Complexity and Organization
Readings and Conversations
- 312 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Complexity and Organization
Readings and Conversations
About this book
In the past decade, complexity-based thinking has exerted an increasing, yet somewhat controversial authority over management theory and practice. This has in some part been due to the influence of a number of high-profile articles and the not inconsiderable hype which has accompanied them. Another feature of the subject's development has been the diversity of the origins of the thinking and the claims which have been made for it in terms of managerial and organizational implications. Complexity and Organization is the first text to bring this thinking together, presenting some of the most influential writing in the field, showing how the subject has developed and how it continues to influence managerial thinking.
Seminal contributions to the field have been brought together in a single accessible volume, allowing readers to access what might otherwise appear a very diverse body of literature. Moreover, the editors, who represent some of the leading thinkers and writers in this field, have combined these readings with a unique commentary, indicating not only the importance of the papers but teasing out the subtle but significant differences and similarities between them. These commentaries take the form of a discussion between the editors, debating the contribution that each paper has made to the field and the influence it has had on management thinking.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents
- About the Editors
- Acknowledgements
- INTRODUCTION
- PART ONE: Chaos theory and dissipative structures: direct applications of complexity thinking
- 1. David Levy: Chaos Theory and Strategy: Theory, Application, and Managerial Implications
- 2. Robert Macintosh and Donald MacLean: Conditioned Emergence: A Dissipative Structures Approach to Transformation
- 3. Richard T. Pascale: Surfing The Edge of Chaos
- 4. Ralph Stacey: The Science of Complexity: An Alternative Perspective for Strategic Change Processes
- 5. Margaret J. Wheatley: Chaos and the Strange Attractor of Meaning
- PART TWO: Categorizing complexity
- 6. Peter M. Allen: Evolving Complexity in Social Science
- 7. Douglas Griffin, Patricia Shaw and Ralph Stacey: Speaking of Complexity in Management Theory and Practice
- 8. Jeffrey Goldstein: Emergence: A Construct Amid a Thicket of Conceptual Snares
- PART THREE: Complexity in social settings
- 9. Robert Chia: From Complexity Science to Complex Thinking: Organization as Simple Location
- 10. Ralph Stacey: Learning as an Activity of Interdependent People
- 11. Haridimos Tsoukas and Mary Jo Hatch: Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for a Narrative Approach to Organizational Complexity
- Concluding Remarks
- Index