This paper presents the development of a participatory multi-criteria analysis (MCA) process for the evaluation of irrigation management alternatives in the Caia irrigation district, Portugal. The focus is on the design, evaluation and comparison of irrigation management alternatives in a participatory setting, encouraging direct involvement of actors throughout the whole process. A framework for participatory MCA was developed that integrates preparatory interviews (actors selection, understanding the decision context), workshops (alternatives and criteria identification, results discussion) and a second round of interviews (criteria weighting and alternatives evaluation). This framework combines elements from the analytical hierarchy process with social multi-criteria evaluation. The use of different participatory techniques is essential for enabling continuous participation and ensuring that different points of view are taken into account in the evaluation process. The results obtained allowed the identification and comparison of the most preferred alternatives and the analysis of the positions of the different actor groups. Social learning was an important outcome: participants acknowledged that they have gained an improved understanding of the problem and of each other's viewpoints. The direct engagement of actors in MCA presents two challenges: actors' challenge, related to the participation in the process itself, and analytical challenge, mostly related to the interpretation of the results.

Transitions to deal with the grand challenges of contemporary societies require novel kinds of leadership, which can both stimulate novel organizational practices and changes in practices and structures in the organization’s context. This article seeks to understand how (changes in) the external structural context may influence organizational-internal transformative leadership and vice versa, and what kind of work is implied in leadership to transform current business models. It uses notions from literature on relational leadership and transformative leadership as sensitizing concepts. It then explores the leadership work in two case studies, on fishing in Portugal and care farming in the Netherlands. We find a dialectic interplay of the interactions between leaders and others on the one hand, and contextual changes on the other. Using a system-building perspective from innovation system literature, that interaction is driven by the quest to establish legitimacy and market formation and acceptance, knowledge and other resources for innovations.