Complexity Theory has been used extensively in the field of strategic management and organizational studies, sometimes called 'Complexity strategy' or 'Complex Adaptive Organization' on the internet or in popular press. Broadly speaking, complexity theory is used in these domains to understand how organizations or firms adapt to their environments. The theory treats organizations and firms as collections of strategies and structures. When the organization or firm shares the properties of other complex adpative systems - which is often defined as consisting of a small number of relatively simple and partially connected structures -- they are more likely to adapt to their environment and, thus, survive. Complexity theoretic thinking has been present in strategy and organizational studies since their inception as academic disciplines. Complexity theory can refer to more than one thing: Computational complexity theory: a field in theoretical computer science and mathematics dealing with the resources required during computation to solve a given problem Systems theory (or systemics or general systems theory): an interdisciplinary field including engineering, biology and philosophy that incorporates... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Organizational studies, organizational behavior, and organizational theory are related terms for the academic study of organizations, examining them using the methods of economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, and psychology. ... Complexity Theory has been used extensively in the field of strategic management and organizational studies, sometimes called Complexity strategy or Complex Adaptive Organization on the internet or in popular press. ...

Early Research

For instance, early strategy and organizational theorists emphasized complexity-like thinking including:

• Herbert Simon's interest in decomposable systems and computational complexity.
• Karl Weick's loose coupling theory and interest in causal dependencies
• Burns and Stalker's contrast between organic and mechanistic structures
• Charles Perrow's interest in the link between complex organization and catastrophic accidents
• James March's contrast between exploration and exploitation

More recently work by organizational scholars and their colleagues have added greatly to our understanding of how concepts from the complexity sciences can be used to understand strategy and organizations. The work of Dan Levinthal, Jan Rivkin, Nicolaj Siggelkow, Kathleen Eisenhardt, Nelson Repenning, Phil Anderson and their research groups have been influential in their use of ideas from the complexity sciences in the fields of strategic management and organizational studies. Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist specialized in the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics, management, and philosophy of science and a professor, most notably, at Carnegie Mellon University. ... Karl Weick is a noted organizational theorist who is famous for his loose coupling and sense-making theories in organizations. ... Charles Perrow is a noted organizational theorist and sociologist for some time on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh and recently at Yale University. ... James G. March is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. ...

External links

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

• The Santa Fe Institute and their Summer School
• 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 Strategy Unit at the Harvard Business School
• The Stanford Technology Ventures Program in the Engineering School at Stanford University
• The Organizational Studies Group in the Sloan school at MIT
• The Complexity Group at the London School of Economics

References

• Axelrod, R. A., & Cohen, M. D., 2000. Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier. New York: The Free Press [1].

• 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 [2].

• Burns, S., & Stalker, G. M. 1961. The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock Publications [3].

• Davis, J. P., Eisenhardt, K. M., & Bingham, C. B. 2006. Complexity Theory, Market Dynamism, and the Strategy of Simple Rules, Stanford Technology Ventures Program working paper [4].

• Gell-Mann, M. 1994. The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex. New York: WH Freeman [5].

• Kauffman, S. 1993. The Origins of Order. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [6].

• Levinthal, D. 1997. Adaptation on Rugged Landscapes. Management Science, 43: 934-950 [7].

• March, J. G. 1991. Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning. Organization Science, 2(1): 71-87 [8].

• McKelvey, B. 1999. Avoiding Complexity Catastrophe in Coevolutionary Pockets: Strategies for Rugged Landscapes. Organization Science, 10(3): 249-321 [9].

• Perrow, C. Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay Scott, Forseman & Co., Glenville, Illinois [10].

• Rivkin, J., W. 2000. Imitation of Complex Strategies. Management Science, 46(6): 824-844 [11].

• Rivkin, J. and Siggelkow, N. 2003. Balancing Search and Stability: Interdependencies Among Elements of Organizational Design. Management Science, 49, pp. 290-311 [12].

• Rudolph, J., & Repenning, N. 2002. Disaster Dynamics: Understanding the Role of Quantity in Organizational Collapse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47: 1-30 [13].

• 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 [14].

• Siggelkow, S. 2002. Evolution toward Fit. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, pp. 125-159 [15].

• Simon, H. 1996 (1969; 1981) The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd Edition) MIT Press [16].

• Weick, K. E. 1976. Educational Organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1): 1-19 [17].