College
Department of Engineering for Innovation
Academic research in fluid dynamics and mathematical physics, including non-equilibrium thermodynamics, rational extended thermodynamics, polyatomic and multicomponent gases, hierarchical hydrodynamic models, rapidly changing flows, relaxation phenomena, transport processes, real-gas effects, and mathematical models that extend conventional fluid descriptions beyond equilibrium conditions.
ORCID 0000-0001-6758-7991
Educational reference point
Reference status
Academic reference does not imply participation.
Modes of Change is an independent educational prototype. Academic names and institutional references are included solely to help readers discover relevant areas of public scholarship.
The first three platform contact addresses were supplied specifically for this site. They are not presented as verified personal, university, institutional, or employer-provided email accounts.
The remaining profiles are educational reference points only and are not presented as participants in, contributors to, endorsers of, or affiliates of this resource.
Research notes
Open a note and examine how researchers describe changing conditions.
Explore concise educational notes across organizational change, climate economics, uncertainty, mathematical physics, and non-equilibrium systems.
10 notes
Organizational MemoryWhy do organizations remember some changes and forget others?
Explore how groups construct shared interpretations of their organizational past.
Discuss organizational memory, forgetting, leadership change, occupational groups, professional identity, organizational narratives, adaptation, institutional history, routines, qualitative interviews, competing interpretations, and why organizational memory should be studied as a social process rather than a neutral archive of past events.
Academic LabourWhy are academic careers difficult to predict?
Explore uncertainty, funding, timing, institutional rules, and competition within research systems.
Discuss academic labour markets, research funding, hiring, publication, career timing, mobility, evaluation systems, institutional incentives, uncertainty, professional identity, disciplinary differences, cumulative advantage, and why academic career outcomes cannot be explained through individual performance alone.
ForesightWhat can future scenarios do that forecasts cannot?
Explore foresight as a way of examining several plausible futures.
Discuss foresight, megatrends, scenarios, uncertainty, assumptions, weak signals, institutional planning, strategic decisions, alternative futures, qualitative methods, expert interpretation, adaptation, and the difference between exploring possible futures and claiming to predict one certain future.
Climate EconomicsWhy can expectations about future climate policy change behaviour today?
Explore how anticipated regulation may alter economic decisions before a policy fully takes effect.
Discuss climate policy, expectations, fossil resources, scarcity rents, extraction timing, carbon prices, future regulation, resource owners, incentives, green-paradox mechanisms, uncertainty, discounting, policy credibility, and why economic responses may begin before policy implementation.
Environmental PolicyWhy does the design of a carbon price matter?
Explore efficiency, distribution, acceptability, and the use of policy revenues.
Discuss carbon pricing, environmental taxes, incentives, revenue recycling, distributional effects, policy acceptability, households, firms, emissions, political feasibility, efficiency, equity, institutional context, and why the same nominal carbon price can produce different social and economic effects depending on design.
Decision Under UncertaintyHow does uncertainty change an economic decision?
Explore why expectations, timing, irreversibility, and incomplete information matter.
Discuss uncertain future prices, uncertain policy, investment, resource extraction, option value, expectations, model assumptions, risk, timing, information, sensitivity analysis, adaptive policy, and why uncertainty is not simply an error term to be removed from every decision problem.
Mathematical PhysicsWhat makes a system of balance laws hyperbolic?
Explore why mathematical structure matters for the propagation of physical information.
Discuss conservation and balance laws, characteristic speeds, hyperbolicity, wave propagation, well-posedness, entropy, constitutive relations, physical states, continuum models, mathematical structure, finite propagation speeds, and why hyperbolicity is important in mathematical descriptions of continuum systems.
Non-Equilibrium ThermodynamicsWhy does equilibrium thermodynamics need extensions?
Explore systems in which heat, momentum, or internal variables change too rapidly for equilibrium descriptions alone.
Discuss equilibrium assumptions, relaxation time, heat flux, non-equilibrium variables, entropy, extended thermodynamics, transport, molecular degrees of freedom, continuum descriptions, rapid processes, hyperbolic models, and why additional variables may be necessary when local equilibrium approximations become insufficient.
Wave PropagationWhat distinguishes a smooth wave from a shock?
Explore nonlinear propagation, discontinuities, balance laws, and physical constraints.
Discuss smooth waves, nonlinear steepening, shocks, discontinuities, characteristic speeds, entropy conditions, acceleration waves, sub-shocks, dissipation, material response, hyperbolic equations, continuum mechanics, and why nonlinear wave propagation can create qualitatively new states.
Comparative ReasoningWhen does a comparison between different kinds of change become misleading?
Explore the limits of transferring concepts between organizations, economics, and physics.
Discuss analogy, causal mechanism, scale, interpretation, mathematical models, qualitative evidence, human agency, institutions, physical laws, uncertainty, context, state variables, metaphor, disciplinary assumptions, and why responsible interdisciplinary learning requires keeping similarities and differences visible at the same time.
No research notes match your search.
About Modes of Change
A transition is easier to interpret when the reference state remains visible.
Modes of Change is an independent educational prototype connecting organizational research, climate and environmental economics, and mathematical studies of non-equilibrium physical systems.
It does not suggest that organizations, economic actors, and physical continua operate through equivalent mechanisms.
Instead, it examines a shared research habit: defining the system, identifying a reference state, locating changing conditions, recognizing constraints, examining evidence, considering uncertainty and scale, and limiting comparisons to what each field can support.
Modes of Change is not a university, research institute, environmental organization, laboratory, consultancy, financial organization, government body, professional association, publisher, or commercial service.
Every change needs a reference
A transition becomes interpretable only when the starting conditions are sufficiently clear.
Constraints shape responses
Organizations, decisions, and physical models all contain constraints, but those constraints have different meanings and mechanisms.
Uncertainty belongs in the explanation
Uncertainty may arise from incomplete knowledge, future decisions, measurement, modelling, or complex environments.
Comparison requires boundaries
Cross-disciplinary questions are useful only when field-specific mechanisms remain explicit.
Follow the transition
Choose one change and reconstruct the conditions around it.
Browse research notes, compare different modes of change, and use the State Method to examine reference conditions, constraints, uncertainty, response, and scale.
UncertaintyReference stateΔChanging conditionΔObserved responseScale