Complexity theory and organizations

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Complexity theory has been used in the field of strategic management and organizational studies, sometimes called complexity strategy.

Overview

A way of modelling a Complex Adaptive System. A system with high adaptive capacity exerts complex adaptive behavior in a changing environment.

Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are contrasted with ordered and chaotic systems by the relationship that exists between the system and the agents which act within it. In an ordered system the level of constraint means that all agent behaviour is limited to the rules of the system. In a chaotic system the agents are unconstrained and susceptible to statistical and other analysis. In a CAS, the system and the agents co-evolve; the system lightly constrains agent behaviour, but the agents modify the system by their interaction with it.

CAS approaches to strategy seek to understand the nature of system constraints and agent interaction and generally takes an evolutionary or naturalistic approach to strategy.

See also

• Complex adaptive system
• Complex system
• Complexity
• Complexity theory
• Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity
• The Santa Fe Institute
• The New England Complex Systems Institute

Further reading

• Anderson, P. 1999. Complexity Theory and Organization Science Organization Science. 10(3): 216-232.

• Axelrod, R. A., & Cohen, M. D., 2000. Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier. New York: The Free Press

• Yaneer Bar-Yam (2005). Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems in a Complex World. Cambridge, MA: Knowledge Press

• Brown, S. L., & Eisenhardt, K. M. 1997. The Art of Continuous Change: Linking Complexity Theory and Time-paced Evolution in Relentlessly Shifting Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42: 1-34

• Burns, S., & Stalker, G. M. 1961. The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock Publications

• Davis, J. P., Eisenhardt, K. M., & Bingham, C. B. 2009. Optimal Structure, Market Dynamism, and the Strategy of Simple Rules. Administrative Science Quarterly, 54: 413-452

• Gell-Mann, M. 1994. The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex. New York: WH Freeman

• Kauffman, S. 1993. The Origins of Order. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

• Levinthal, D. 1997. Adaptation on Rugged Landscapes. Management Science, 43: 934-950

• March, J. G. 1991. Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning. Organization Science, 2(1): 71-87

• McKelvey, B. 1999. Avoiding Complexity Catastrophe in Coevolutionary Pockets: Strategies for Rugged Landscapes. Organization Science, 10(3): 249-321

• McMillan, E. 2004 Complexity, Organizations and Change. Routledge.ISBN 041531447X Hardback. ISBN 041539502X Paperback

• Moffat, James. 2003. Complexity Theory and Network Centric Warfare.

• Perrow, C. Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay Scott, Forseman & Co., Glenville, Illinois

• Rivkin, J., W. 2000. Imitation of Complex Strategies. Management Science, 46(6): 824-844

• Rivkin, J. and Siggelkow, N. 2003. Balancing Search and Stability: Interdependencies Among Elements of Organizational Design. Management Science, 49, pp. 290-311

• Rudolph, J., & Repenning, N. 2002. Disaster Dynamics: Understanding the Role of Quantity in Organizational Collapse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47: 1-30

• Schilling, M. A. 2000. Toward a General Modular Systems Theory and its Applicability to Interfirm Product Modularity. Academy of Management Review, 25(2): 312-334

• Siggelkow, S. 2002. Evolution toward Fit. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, pp. 125-159

• Simon, H. 1996 (1969; 1981) The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd Edition) MIT Press

• Smith, Edward. 2006. Complexity, Networking, and Effects Based Approaches to Operations] by Edward

• Snowden, D.J. Boone, M. 2007. "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making". Harvard Business Review, November 2007, pp. 69–76.

• Weick, K. E. 1976. Educational Organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1): 1-19

External links

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The following include a variety of places where complexity science is done in the areas of strategy and organizational studies:

• The DNA Wales Research Group and the Glamorgan Business School Critical Theory Group
• The UCLA Human Complex Systems Program
• The Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan
• The Management Department in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
• The Stanford Technology Ventures Program in the Engineering School at Stanford University
• The Organizational Studies and Strategy Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management
• The Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School
• The Complexity Group at the London School of Economics
• The Complexity Science Research Centre, Open University,UK
• The Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity - Cognitive Edge