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What is complexity science? What is management? And how are the two linked? The potential of complexity science in the fields of management and organization studies has been explored before, yet there is little agreement on what complexity science truly is. Lissack and Rivkin, along with a panel of distinguished academics and executives, identify critical topics in the study of complexity science. They reveal complexity science to be a process, one seeking and understanding of the systems we inhabit, and ways of applying that understanding to the management of organizations.
Complexity science is not a management fad, and the authors do not treat it as such. Instead, they offer useful and fascinating viewpoints on how work is managed in an age of business uncertainty, and how it can be more successfully managed with the aid of this rapidly evolving new field of science. Their multidisciplinary book combines systems theory, statistical modeling, and individual and organizational learning in an innovative new context. The volume takes a pragmatic approach: if it works, it's right. And complexity science, say the authors, work extremely well. This book is an important resource for upper level executives, specialists in organizational behavior, and their colleagues in the academic community.
List of contents
Preface
Complexity, Management, Coherence, and Understanding by Michael Lissack
Management Perspectives on Complexity TheoriesComplexity and Management: Why Does It Matter? by Ron Schultz
Complexity in Human Terms by Roger Lewin and Birute Regine
Complexity and Management: Models and Methods by Steve Phelan
The Role of Language by Michael Lissack
Managerial Insights from Complexity ScienceComplexity and the I-Space by Max Boisot
Applying Complexity: Really by Kevin Dooley
Research on Interactions among Management Decisions Jan Rivkin
Complexity and Leadership by Bill McKelvey
Complexity, Bricolage, and Technology by Raghu Garud and Peter Karnoe
Human Complexity by Peter Senge
A Few Words on Modeling by Dan Levinthal
Beyond "e"-Creating an Intelligent World by Robin Wood
Twenty-First-Century Management and the Complexity Paradigm by Hiroshi Tasaka
Business, Complexity, and "New Science" by Irene Sanders
Complexity Science in PracticeStories and Beliefs by Ron Schultz
Complexity and Innovation by John Seely Brown
Complexity and Technology: Applied Reality by Bill Fulkerson
From Organic to Complex Knowledge Management through the Use of Story by David Snowden
A Practitioner's Perspective by Mark Michaels
Improving Health Care Quality from the View of Adaptive Systems by Helen Harte
An Action Theory of Complexity by Larry Prusak
Complexity and Management: Fad or Frontier?Complexity and Management: Where Do We Stand? by Steve Maguire
Reality and Complexity by Tom Petzinger
Frontier, of Course by Bill Frederick
Or Is It a Fad? by Eric Abrahamson
Complexity and Mangement: An Expanding Traveling Wave by Jeffrey Goldstein
Complexity and Organization Science by Arie Lewin
Final WordsA Final Thought by Michael Lissack
Bibliography
Index
About the author
MICHAEL R. LISSACK is Director of the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence, Boston, and editor of the journal Emergence. Lissack has taught economics at Williams College, research techniques at Henley, and business ethics at the Rotterdam School of Management. He is author, coauthor, or coeditor of five previous books, including Managing Complexity in Organizations (coedited with Hugh Gunz, 2000).
