What is Complexity Theory?
This is a difficult question to answer without getting very theoretical, academic and therefore boring for most…… so here goes! Complexity is not new, it has been around for decades, and centuries for areas such as Social Science, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics etc. But it is new to business. Complex Evolving Systems (CES) are all around us. Most things we take for granted are complex evolving systems, and the agents in every system exist and behave in total ignorance of the concept but that does not impede their contribution to the system. Complex Evolving Systems are a model or we prefer architecture for thinking about the world around us not a model for predicting what will happen. Complexity in simple terms deals with the messy or human side of organisations. It accepts that when humans interact, there is a ‘new’ emergence of thinking, behaviour and action. Complexity presents the formulation of laws of nature. In contextualising this, Prigogine (1997) considers complexity as “
