Managing Complexity in Organizations: A View in Many Directions

Lissack and Gunz have gathered many of the leading practitioners from the science of complexity and its emerging applications to management—to give us an up-to-date, comprehensive understanding of this important new field and how it can change the way we think about the organizations. Complex systems, which consist of many interacting entities and exhibit properties such as self-organization, evolution, and constant novelty, exist in all domains of our world. The metaphors and models derived from complexity, say Lissack and Gunz, can be used to make sense of these systems and help managers shape them.

The three chapters in Part I introduce the topic of complexity science and how it relates to modern management practice, providing a context for the section on strategy, creativity, communications, and applications that follow. Part II examines strategy from a complexity perspective and complexity from a strategy perspective. In Part III the authors look at the intersection of complexity, creativity, and communication. Part IV on applications, examines how complexity-influenced theories of management actually affect routine management practice. Throughout, the book makes clear that what worked in a simpler, clearer world will not work today. State of the art yet basic enough to remain timely well into the future, this book will prove indispensable for organization decision makers everywhere and their academic colleagues.

Leading practitioners from the science of complexity explore its emerging applications of day-to-day managerial problems, and the field's present and future challenges.

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Contains papers from two 1998 conferences on the relationships between managing organizations and the science of complex systems. Early chapters explain how complexity science relates to modern management practice, and examine strategy from a complexity perspective and complexity from a strategy perspective. Later papers look at the intersection of complexity, creativity, and communication, and describe how complexity-influenced theories of management can actually affect day-to-day management practice. Domains examined range from windmills to Soviet politics. Gunz teaches organizational behavior at the University of Toronto. Lissack is director of the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

MICHAEL R. LISSACK is Director of Organization Science Related Programs at the New England Complex Systems Institute and Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at the Rotterdam School of Management.

HUGH P. GUNZ is Associate Dean of the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.