Abstract
This conceptual study examines the analogies between schools and complex adaptive systems and identifies strategies used to manage schools as complex adaptive systems. Complex adaptive systems approach, introduced by the complexity theory, requires school administrators to develop new skills and strategies to realize their agendas in an ever-changing and complexifying environment without any expectations of stability and predictability. The results indicated that in this period administrators need to have basic skills such as (a) diagnosing patterns emerging from complexity, (b) manipulating the environment by anticipating potential patterns organizations may evolve into, (c) choosing organizational structures compatible with an ever-changing and complexifying environment and (d) promoting innovation to create and manage organizational changes. Although these skills enable administrators to reduce complexity into a manageable form to some extent, stakeholders’ having a common perspective regarding their schools and environments, and executing their activities in accordance with a shared vision are required to turn these skills into complexity management strategies.
Highlights
In the uncertain and constantly changing organizational environment of the information society, assumptions of order and predictability have gradually had a less part in administrators’ lives, since the relationships and the course of events in social complex systems like schools are not linear
Administrators are generally trained to work in a stable world in which social roles are clear, individuals do not need to rebuild their lives over and over again and interpersonal interactions are guided by societal institutions through cultural patterns
An image of a stable world imposes the assumption of predictability of the future, interpersonal interactions and the results of changes as a prevailing way of thinking
Summary
In the uncertain and constantly changing organizational environment of the information society, assumptions of order and predictability have gradually had a less part in administrators’ lives, since the relationships and the course of events in social complex systems like schools are not linear. With the widespread interest in the open systems approach, this new understanding has become prominent in organization theory and given a new impulse to managerial studies (Lissack & Gunz, 1999; Simon, 1962; Von Bertalanffy, 1950). This conceptual study aims to discuss the analogies between schools and complex adaptive systems and to identify strategies used to manage schools as complex adaptive systems. It seems likely to develop a general definition for complexity such as self-organization of components in mutual interaction as hierarchical systems in order to build potential forms (Curlee & Gordon, 2010). Complex systems are composed of a number of interconnected components with characteristics such as self-organization, evolution and novelty (Lissack & Gunz, 1999)
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