Leadership, Complex Adaptive Systems, and Equivocality: The Role of Managers in Emergent Change

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Blomme
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Emergent Change

La politica dei Cluster in Europa: tendenze e criticitŕ emergenti

ARGOMENTI ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 99-122
Author(s):  
Alessandro Minello
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Triple Helix ◽  
Cluster Policy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Complex Adaptive

- Cluster policy today represent one of the main elements of the European agenda, both for policy makers and for practitioners. In the last decade an extensive-type cluster policy has produced a proliferation of clusters all over the Europe, but the generated quality of clusters created has not always been quite satisfactory. Following the input by the European commission, currently is underway a qualitative review of the goals and processes of European cluster policy. This paper aims at presenting such changes in the European cluster policy, beside the main lessons that can be learned. The analysis emphasizes some critical elements of the current process of "clustering" and highlights the role of the institutions, besides the market, in the planning of new clusters and the strengthening of those existing. The final message is that Europe needs a better cluster policy, rather than more clusters, according to the growing complexity and dynamism of clusters.Parole chiave: cluster, politica dei cluster, approccio triple-helix, sistemi adattivi complessi.Keywords: cluster, cluster policy, triple helix approach, complex adaptive systems.

Strategy in the era of “swans”: the role of strategic leadership under uncertainty and unpredictability

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Adobor ◽  
William Phanuel Kofi Darbi ◽  
Obi Berko O. Damoah
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Strategic Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Complexity Leadership ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Strategic Leaders ◽  
Impact Events

PurposeThe purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore the role of strategic leadership under conditions of uncertainty and unpredictability. The authors argue that highly improbable, but high-impact events require the upper echelons of management, traditionally the custodians of strategy formulation to offer a new kind of strategic leadership focused on new mindsets, organizational capabilities, more in tune with high uncertainty and unpredictability.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on strategic leadership, and complexity leadership theory, the authors review the literature and present a conceptual framework for exploring the nature of strategic leadership under uncertainty. The authors conceptualize organizations as complex adaptive systems and discuss the imperatives for developing new mental models for emergent leadership.FindingsStrategic leaders have a key role to play in preparing their organizations for episodic disruptions. These include developing their adaptive capabilities and building resilient organizations to ensure their organizations cannot only bounce back after a disruption but have the capacity for transformation to new fitness levels when necessary. Strategic leaders must engage with complexity leadership by seeing their organizations as complex adaptive systems, reconfigure their leadership approaches and organizations to build strategic adaptive capability.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a conceptual paper and the authors cannot make any claims of causality.Practical implicationsOrganizational leaders need to reconfigure their mental models and leadership approaches to reflect the new normal of uncertainty and unpredictability. Developing the strategic adaptive capability of organizations should prepare them for dealing with high impact events. To assure business continuity in the face of disruptions requires building flexible, adaptable business models.Originality/valueThe paper focuses on how managers can offer strategic leadership for a new normal that challenges some of our most cherished leadership and strategic management paradigms. The authors explore the new mental models and leadership models in an era of great uncertainty.

Food Webs as Complex Adaptive Systems

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin S. McCann
Keyword(s):  
Food Webs ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Lake Trout ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Interaction Strength ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Ecosystem Size ◽  
Complex Adaptive

This chapter examines some of the potential empirical signatures of instability in complex adaptive food webs. It first considers the role of adaptive behavior on food web topology, ecosystem size, and interaction strength before discussing the implications of this behavior for ecosystem dynamics and stability. It then analyzes the results of empirical investigations of Canadian Shield lake trout food webs and how human influences and ecosystems coupled in space may drive biomass pyramids, potentially leading to species loss. It also explores the tendency of subsidies, through human impacts, to homogenize natural ecosytems and concludes by assessing some of the changing conditions that are being driven by humans and how these may change ecosystems.

scholarly journals Understanding health professional role integration in complex adaptive systems A multiple-case study of Physician Assistants in Ontario, Canada

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Burrows ◽  
Julia Abelson ◽  
Patricia Miller ◽  
Mitch Levine ◽  
Meredith Vanstone
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Physician Assistants ◽  
Role Integration ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Multiple Case

Abstract Background To meet the complex needs of healthcare delivery, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) introduced Physician Assistants (PAs) into the Ontario health care system in 2006 to help increase access to care, decrease wait times, and improve continuity of care. Integration of new health professional roles is often stymied by role resistance and funding barriers. The characterization of healthcare organizations as complex adaptive systems (CAS) may offer insight into the relationships and interactions that optimize and restrict successful PA integration. The aim of this study is to explore the integration of PAs across multiple case settings and to understand the role of PAs within complex adaptive systems.Methods An exploratory, multiple-case study was used to examine PA role integration in four settings: family medicine, emergency, general surgery, and inpatient medicine. Interviews were conducted with 46 healthcare providers and administrators across 13 hospitals and 6 family medicine clinics in Ontario, Canada. Analysis was conducted in three phases: inductive thematic analysis within each of the four cases; a cross-case thematic analysis; and a broader exploration of cross-case patterns pertaining to specific complexity theory principles of interest.Results Support for PA contributions across various health care settings, the importance of role awareness, supervisory relationship attributes, and role vulnerability (in relation to sustainability and funding) are interconnected and dynamic in hospital and community settings. Findings represent the experiences of PAs and other healthcare providers, and demonstrate how the PA’s willingness to work and ability to build relationships within existing health systems allows for the establishment of interprofessional, collaborative, and person-centered care. As a self-organizing agent in complex adaptive systems (i.e. health organizations), PA role exploration revealed patterns of team behavior, non-linear interconnections, open relationships, dynamic systems, and the legacy of role implementation as defined by complexity theory.Conclusions By exploring the role of PAs across multiple sites, the complexity theory lens concurrently fosters an awareness of emerging patterns, relationships and non-linear interactions within the defined context of the Ontario healthcare system. By establishing collaborative, interprofessional care models in community and hospital settings, PAs are making a significant contribution to Ontario healthcare settings.

Five Insights for Change Managers in Second-Order Change. Organizations as Complex Systems

2016 ◽  
pp. 213-225
Author(s):  
Robert J. Blomme ◽  
Jan P.M. Morsch
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Emergent Change ◽  
Karl Weick ◽  
Second Order Change ◽  
Organizational Principles

When managers are confronted with the necessity to bring about second-order change in their organization, their change efforts are often not very successful. This chapter attempts to redefine organizational change using complexity theory and the work of Karl Weick and Ralph Stacey as a basis. Organizational change can be defined as emergent change in complex adaptive systems and is based on self-organizational principles. One important attractor that guides the process of emergence is equivocality. This article expounds the concept of ambiguity as a main attractor for emergent change and how managers can make use of this attractor to make change successful.

scholarly journals The Many Faces of Design

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Perin L.Z. Ruttonsha
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Response ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Creative Agency ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Many ◽  
Systems Transformation

In light of contemporary global pressures, designers have been considering how to apply their thinking and practice more broadly within the enterprise of sustainability. Given the often wicked nature and cross-scale dynamics of related challenges, there is reason to reassess the role of design in processes of systems transformation amidst complexity. In this manuscript, the author contemplates the diversity of ‘designerly ways’, in interpretation of designers’ encounters with complex adaptive systems. These interactions are classified here using the three lenses of adaptive response, creative agency and emergent engagement.

scholarly journals Making Complexity Your Friend: Reframing Social Theory for the Anthropocene

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Smith-Nonini
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Human Management ◽  
Emergent Change ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Antiglobalization Movement ◽  
Short Time

Abstract This article uses the dilemma of climate change as an entry point to explore the utility of a complexity framework for a more comprehensive social science of environmental sustainability. A theory of complex adaptive systems (CAS) is especially appropriate for the Anthropocene, a newly proposed geological period defined around humanity’s impact on the biosphere. Aspects of complexity theory have been entering public consciousness through popular accounts of climate “tipping points” and “emergent” change—the risk that Earth’s climate could shift into a new pattern in a relatively short time period. Social structures, including capitalism, are complex systems, as are social movements. The paper reviews CAS research with special attention to applications in social ecology. It discusses two case studies of exemplary research on human management of environmental resources and one case study of the antiglobalization movement, all conceived within a complexity framework. The central argument is that complexity thinking will enhance social studies of sustainability and efforts to create a more resilient economy and biosphere.

Fostering general transfer with specific simulations

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji Y. Son ◽  
Robert L. Goldstone
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Scientific Principle ◽  
Transfer Experiment ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Specific Learning

Science education faces the difficult task of helping students understand and appropriately generalize scientific principles across a variety of superficially dissimilar specific phenomena. Can cognitive technologies be adapted to benefit both learning specific domains and generalizable transfer? This issue is examined by teaching students complex adaptive systems with computer-based simulations. With a particular emphasis on fostering understanding that transfers to dissimilar phenomena, the studies reported here examine the influence of different descriptions and perceptual instantiations of the scientific principle of competitive specialization. Experiment 1 examines the role of intuitive descriptions to concrete ones, finding that intuitive descriptions leads to enhanced domain-specific learning but also deters transfer. Experiment 2 successfully alleviated these difficulties by combining intuitive descriptions with idealized graphical elements. Experiment 3 demonstrates that idealized graphics are more effective than concrete graphics even when unintuitive descriptions are applied to them. When graphics are concrete, learning and transfer largely depend on the particular description. However, when graphics are idealized, a wider variety of descriptions results in levels of learning and transfer similar to the best combination involving concrete graphics. Although computer-based simulations can be effective for learning that transfers, designing effective simulations requires an understanding of concreteness and idealization in both the graphical interface and its description.

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