THE SCIENCE OF COMPLEXITY - AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE FOR STRATEGIC CHANGE PROCESSES

The two perspectives of strategy process most firmly established in the literature-strategic choice and ecology-assume the same about system dynamics: negative feedback processes driving successful systems (individual organizations or populations of organizations) toward predictable equilibrium slates of adaptation to the environment. This paper proposes a third perspective, that of complex adaptive systems. The framework is provided by the modern science of complexity: the study of nonlinear and network feedback systems, incorporating theories of chaos, artificial life, self-organization and emergent order. Here system dynamics are characterized by positive and negative feedback as systems coevolve far from equilibrium, in a self-organizing manner, toward unpredictable long-term outcomes.