In disciplines such as biology, engineering, sociology, economics, and ecology, individual complex systems are necessarily the objects of study, but there often appears to be little common ground between their models, abstractions, and methods. It is in identifying these features that sharp differences arise. As Carlson and Doyle (2002) note:Ī vision shared by most researchers in complex systems is that certain intrinsic, perhaps even universal features capture fundamental aspects of complexity in a manner which transcends specific domains. Complex systems research is, in reality, not quite a science but rather a glom of ideas, interpretations, and techniques. COMPLEXITYĬomplexity science as a term encompasses a variety of techniques, disciplines, paradigms, and perspectives, including nonlinear dynamic systems theory, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, dissipative structures, catastrophe theory, the theory of self-organized criticality, chaos and fractal theory, self-organization, artificial neural network learning/training theories, “swarm” learning theory, statistical physics, thermodynamics, entropy, power-law scaling phenomena, differential geometry, information theory, critical phenomena and phase transition theory, turbulence theory, spatiotemporal correlation functions, stochastic and deterministic differential equations, and social and economic network theory. ![]() It is in the questions and the resulting narratives that renewed organizational understanding and guidance lie-not in complexity not in cognition and not in the models of traditional organization science. Instead, the value of these models and perspectives lies in the questions they evoke and the narratives that get told in response to such questions. The takeaway is that complexity science notions, and cognitive science notions, cannot be literally applied to managerial situations as “readable models” capable of generating or revealing answers in some problem space. Both audiences are advised that this article is not intended as a persuasive argument but as an introduction. Organizational studies-oriented academics will note that we are suggesting a need for a narrative turn. ![]() Managers will note that we are rejecting much of the foundation on which MBA programs and management consultants build their respective product offerings. In this article we summarize our perspective. In the book, we distinguish the phenomenology of experience from the retrospection of judgment, and critically examine the day-to-day reality of action in the absence of reflective thought. Our recently completed book, Converging on Coherence (Lissack & Letiche, 2004), examines organizational coherence as an experienced phenomenon intimately associated with meaning and identity. As the Gratton quote above reveals, however, these attempts at popular psychology can only “work” if they address the more philosophical questions of meaning, identity, and coherence. Managerial texts, both trade and academic, have jumped on a new bandwagon: combining cognitive reasoning with complexity “theory” as a means of explaining both the degree of change experienced in the current economy and the high level of stress and anxiety that accompanies the reactions to such change. If we view organizations in this way, we must have an acute awareness of how we create meaning in our organizations, of the messages which are sent, the symbols which define our organizations, and the cues given by the policies and practices. Our corporations are populated with individuals who are striving for meaning, trying to understand what the company is about and what they have to do to succeed. ![]() We should view organizations as complex cognitive systems, made up of people who see and interpret the world around them, and who strive to create values which have meaning to them and coherence with the group. University for Humanist Studies, NLD Introduction ![]() Gaining Perspective on Organizations and their Study Complexity, Emergence, Resilience, and Coherence:
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