Intelligence strategy: the evolutionary and co-evolutionary dynamics of intelligent human organizations and their interacting agents

2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Thow Yick Liang

In the knowledge economy, the human minds are the most vital center of analysis. They are the complex adaptive systems capable of processing information, establishing knowledge structure, conceptualizing idea, and making decision. The intrinsic intelligence of the individual minds, as well as the organizational/collective intelligence, drives the dynamic of all human systems. Primarily, the local self-enrichment processes of the interacting agents are autopoietic. In addition, global forces are also present in all human organizations. The global forces are constructive only if they support the elementary processes. The global forces originate from the orgmind of the organization. A complex relationship exists between the interacting agents and their systems. Traditionally, the decision-making dynamic of the human thinking systems has been dealt with in economics concepts such as the “economic” man that focuses on perfect rational decision, and Herbert Simon's “administrative” man that incorporates the idea of bounded rationality. In this study, the dynamic of an “intelligent” person is introduced. An intelligent person does not concentrate on optimality at all times. Instead, such a person adopts the intelligence strategy. An intelligent person is mindful and contributes continuously towards the collective intelligence of the system. The mindset of an intelligent person encompasses continual fast learning, longer-term survival, exploitation of the butterfly effect, and co-evolution with his/her system. In this respect, an intelligent person is a rather dissimilar interacting agent.

2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Liang Thow Yick

Human organizations with human beings as interacting agents are complex adaptive systems. Such organizations continuously consume information, make decisions, and evolve with the changing environment. In this respect, all human organizations including businesses must enhance their collective intelligence in order to learn faster and compete more effectively. Thus, adopting an intelligent structure is vital to all businesses as the world moves deeper into the knowledge economy. The paradigmatic shift in thinking, structure, management and operation requires all intelligent human organizations to be designed around intelligence. An intelligent structure encompasses an orgmind, an intangible deep component, as well as a physical component. At the physical structure perspective, being able to identify, design and develop an artificial information systems network that synchronizes well with the orgmind is critical. The connectivity of the organization, and the manner in which it behaves, communicates and collaborates, depend on the effectiveness of its information systems network and its orgmind. The orgmind which is at least the collection of all the interacting human thinking systems must be fully aware of both the internal and external environments. Inevitably, in the new economy, intelligent human organizations must be equipped with a well-integrated intelligent information network which functions similarly to the nervous system in biological beings. This study examines the current status of artificial information systems and their networks in businesses with respect to the above concepts.


2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thow Yick Liang

As humanity becomes more dependent on information and knowledge, the current concepts, theories and practices associated with leadership strategy have to be transformed. Fundamentally, the influence of the knowledge-intensive, fast-changing and more complex environment has initiated a shift in the mindset, strategic thinking, ability and style in the new generation of leaders. In addition, for all categories of human organizations (economics, business, social, education and political) their members are becoming better educated and informed, and consequently they are more sophisticated interacting agents with modified expectations. Leading these new intelligent human organizations is drastically different from leading a traditional setup. Consequently, the introduction of a new leadership strategy is inevitable. Concurrently, in the new context, it is also highly significant to recognize that all human thinking systems and human organizations are indeed complex adaptive systems. In such systems, order and complexity co-exist, and they learn, adapt and evolve with the changing environment, similar to the behavior of any biological species in an ecological system. The complex and nonlinear evolving dynamic is driven by the intrinsic intelligence of the individuals and the collective intelligence of the group. Therefore, focusing and exploiting the bio-logic rather than machine-logic perspective is definitely more appropriate. In this respect, a better comprehension of leadership strategy and organizational dynamics can be acquired by “bisociating” the complexity theory and the concept of organizing around intelligence. The resulting evolutionary model of this analysis is the intelligence leadership strategy.


2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 203-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.Y. Liang

As humanity immerses deeper into the knowledge-intensive era, the mindset for leading, managing and structuring human organizations has to be transformed. Attention has been shifting from tangible to intangible assets. Human thinking systems, the sources where the world's most intense intrinsic intelligence originates become the key focal center. Intelligence and its dynamic are nonlinear. Arising from human consciousness are the two vital mental functions of awareness and mindfulness. These functions determine the quality of the mental state of the interacting agents. In addition, a high level of intelligence facilitates faster learning. All competitive human beings learn continuously to enhance the quality of their knowledge structures. Consequently, the bio-logic and human decision-making process improve. These activities constitute a critical component of the evolution dynamic. Similar to any intelligent biological organisms, all human organizations as composite complex adaptive systems must also nurture their own orgmind and collective intelligence to ensure their relevance and survival in the new context. Concurrently, activities such as continuous organizational learning, facilitating effective knowledge management processes, and building quality corporate knowledge structures must be cultivated. A mindful culture manifesting collaborative and sharing characteristic is crucial for sustaining the integrated dynamic. Recognizing the interdependency of the attributes involved is a key requirement. The 3C-OK framework to be conceptualized in this analysis is an attempt to enhance the new mindset.


Evaluation ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Larson

International development assistance is increasingly being seen as operating within complex adaptive systems. Evaluators have been developing new methods and approaches that are compatible with the dynamic and unpredictable realities of complex adaptive systems, which are composed of many separate but interacting agents and groups. However, these new methods are not easily implemented in a conventional commissioned end-of-program evaluation. This article builds on what is known about how complex adaptive systems’ properties affect program performance to propose eight evaluation questions. The findings from the questions will reveal if implementers were aware of and responded effectively to complex adaptive systems’ properties. The eight questions can be incorporated within a conventional evaluation to create a plausible narrative for program impact and inform the design and implementation of other programs.


Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Annetta Burger ◽  
William G. Kennedy ◽  
Andrew Crooks

Increasingly urbanized populations and climate change have shifted the focus of decision makers from economic growth to the sustainability and resilience of urban infrastructure and communities, especially when communities face multiple hazards and need to recover from recurring disasters. Understanding human behavior and its interactions with built environments in disasters requires disciplinary crossover to explain its complexity, therefore we apply the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS) to review disaster studies across disciplines. Disasters can be understood to consist of three interacting systems: (1) the physical system, consisting of geological, ecological, and human-built systems; (2) the social system, consisting of informal and formal human collective behavior; and (3) the individual actor system. Exploration of human behavior in these systems shows that CAS properties of heterogeneity, interacting subsystems, emergence, adaptation, and learning are integral, not just to cities, but to disaster studies and connecting them in the CAS framework provides us with a new lens to study disasters across disciplines. This paper explores the theories and models used in disaster studies, provides a framework to study and explain disasters, and discusses how complex adaptive systems can support theory building in disaster science for promoting more sustainable and resilient cities.


Author(s):  
Carmel M. Martin ◽  
Rakesh Biswas ◽  
Ankur Joshi ◽  
Joachim P. Sturmberg

This chapter argues the need for a paradigm shift to focus health care from a top down fragmented process driven activity to a user-driven journey of the individual whose health is at stake. Currently many person/patients express needs that are often overlooked or not understood in the health system, and the frontline care workers express frustration in relation to care systems that prevent them from optimizing their care delivery. We argue that complex adaptive systems and social constructionist theories provide a link for knowledge translation that ultimately will lead to improved health care and better personal health outcomes/experiences. We propose the Patient Journey Record System (PaJR) as a conceptual framework to transform health care so that it supports and improves the experience of patients and improves the quality of care through adaptable and interconnected provider information and care systems. Information technology, social networking and digital democracy is proposed as a major solution to the need to put the patient and their journey at the centre of health and health care with real time shaping of care to this end. Placing PaJR at the centre of care would enable patients, caregivers, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and students to contribute to improving care. PaJR should become a ‘discovery tool’ of new knowledge arising from different types of experiences ranging from the implicit knowledge in narratives through to the explicit knowledge that is formalized in the published peer reviewed literature and translated into clinical knowledge.


2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (11) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Ahmed K. Noor

This article discusses the need of complex systems to be adaptive, and various innovative technologies that are required to engineer these systems. Complex adaptive systems consist of several simultaneously interacting parts or components, which are expected to function in an uncertain, complex environment, and to adapt to unforeseeable contingencies. The defining characteristics of complex adaptive systems are that the components are continually changing, the systems involve many interactions among components, and configurations cannot be fully determined in advance. Studies have shown that complex systems of the future will require a multidisciplinary framework—an approach that has been called emergent (complexity) engineering. Emergent engineering designs a system from the bottom-up by designing the individual components and their interactions that can lead to a desired global response. Although significant effort has been devoted to understanding complexity in natural and engineered systems, the research into complex adaptive systems is fragmented and is largely focused on specific examples. In order to accelerate the development of future diverse complex systems, there is a profound need for developing the new multidisciplinary framework of emergent engineering, along with associated systematic approaches, and generally valid methods and tools for high-fidelity simulations of the collective emergent behavior of these systems.


2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Thow Yick

Organizing around intrinsic intelligence is a new paradigm that all human organizations must adopt if they wish to evolve successfully in the emerging intelligence revolution. This fresh mindset perceives human systems as intelligent corporate beings possessing an orgmind and a collective intelligence of their own. Intelligence is the entity that drives the universe and its microcosms. Some attributes associated with human intelligence are mindfulness, information processing, knowledge structuring, and nonlinearity. Nonlinearity, in particular, is manifested because the inherent sources of intelligence, the human minds, are complex adaptive systems where order and disorder co-exist. Human organizations that are intelligent are able to tap on and exploit these characteristics collectively and effectively. Consequently, these organizations are able to learn, adapt, self-organize and co-evolve quickly with their environment as biological beings. Their intelligent structure is also better at exploiting the innovative and creative energy embedded at the edge of chaos.


10.28945/4585 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
Denise A Breckon ◽  
Juan C Cruz ◽  
Katherine Kemmerer ◽  
Bryce Adams

The purpose of this systematic review is to explore retaliation within organizations and their culture. Specifically, this research examines extant scholarly literature regarding retaliation and how senior leaders, managers, and workers can help reduce it. Further, this study provides organizations intervention recommendations to help mitigate retaliation in small and medium organizations. In this study, complex adaptive systems (CASs) theory was found to be an appropriate mechanism for exploring and understanding how to mitigate retaliation effectively in the workplace. CASs is a people-based, people-driven, and behaviorally focused framework that requires collaboration and shared responsibility among the individual agents and agent-groups sharing a particular system, rather than just the system’s leaders or workers. This qualitative systematic review presents consistent evidence that in organizations retaliation can be reduced by: (1) promoting a culture of collective identity and justice; (2) using structures that maintain and restore justice; and (3) using training and pro-social relations to reinforce the organization’s cultural values. Based on the themes found in the research, three recommendations emerge as cultural interventions that will effectively reduce retaliatory behavior within organizations: (1) institutionalize an organizational culture of collective identity and justice; (2) create a structure that maintains and restores justice; and (3) reinforce values and policies through training and positive social relations.


2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Gureckis ◽  
Robert L. Goldstone

Is cognition an exclusive property of the individual or can groups have a mind of their own? We explore this question from the perspective of complex adaptive systems. One of the principal insights from this line of work is that rules that govern behavior at one level of analysis (the individual) can cause qualitatively different behavior at higher levels (the group). We review a number of behavioral studies from our lab that demonstrate how groups of people interacting in real-time can self-organize into adaptive, problem-solving group structures. A number of principles are derived concerning the critical features of such “distributed” information processing systems. We suggest that while cognitive science has traditionally focused on the individual, cognitive processes may manifest at many levels including the emergent group-level behavior that results from the interaction of multiple agents and their environment.


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