Within a conceptual framework that is developed in the two first chapters, the actual application of systems thinking is described across a broad field of cases representing research, teaching, decision support and construction. All cases are presented by experts who have actually been involved in the activities they describe. Thus, the broad selection of cases captures the great variation of systems thinking and how it is integrated into models and theories and solid knowledge pertaining to different substantive areas. At the same time all case study authors address the same set of questions that are developed in the conceptual chapters. This gives comparability across cases - chapters - and brings cohesion to the book. The focus on Sweden, an advanced country in systems thinking, reinforces the unitary context in which comparison can be made between a systems approach for better research (theory), better practice and better design and construction.

Most recent literature on systems thinking has a general (often philosophical) perspective, concerns computer systems or focuses on one highly specific problem. A special feature of this book is that, while it concerns a single nation, it simultaneously contains a broad overview of systems analysis in a number of important issue areas, for research as well as practice, against a penetrating background description of what systems analysis is, how it functions, what problems it represents and what results it may produce.

The book is intended for a broad readership and can be appreciated by experts on systems thinking and analysis as well as by students, teachers, researchers, planners and policy makers who want to learn more aboutthis topic. The book should be useful in university teaching in several disciplines.

For reasons having to do with the Soviet resource allocation model, many Russian forest sector enterprises were miserably unfit to meet the market competition that started to emerge after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. To avoid bankruptcy and stay alive in Russia's transition towards a market-like system many enterprises chose to engage in non-monetary transactions, thus establishing what has become known as Russia's virtual economy. The peculiar institutions ("rules-in-use") guiding actors' behaviour in this odd system are incompatible with the operation of efficient markets. The topics discussed in this book can be framed through the following questions: What is the general role of institutions in the on-going changes in Russian society? Are there institutions that hamper the transition process towards democracy and a market economy? If so, how do they hamper this process? How can such institutions be changed to better serve the needs of the emerging market system? These and similar questions are addressed from several different but related perspectives in a number of studies of actors' behaviour in the Russian timber procurement arena.