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A long-standing question in the organizations literature is whether firms are better off by using simple or complex representations of their task environment. We address this question by developing a formal model of how firm performance depends on the process by which firms learn and use representations. Building on ideas from cognitive science, our model conceptualizes this process in terms of how firms construct a representation of the environment and then use that representation when making decisions. Our model identifies the optimal level of representational complexity as a function of (a) the environment’s complexity and uncertainty and (b) the firm’s experience and knowledge about the environment’s deep structure. We use this model to delineate the conditions under which firms should use simple versus complex representations; in doing so, we provide a coherent framework that integrates previous conflicting results on which type of representation leaves firms better off. Among other results, we show that the optimal representational complexity generally depends more on the firm’s knowledge about the environment than it does on the environment’s actual complexity. We also show that the relative advantage of heuristics vis-à-vis more complex representations critically depends on an unstated assumption of “informedness”: that managers can know what are the most relevant variables to pay attention to. We show that when this assumption does not hold, complex representations are usually better than simpler ones.

This chapter aims to utilize complexity theory and complex adaptive systems in global business, thus describing the theoretical and practical overview of complexity theory, the application of complex adaptive systems, and the significance of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems in global business. The utilization of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems is vital for modern organizations that seek to serve suppliers and customers, increase business performance, strengthen competitiveness, and acquire routine success in global business. Thus, it is essential for modern organizations to utilize complexity theory and complex adaptive systems, create a strategic plan to investigate their dynamic promotions, and instantly respond to the needs of customers. The chapter argues that utilizing complexity theory and complex adaptive systems has the potential to improve organizational performance and gain sustainable competitive advantage in global business.

This paper aims at positioning organizational design as an important phenomenon in the field of project management with a high potential of contributing to organizational theory. While organizational design has been neglected by scholars of management and organizational theory, it has been of great interest to those from the project management field. This incongruence—comprising the focus of this study—calls for new insights on theorization in context. The paper provides a preliminary theoretical framework combining contingency theory, the historical approach and social theory to understand organizational design, both as a thing and as a process . It provides empirical evidence from three case studies in healthcare. Findings confirm the specificity of each design while at the same time adopting a similar temporal pattern. We take this opportunity to highlight the seminal work of Rodney Turner on project-based organization and design. Executive summary In this day and age, it is commonplace to assert that organizations are complex and that they change continuously over time. The complexity is said to exist, for example, in large organizations dealing with multiple competing projects while at the same time performing their regular operations. The concept of organizational design refers to both the resulting organization (the thing ) and the process of performing the design. The field of project management has made many theoretical contributions to organizational design; yet it has also created confusion by introducing a plurality of terms for describing and understanding such organizations. Organizational design is increasingly a topic in the literature from management and organizational theory and, especially, from project management. A review of the literature from both fields demonstrates that contingency theory is still considered as a major theoretical foundation for situating the organization within its context. The review also points to an increasing interest in social perspectives taking into account politics, organizational dynamics, paradoxes and pluralism. In addition, it shows an opportunity for scholars in project management to contribute to management and organizational theory. This research proposes a pluralist theoretical framework for tackling contingency theory with the historical approach and social theory. The empirical setting is comprised of complex large organizations—in this case, three university hospitals engaged in major organizational transformations—that are challenged to pursue their regular operations while undertaking multiple completing projects. Interestingly, the three hospitals are from the same geographical region. The organizational design was thus a crucial question and, in light of the complexity, no one-size-fits-all type of solution was strived for. Results confirmed the prevalence of individual organizational design rather than mimetism, or homogenization, between the three hospitals. Being in the same region, the heads of the respective project management offices met on a number of occasions to exchange about their challenges and solutions. Nevertheless, in the end each hospital made an individual decision regarding its organizational design. The study also identified organizational design as an ongoing process, introducing the concept of trajectory to illustrate how projects and organizational design change over time. In doing so, we observed a pattern where reflection and sense-making took place before engaging in any specific decision regarding the organizational design. The theoretical contribution of this research is to demonstrate the potential of pluralist theoretical frameworks for understanding complex phenomena such as organizational design in the context of managing multiple projects. More specifically, the process view of organizational design was found to reveal new insights that would have remained hidden otherwise. From a practical view, our research challenges certain utopian assumptions regarding the stability and replicability of a one-size-fits-all model in organizational design. Instead, we recommend developing an in-depth understanding of an organization's specific context by means of sense-making activities. The latter should be performed in an ongoing approach to ensure that the organizational design evolves in keeping with its environment.

Traditional scientific policy approaches and tools are increasingly seen as inadequate, or even counter-productive, for many purposes. In response to these shortcomings, a new wave of approaches has emerged based on the idea that societal systems are irreducibly complex. The new categories that are thereby introduced – like “complex” or “wicked” – suffer, however, by a lack of shared understanding. We here aim to reduce this confusion by developing a meta-ontological map of types of systems that have the potential to “overwhelm us”: characteristic types of problems, attributions of function, manners of design and governance, and generating and maintaining processes and phenomena. This permits us, in a new way, to outline an inner anatomy of the motley collection of system types that we tend to call “complex”. Wicked problems here emerge as the product of an ontologically distinct and describable type of system that blends dynamical and organizational complexity. The framework is intended to provide systematic meta-theoretical support for approaching complexity and wickedness in policy and design. We also points to a potential causal connection between innovation and wickedness as a basis for further theoretical improvement.

This conceptual study examines the analogies between schools and complex adaptive systems and identifies strategies used to manage schools as complex adaptive systems. Complex adaptive systems approach, introduced by the complexity theory, requires school administrators to develop new skills and strategies to realize their agendas in an ever-changing and complexifying environment without any expectations of stability and predictability. The results indicated that in this period administrators need to have basicskills such as (a) diagnosing patterns emerging from complexity, (b) manipulating the environment by anticipating potential patterns organizations may evolve into, (c) choosing organizational structures compatible with an ever-changing and complexifying environment and (d) promoting innovation to create and manage organizational changes. Although these skills enable administrators to reduce complexity into a manageable form to some extent, stakeholders’ having a common perspective regarding their schools and environments, and executing their activities in accordance with a shared vision are required to turn these skills into complexity management strategies.

Scholars assert that traditional approaches to urban water management need reforming. These debates have identified the need to move toward systems and complexity thinking. The literature offers limited insight into the utility of complexity theory in enhancing urban water policy and practice. This paper aims to address this gap by: (i) synthesizing the intellectual history of complexity science, (ii) identifying key principles of complexity theory and (iii) providing insights into how complexity theory can contribute to twenty-first century urban water management. We reveal how Newtonian logic is deeply embedded in contemporary Western urban water policy and practice. We identify three insights from complexity science that could potentially yield better urban water policy and practice outcomes: system boundaries; agents and networks; and far from equilibrium. These theoretical insights offer an important contribution to scholarly debates as embedded normative frameworks need to be recognized, und...

Interest in evaluating complexity appears to be on the rise. Increasing application of systems thinking and complex systems methodologies to evaluation can be seen in contents of journals and evaluation conferences. To date there has been little systematic examination of experiences of this application. This research considers the experience of 41 key informant participants with experience of complexity and systems approaches in evaluation. The results highlight institutional, political and social science factors that provide opportunities for further application. The following are identified as barriers to application: multiple definitions of complexity, the dominance of existing approaches, the purpose of evaluation and perception of resources required to apply complexity and systems approaches in evaluation. Where increasing the use of complexity and systems methodologies is a desired goal, this research suggests action regarding: how these methodologies are communicated; and evaluation training.

The research explores the historical development of project complexity. Projects are becoming more complex due to unexpected emergent behaviour and characteristics. Complexity has become an inseparable aspect of systems and also one of the important factors in the failure of projects. While much has been written about project complexity, there is still a lack of understanding of what constitutes project complexity. This research includes a systematic literature review to demonstrate the current understanding of commonalities and differences in the existing research. This was achieved by examining more than 420 published research papers, drawn from an original group of approximately 10,000, based on citations during the period of 1990–2015. As a result of this exploration, an integrative systemic framework is presented to demonstrate understanding of project complexity. It was found that there are three primary and distinctive models of project complexity, the Project Management Institute view, the System of Systems view and the view developed from the analysis of citations of research papers, which is called the Complexity Theories view. Further testing is required on a range of complex projects in order to attempt to reconcile these views.

Complexity, whether exists or we use this term to refer to a specific position or situation? In other words, whether it is a fact or our interpretation of a particular situation? Anyway, for successful and effective management in organization theories and management knowledge, nowadays there are many discussions of the Existence of complex organizations and the necessity to revise their ideas, thoughts and understanding re-engineering. Where, chaos theory also confirms the existence of complex organizations. Accordingly, the nature of complexity, why and how it occurs and ultimately effective strategies to manage complex organizations have been explored and emphasized increasingly. In this paper, complexity and organizational complexity have been discussed in terms of incidence and existence. After that, complex organizations’ management process is defined and outlined. Finally, for better management of complex organization, effective guidelines have been discussed with a particular emphasis on and approach to the use of dialogue technique.

In article the approach to the decision of a problem of conceptual integration of sociology as the set of theoretical knowledge belonging to type - conceptually difficult - the big theories. Development of theoretical sociology with use of forms of the mathematical theory is considered as a private problem in relation to more general problem of development of theoretical knowledge with use of forms of the mathematical theory. Development the theoretical sociology is offered to carry out with use of forms of the mathematical theory on the basis of properties structural mathematical constructs and with application the mathematical methods developed in a scientific direction “The Conceptual analysis and designing” [40] . In the given direction it is used not only a paradigm of structuralism, but also a principle of an ascention from abstract to concrete in the knowledge, realized in procedure of synthesis of formal theories with use of the device of structural mathematics. The system analysis, the theory of systems and the theory of structures of N. Burbaki concerns to sources of occurrence of a method of the conceptual analysis. The method is intended for the analysis of subject domains of a high level of complexity, realization of conceptual modeling of objects from these subject domains and reception of new knowledge about essence of subject domains and their relations. Conceptual complexity of phenomena is understood as complexity of the structures expressing the relations and interrelations between concepts, describing interesting area from the point of view of solved tasks. For a subject domain conceptual complexity is potentially established by quantity of basic sets on which scales of sets and the steps belonging to them representing definitions of developed theory of a subject domain are constructed. In article is exposed to the analysis role structural mathematical constructs device in expansion integrating tool conceptualization subject domains of sociology. In article are determined preconditions of application the device steps of sets at formation conceptually difficult - the big theories to which concerns sociology as set of theoretical knowledge. The maintenance of a key problem allocated in article is application constructs of structural mathematics as bases for definition of structure of a subject domain of sociology as sets of theoretical knowledge. Perspectives in development of theoretical sociology with use of forms of the mathematical theory are understood in this case, as process of escalating of use constructs of structural mathematics as the tools having base character for theoretical idealization and modeling at creation of theories and theoretical models of objects, investigated by sociology and carrying out in them of tool researches. In article it is shown, that search of the decision so challenges is probable as during intradisciplinary, and interdisciplinary researches. Last from them in spite of the fact that are connected to growth of organizational complexity, allow to leave for frameworks of habitual traditional intradisciplinary positions and the points of view, in a result raising productivity of scientific search of the decision of a task.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the innovation literature, with special focus on studies applying a complexity perspective. As a contribution in its own right to the innovation literature, the review clarifies the concept of complexity, explores possible points of relevance and the “added value” gained from complexity theory (CT) to the study of innovation, and identifies some of the applications of the theory.Design/methodology/approach– A literature search was conducted which yielded 20 relevant articles. These articles were analyzed by focusing on the key concepts of complexity and studying their applications in the context of innovation research.Findings– Based on the approach adopted, the literature was divided into three categories, namely research focusing on microdynamics, macrodynamics, and leadership and management. The key complexity concepts identified in the innovation literature were “edge of chaos”, “phase shift”, “emergence and self-organization”, “(co)evolution”, and “complexity regulation”. The articles reviewed differed in terms of their perspectives on complexity and, accordingly, their operationalization of the complexity concepts. Key areas of development suggested by the authors include forging a stronger link with existing innovation theory and giving greater weight to empirical evidence.Research limitations/implications– While a systematic review strategy was adopted to identify all relevant research on “open innovation” and complexity, a selective snowball strategy was deemed the only feasible approach to cover research conducted on “innovation” and complexity.Practical implications– Practitioners can learn to put CT-based research in context and also learn to recognize the value of CT for innovation management. The authors distilled three important lessons for practice from the research done: embracing complexity, embracing ambidexterity, and embracing failure.Originality/value– To the best of the authors’ knowledge no review has as yet been undertaken to encapsulate the current state of applications of CT to innovation research.

The 21st century is often labelled as the Century of Complexity because complexity of the socio-technological environment in which we live and work has reached the level that no longer can be ignored – complexity affects now all aspects of our lives. The paper defines complexity, identifies its sources and explains the basics of the new science and the art of managing complexity. The importance of complexity is discussed in the context of social, business and engineering systems.

This research calls for attention to complexity theory and the integration of complexity methodologies in policy research. A complexity approach in research practice requires a systems worldview and recognition of non-linearity, networks, self-organization, emergence, and feedback in policy. Simply, if a phenomenon is complex and can be explored from varied contexts and scales, the conceptual frame, and the methodical approach should be able to address the complexity. Complexity science has the capacity to account for complexity in varied contexts, on varied scales, and with an interrelated and interdependent environment. Further, if policy systems are at times simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic, then complexity mythologies combined with traditional qualitative and quantitative methods can bring to light the workings of the elusive black box. Complexity allows for triangulation of both linear and non-linear methodologies integrating qualitative, quantitative, network analysis, and agent-based models, as well as other methodologies. Complexity science is not the panacea to solve all policy problems with perfection. But if you do not acknowledge the complexity you will be missing out on the opportunity to shape patterns of sustainability, to effectively manage complex policy problems to someday solve them.

Walking on water, and programming according to specifications is easy—as long as both of them are frozen. --Robert Glass This introduction discusses the changing nature of complexity associated with requirements engineering (RE) tasks and how it has shifted from managing internal complexity to adapting and leveraging upon external and dynamic complexity. We note several significant drivers in the requirements knowledge that have resulted in this change and discuss in light of complexity theory how the RE research community can respond to this. We observe several research challenges associated with “new complexity” and highlight how the articles included in the special issue advance the field by defining complexity more accurately, observing more vigilantly new sources of complexity, and suggesting new ways to manage complexity in terms of economic assessments, knowledge flows, and modeling for adaptability.

Engineering companies face the challenges of increasing product variety and technology induced increasing complexity of products. If the company is not able to manage this complexity within the design process it will cause productivity losses and rising complexity costs along the value-chain. Lack of information and information asymmetries lead to sub-optimal decision-making and thus to sub-optimal product-production-system designs. Companies struggle to evaluate product designs out of a broader, multi-functional perspective to derive the optimal design for the customer and company. The central question which needs to be solved is how companies can overcome these disadvantages in the early stages of product and process development. Based on the existing product design assessment methodologies proposed by academic and industrial communities this paper addresses these problems by developing a novel concept to improve decision-making performance in the early design phase by integrating the complexity perspective into decision-making. The paper delivers a guideline how to build up a complexity index to condense complex information.

The advancements in the field of project management have driven researchers to take heed of numerous issues related with evaluating and managing complexity in projects, which demonstrates the evident significance of the subject. Among several key factors, organizational factors make up a large portion of project complexity as previous research confirms. While several project complexity measures do exist, every measure has its limit and evaluates project complexity from its own criteria. Furthermore, existing literature lacks modelling of these organizational factors to explore the interrelationships among them. This study aims to identify and model these factors to assist project managers in handling organizational factors of project complexity in a more regulated fashion. The model is developed using structural equation modelling technique. Findings include the noticeable effect of project size on project complexity as well as other factors. Positive effects of project variety and the interdependencies on project complexity are also observed.

This chapter explores the history of an open systems approach to the study of management and organizations, and the way in which it has become a taken-for-granted, institutionalized part of organization theory. Its introduction in the 1960s transformed our understanding of organizations because of its concern with the organization in its environment. It led to contingency theory which became a dominant approach within organization theory. Examined here are three variants of open-systems theory: general systems theory which argues that there are general ideas that can be applied to all systems; specific systems thinking where the concept of interdependent parts is accepted without necessarily accepting that all systems are similar; and approaches that theorize the organization within an environment but without any specific use of systems concepts and metaphors.

Complexity is concept that is typically used to describe the size or composition of a system and its constituent components. The cybernetics community has long recognized the need for complexity, understanding that only the variety of a system can destroy the variety of the environment and inputs to the system. Conversely, the applied psychology and decision making communities generally acknowledge that increased complexity degrades decision making performance in dynamic tasks through several mechanisms. A notional model of “Effective Variety” is discussed, which states that there is an optimal level or range of complexity for any human-machine interface that will facilitate optimal dynamic decision making performance in a human-machine team. This initial paper discusses a concept and model of Effective Variety, and focuses specifically on how interface complexity affects Situation Awareness (an antecedent to decision making performance), and areas for future research into such a theory.

Complexity management methods in the field of strategic and operational complexity management are usually conceived for the discrete manufacturing industry and are hardly transferable to the process industry. In this paper, complexity management practices, as well as complexity drivers, in the discrete manufacturing industry and the process industry are identified and collected. Furthermore, an analysis is conducted regarding similarities and differences between the approaches in the two industries. In future research suitable evaluation criteria will be identified and combined in an evaluation model, which may help to show applicable complexity management methods from the discrete manufacturing industry for the process industry. Through a survey of 136 participating companies, the implementation degree of complexity management methods and the impact of complexity drivers within various industries were investigated. Based on these results, the process industry was identified as lagging behind in the field of complexity management. By conducting an interview study with five successful companies identified from the survey's sample, the researchers gained detailed information on the applied methods. Supported by a Delphi study with three companies of the process industry, specific complexity drivers and the main challenges to apply existing complexity management methods in their businesses were identified. To show the difference between the applied methods in the process industry and the discrete manufacturing industry, three cases are described. Two of them are from the process industry. The first one is representative for complexity management in the process industry, comes from a participating company from the Delphi study and is rated as less experienced in this field. On the other hand, the other case, rated as a successful practice case from the survey's sample, shows a high implementation degree of complexity management methods from the discrete manufacturing industry. In the third case, the approach of an automotive supplier with long experience in complexity management and a high implementation degree of complexity management methods is described. First results show, that the challenges in the process industry are mainly resulting from external complexity drivers, like legal and political factors. Whereas internal complexity drivers like product structure as well as the dynamic of technology, are rather influencing the discrete manufacturing industry. Hence methods for gaining transparency on materials and resources seem to be more valuable for companies in the process industry than others.

With the dawn of the internet, mobile technology, cloud computing etc. our socio-technical environment has become ever more intertwined and hyper-complex. The field of complexity management tries to devise methods and methodologies to cope with the challenges arising from complexity. This chapter provides a brief overview of the field of complexity management. More specifically, it defines in detail the terms complexity and dynamic complexity. Dynamic complexity is most relevant for high impact decisions and I examine two methods First, causal context modelling (CCM). This is an integrative, qualitative, transdisciplinary approach which creates a qualitative description of a system including key variable interdependencies and system boundaries. The second methodology I explore is system dynamics (SD). Here I provide examples from a project carried out within the Use-it-Wisely project which helped the companies involved understand and deal with the dynamic problems facing them.

Previous research suggests complexity may be a significant factor in a project's failure to achieve cost, time, and quality objectives. In this paper, we examine the project complexity literature to develop a simple framework consisting of structural and dynamic complexity. We use this to compare the complexity of two successful construction megaprojects–-Heathrow Terminal 5 and the London 2012 Olympic Park–-to consider how the complexity in the two projects was managed. Our analysis reveals differences in the approach to managing structural and dynamic complexity, but identifies common factors that may help project managers achieve positive outcomes for their complex projects.

The paper discusses main content of the complexity theory research and the complexity characteristics of the project management. With the aid of complexity theory and its powerful explanation for the complexity system behavior, we attempt to study the application of the complexity theory in the project management. The article focuses on complexity of project subject behavior, self-organizing process of project, stakeholders’ relationship, project management and leadership.

OVERVIEW:The business of technology firms depends on the successful delivery of projects. These projects can be complex and, some say, increasingly so. Assessing and proactively managing that complexity can benefit project delivery. Based on a systematic literature review and multistage field research, we sought to understand the nature of different dimensions of complexity and how they affect the development of a project. Working from that research, we generated a complexity assessment tool, which was tested initially with a global technology firm and then with a wider network of large organizations in other sectors. The result is a complexity-based view of project management that enables greater specificity in articulating, assessing, and coping with both generic complexities and particular context-dependent challenges.

This paper contributes to safety management by bringing in ideas from organizational complexity theories. Much of the studies and the literature on organizations as complex adaptive systems have focused on how to produce new innovations or how to increase financial effectiveness. We take the view that safety-critical organizations can be perceived as complex adaptive systems, and we discuss what this means for the management of safety. Our aim is to elaborate on the issue of what kinds of principles the management of safety should be based on in complex adaptive systems. In brief, we suggest that safety management should be adaptive, building on several different principles. Based on literature on complex adaptive systems we first identify the general features of complex adaptive systems, such as self-organizing and non-linearity, which need to be considered in management. Based on the features of complex adaptive systems, we define eight key principles of adaptive safety management and illustrate usefulness of the principles in making sense of the practice of safety management.

Social complexity has long been a subject of considerable interest and study among archaeologists; it is generally taken to refer to human societies consisting of large numbers of people, many social and economic roles, large permanent settlements, along with a variety of other marker criteria. When viewed from a more general complex systems perspective, however, all human societies are complex systems regardless of size or organizational structure. Complex adaptive systems (CAS) represent systems which are dynamic in space, time, organization, and membership and which are characterized by information transmission and processing that allow them to adjust to changing external and internal conditions. Complex systems approaches offer the potential for new insights into processes of social change, linkages between the actions of individual human agents and societal-level characteristics, interactions between societies and their environment, and allometric relationships between size and organizational complexity. While complex systems approaches have not yet coalesced into a comprehensive theoretical framework, they have identified important isomorphic properties of organization and behavior across diverse phenomena. However, it is difficult to operationalize complex systems concepts in archaeology using the descriptive/confirmatory statistics that dominate quantitative aspects of modern archaeological practice. These are not designed to deal with complex interactions and multilevel feedbacks that vary across space and time. Nor do narratives that simply state that societies are characterized by interacting agent/actors who share cultural knowledge, and whose interacting practices create emergent social-level phenomena add much to our understanding. New analytical tools are needed to make effective use of the conceptual tools of complex systems approaches to human social dynamics. Computational and systems dynamics modeling offer the first generation of such analytical protocols especially oriented towards the systematic study of CAS. A computational model of small-scale society with subsistence agriculture is used to illustrate the complexity of even “simple” societies and the potential for new modeling methods to assist archaeologists in their study.

We attempt to study the participants behavioral risks of the complex project based on the theory of complexity analysis in this paper. First of all, through the review of literature we put forward the research contents of the complexity theory. Then, discuss the complexity characteristics of the project management; focus on the definition of the project complexity, the nonlinear characteristics of the project organization, the emergence and uncertainty characteristics of the complex project, etc. Finally, we point out that both from the perspective of theoretical research and project practice, the complexity analysis of project management has a positive significance.

This paper investigates how complexity influences projects and their performance. We develop a classification of project complexity by relying\ud on fundamental theoretical insights about complexity and then use results from practice-oriented literature to assign concrete project complexity\ud factors to the resulting categories. We also identify specific strategies for organizing and knowledge production that project planners use to address\ud complexity-related uncertainties. We theorize about the way these strategies interact with various types of complexity to increase project\ud performance. Anticipated influences are mostly corroborated using survey data on 81 complex projects from five continents and a diversity of\ud sectors.

Research and Innovation in Manufacturing: Key Enabling Technologies for the Factories of the Future - Proceedings of the 48th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems / Edited by Roberto Teti 48th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems, CIRP CMS 2015, Ischia, Italy, 24 Jun 2015 - 26 Jun 2015 Research and Innovation in Manufacturing: Key Enabling Technologies for the Factories of the Future - Proceedings of the 48th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems / Edited by Roberto Teti; Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, Procedia CIRP, 41, 538-543 (2016). doi:10.1016/j.procir.2015.12.004, Published by Elsevier, Amsterdam [u.a.]

This chapter offers practical guidance to Process Organizational Studies (PROS) scholars and researchers who wish to use complexity theory to build conceptual and causal models of organizational processes. We address four questions: How can complexity theory add value to PROS? What markers signal to a PROS researcher that he or she should substitute complexity theory for the general linear model? What critical systemic features should the researcher specify as a prelude to constructing a model of a complex system? We conclude that the connection between PROS and complexity theory is ineluctable, since conducting a process organizational study automatically plunges the researcher into an evolving complex system.

Indexado en Scopus Companies in the twenty first century are required to continually adapt to an uncertain and ever-changing environment, which requires a more organic and flexible organization, without losing the benefits of volume production and economies of scale. The Organizational Network is a tool that allows the company to study the channels through which materials, money, and information resources flow between jobs, unlike the traditional Organizational Chart that only shows the hierarchy of power. Analyzing these links like a complex network will allow the manager to identify bottlenecks and agglomerations of power and measure the entropy generated in the organization. This gives a quantitative measure of the complexity of the business and, therefore, both its organic growth and efficient growth can be managed. Revisión por pares

In order to avoid enterprise information system (EIS) risk, the self-organization mechanism of EIS based on complex adaptive system (CAS) is studied. Firstly, self-organization properties of EIS are analyzed, which include open system, nonlinear characteristics, far from equilibrium and fluctuations. Secondly, the complex properties and complex adaptive properties of EIS self-organization are studied. The complex properties include multi-agent, active adaptation of agents, multi-level nature, technology complexity, organizational complexity, process complexity and environment complexity. The complex adaptive properties include aggregation mechanism, identification mechanism, non-linear characteristics flow characteristics, diversity characteristics, internal model mechanism and block characteristics. Finally, architecture model of EIS self-organization is proposed as well as its macro and micro models, which provides a new perspective for EIS and helps understand the rules of EIS implementation.

The methodologies associated with complexity theory might serve as an adjunct to some of our more traditional behavioral social science research methods. While the latter has a well-established history in social work, the approaches related to complexity theory are just now gaining a foothold. One such approach is system dynamics modeling. This article will describe the application of system dynamics modeling to a well-known early intervention program. The manner in which it complements traditional research approaches will be discussed, and its unique contribution to understanding the organizational aspects of complexity theory will be highlighted.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss complexity approaches of management theory, by focusing on their capacity to use efficiently contingence in organizations. As a theoretical framework the theory of social systems (Luhmann) is used, where a difference is made between complexity reduction and condensation. Complexity reduction is related to certain functional needs to control a hierarchical system. Complexity condensation redesigns communicative structures towards participative norm development, offering discursive connectivity, and decision making in networks. It is described how heterogeneous cultures in organizations have the chance to be successful by focusing their functional needs to include, to orient, and to motivate.Design/methodology/approachThe paper opted for discussing theoretical frameworks to reconstruct management approaches to develop towards more diversity capacity in organizations. Theory of social systems is employed as basic methodology.FindingsThe chosen research reconstructs management approaches to focus on functional imperatives of organizational systems as well as the development of functional equivalents. The logic figure of functional equivalents describes alternatives of exclusive organizational cultures. Heterogeneity in organizations is based on the redesign of communicative procedures, structures and cultures.Research limitations/implicationsThe aim of the paper is diversity theory development. It offers heuristic moments which might be useful in empirical research, too. Following the suggestion homogeneity is just an outcome of certain organizational decisions to deal with contingency and complexity, it might offer practical relevance by testing the capacity to change communication and interaction patterns. The culture‐function matrix also might offer an opportunity to discuss the paradigms of organizational development towards more diversity.Practical implicationsThere might be the possibility to enhance conditions of observing organizations, but the practical implications might be rather limited.Originality/valueUsing theory of social systems (Luhmann) as theory which focuses complexity traits is rather undeveloped. It could offer insights in the capacity to deal with contingency, and the attempts to suppress it. Complexity in social systems could offer a prerequisite to support the interdisciplinary research in diversity studies.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to operations management (OM) practice contingency research by describing the complexity of projects. Complexity is recognised as a key independent (contingent) variable that impacts on many subsequent decisions in the practice of managing projects.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a systematic review of relevant literature and synthesises an integrated framework for assessing the complexities of managing projects.FindingsThis framework comprises five dimensions of complexity – structural, uncertainty, dynamics, pace and socio‐political complexity. These five dimensions present individuals and organisations with choices about how they respond to each type of complexity, in terms of business case, strategic choice, process choice, managerial capacity and competencies.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is to provide a clarification to the epistemology of complexity, to demonstrate complexity as a lived experience for project managers, and offer a common language for both practitioners and future empirical studies considering the individual or organisational response to project complexities. The work also demonstrates an application of systematic review in OM research.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of Uncertainty-Based Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (UMDO) theory and the state of the art in UMDO methods for aerospace vehicles. UMDO has been widely acknowledged as an advanced methodology to address competing objectives of aerospace vehicle design, such as performance, cost, reliability and robustness. However the major challenges of UMDO, namely the computational complexity and organizational complexity caused by both time-consuming disciplinary analysis models and UMDO algorithms, still greatly hamper its application in aerospace engineering. In recent years there is a surge of research in this field aiming at solving these problems. The purpose of this paper is to review these existing approaches systematically, highlight research challenges and opportunities, and help guide future efforts. Firstly, the UMDO theory preliminaries are introduced to clarify the basic UMDO concepts and mathematical formulations, as well as provide a panoramic view of the general UMDO solving process. Then following the UMDO solving process, research progress of each key step is separately surveyed and discussed, specifically including uncertainty modeling, uncertainty propagation and analysis, optimization under uncertainty, and UMDO procedure. Finally some conclusions are given, and future research trends and prospects are discussed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to use de Sitter's design theory to show how organizational structures can be designed so as to attenuate organizational disturbances and amplify regulatory potential. It is argued that organizational structures with low values on so‐called design‐parameters are themselves no source of disturbances and have the required built‐in regulatory potential.Design/methodology/approachKey concepts from de Sitter's design theory are introduced and used to show how structures can attenuate disturbances and amplify regulatory potential.FindingsThe analysis in this paper deepens our understanding of the role of organizational structures for dealing with organizational complexity, and of the design parameters that should be manipulated to achieve structural attenuation and amplification.Practical implicationsHaving a structure permitting organizations to attenuate and amplify is a crucial condition for organizational viability. This paper provides guidelines for the design of such structures.Originality/valueThis is one of a limited number of studies that makes apparent how general insights from (management) cybernetic (e.g. viability, attenuation and amplification) may be realized in organizations by their structural design.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a way of asking about organizational conceptions. Some years ago, Edgar Morin proposed the paradigm of complexity as the one that opposes to and contains both the mechanicist and the systemic paradigms, which he calls simplifiers. Based on these paradigms, some of their principles, as well as their influence in organizational thinking are studied here, looking for the establishment of a set of considerations to be taken into account when treating an organizational conception as complex.Design/methodology/approachTen paradigmatic principles were compared from the mechanicism, systemic and complexity viewpoints, considering how they were used in the organizational discourse.FindingsAs a result, complex organizational conceptions consider the subject as active conscience in the world. In the same way, they establish dialogic relations among: the universal and the particular, temporal reversibility and irreversibility, the parts and the whole, linear and circular causality, order and disorder, organization and environment, observer and organization, and autonomy and dependence, through the use of the complex logic that allows adopting a meta‐point of view to articulate the contradictions and paying attention to the result of the dialogic processes pointed out.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper focuses especially on the dialogic principle, leaving the need to approach both the recursion and hologramatic principles, according to that proposed by Edgar Morin.Practical implicationsThe paper establishes some references which should contribute to the understanding of complex organizations, as human activity systems, beyond the objectivism of the so‐called “complex systems”.Originality/valueIn this paper, a way of asking about organizational conceptions is proposed, with the aim of knowing the degree of satisfaction of paradigmatic requirements of complexity; so that, it allows knowing if what is being called complex – the organizations – is being treated in a complex way in turn.

The term “complexity” used frequently as a kind of “buzzword” has gained a specific role in the language of modern social sciences and social practice. A question is arising — how can we understand complexity of social systems/social phenomena which are characterized by limited possibility of explanation, unpredictability or low reliability of prediction? The aim of the paper is to provide a partial answer to this question. A survey of characteristics of complex systems and typology of various kinds of complexity, and of their sources is presented. It is also shown that broadly defined social systems (human systems) are aected by all kinds of complexity — they are “complexities of complexities”. Using the typology of interpretations of complexity as an example, it is shown what are the limitations of transferring knowledge from physics, chemistry, information theory and biology to the studies of complexity of social systems. It is especially emphasized that mathematical models, which are treated as objective when applied in social sciences must be considered as an element of intersubjective discourse.

This paper proposes the features of future industrial organizations in order to provide them with the abilities to manage high levels of environmental complexity in the 21st century. For such a purpose, it introduces the concept of computational organization management networks.

This paper draws on complexity theory, especially the communication and social psychological version of it, to offer eight principles of how complexity theory can influence organizational design.

The Sociotechnical model of organizational complexity is described, including its implications for organizational design, based on the Macroergonomic Analysis of Structure method. The nature of cognitive complexity and the relationship of employee complexity to organizational complexity are summarized, including stratified systems theory and empirical examples from the author's consulting and research.

This paper presents an innovative approach to the exploration and explanation of retail location strategy formulation based on the premises of complexity theory. A chaos-theoretic approach was employed to encapsulate the complex environmental context of retail organisations, and the findings of the research are discussed in the terms and language of chaos literature. It is argued that managers understand complexity in an individual way, and therefore they deal with complexity based on their own unique understanding of it. We also argue that there are complexity absorbing and complexity adapting retail organisations that follow different approaches to their retail location strategy formulation.

It is argued that a synthesis of network and complexity theories will help enhance the theoretical and methodological capabilities of understanding governance, policy, and public management network...