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p.2 the concepts of emergence and self-organization have been used to explain various elements of strategic decision making... organizational learning... leadership... and organizational change and transformation... More recently, scholars have recognized the potential role of complexity research in explaining coevolutionary properties and processes
p.4 I start by suggesting that "emergence" is the core issue that integrates the majority of research being placed under the complexity banner.
p.6 In my view, each of these 13 disciplines of complexity explores the conditions, properties, or processes of emergence in dynamic, complex systems. At its essence, complexity researchers are providing new ways to understand how and why order emerges. Formally, emergence means the creation of coherent structures in a dynamic system (Bushev, 1994; Holland, 1994). Most often emergence is designated as the process by which "…patterns or global-level structures arise from interactive local-level processes. …[The] combination of elements with one another brings with it something that was not there before" (Mead, 1932: 641; in Mihata, 1997: 31).
p.12 Traditionally, organizations (all social systems) have been seen as essentially stable entities... The goal of management, therefore, is to maximize an organization's "fit" with its environment (Drazin and Van de Ven, 1985) in various ways (e.g. Lewin, 1936; Thompson, 1967.)
p.12 the new paradigm is based on the assumption that change is the norm, so the key question of organization science is reversed: "Why does order emerge, and how does it maintain its existence over time?" [JLJ - with a machine playing a game, order emerges indirectly, due to a diagnostic test of adaptive capacity suggesting that certain moves are better than others. Over time, this "better move" algorithm structures the position accordingly]
p.13-14 In these coevolution models, firms seek a balance between exploitation and exploration efforts over time, in order to remain competitive in changing environmental circumstances (Lewin et al., 1999)... According to this view, exploitation and exploration processes are complementary means for optimizing organizational resources and design features in the face of multiple environmental and path dependent constraints.
p.15 "...When multiple populations of agents are adapting to each other, the result is a coevolutionary process” (Axelrod and Cohen, 2000: 8). Studying this emergence process can generate insights about the “mutual, simultaneous, lagged, and nested effects” of coevolution (Lewin and Volberda, 1999).
p.15 “The goal of coevolutionary inquiry is understanding how the structure of direct interactions and feedback within organization-environment systems give rise to their dynamic behavior” (Baum and Singh, 1994: 380).
p.16 the rule-based computational model can reveal hidden interdependencies and emergent characteristics that are not tractable using linear thinking (Hall, 1976).
p.17 According to Lewin, Long and Carroll (1999: 539-540), "During periods of relative stability, organizations and populations change and adapt in [incremental] ways, reinforcing the existing dominant organizational form."
p.18 According to Lewin, Long and Carroll (1999: 541), as organizations or populations adapt in highly dynamic environments, the successful ones will evolve to a critical balance point, "that balance between order (the pull of exploitation) and disorder (the pull of exploration) that is often called 'the edge of chaos.' At this point of dynamic tension, truly novel emergent behavior can occur." ...others argue that the "edge of chaos" is a misnomer for social system behavior (Mitchell, Crutchfield & Hraber, 1994).
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