Reconciling Complexity Theory in Organizations and Christian Spirituality

This paper demonstrates how the recent work in complexity science in organizations reinforces the claims and teachings of the Christian scriptures. The lenses of complexity theory have been trained on a variety of subjects in organizations, ranging from assembly lines to strategic planning. While this work has been going on, another group of researchers has been actively pursuing the study of workplace spirituality. The latter body of work has resulted in the formation of the Management, Spirituality, and Religion interest group of the Academy of Management in 2000, the creation of journals of workplace spirituality (including the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion), and a steady stream of special issues on the topic (calls in 2003 alone included “Theological Perspectives on Accounting,” Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal; “Research Issues and Research Findings in Spirituality in Organizations,” Journal of Organizational Change Management; and, “Spiritual Leadership,” Leadership Quarterly).

The popular and professional press is filled with discussions of major changes on the organizational landscape, including organizational design experiments at entrepreneurial firms as well as at major corporations, the slashing of corporate staffs, the downsizing, delayering and revitalization of firms, the emerging electronic organization, mergers and acquisitions, failures of high reliability organizations, and time-based competition. Each of these issues has been associated with the redesign of organizations, yet these redesigns seem far removed from academic research, and they do not typically utilize the academic body of knowledge. Although the field has progressed enormously in new methods and insights during a century of research, it seems to us that organization studies have been a source of recurrent disappointment for practitioners and academics alike (Bedian 1989; Cummings 1983; Luthans 1986; Slocum 1984). For example, Miner (1984) analyzed 32 established organizational science theories and concluded that with the exception of theories of motivation there is no relationship between usefulness and validity. Is the field of organization studies irrelevant? Organizations have become the dominant institution on the social landscape. Yet the body of knowledge published in academic journals has practically no audience in business or government. Unlike a field such as economics, research on organizations has not typically focused on problems relevant to business and government organizations, and the real world of organizations has not drawn on the work undertaken by organizational scientists. From colleagues within our field and in allied disciplines, we hear complaints that manuscripts espousing radical ideas, or topics outside the mainstream, are difficult to publish. Reviewers for established journals seem to value papers whose theses are anchored in established theories or that use "legitimate" methods, thus implicitly creating a publication barrier for research that falls outside mainstream topics or methods. Moreover, we observe that scholars with interests in organizations span many disciplines and fields of inquiry such as anthropology, economics, history, information science, communication theory, artificial intelligence, systems theory, psychology, sociology, political science, policy sciences, as well as organization behavior, strategic management and organization theory. We sense that a new discipline of organization science is evolving and we envision that a new journal can become a forum for a discipline defined more broadly. The purpose of this essay is to discuss these issues and the need for reorienting research away from incremental, footnote-on-footnote research as the norm for the field. Although current research approches have made solid contributions, they do not

the midst of there is chaos; but in the midst of chaos, there is order, John Gribbin wrote in his book Deep Simplicity (p.76). In this dialectical spirit, we discuss the generative tension between complexity and simplicity in the theory and practice of management and organization. Complexity theory suggests that the relationship between complex environments and complex organizations advanced by the well-known Ashby's law, may be reconsidered: only simple organization provides enough space for individual agency to match environmental turbulence in the form of complex organizational responses. We suggest that complex organizing may be paradoxically facilitated by a simple infrastructure, and that the theory of organizations may be viewed as resulting from the interplay between simplicity and complexity.

Complexity, simplicity, simplexity

General practices are making greater use of indicators to help shape and develop organisational arrangements supporting the delivery of health care. Debate continues concerning what exactly such indicators should measure...

Over the last two decades a major focus of organization theory has been on understanding the dynamic relationships between individuals, organizations and their environments. This interest in dynamics, illustrated by systems, chaos, and complexity theory, is recorded in the works of Ackoff, Senge, and Stacey. This focus offers a new viewpoint on holism for practising leaders and theorists today. Building on this interest, Smith’s original text presents a new philosophical lens for helping leaders see the advantages of a more holistic approach to improving organizations. Specifically he: introduces the AIC (appreciation, influence, control) philosophy, model, and process of purpose-power relationships as a next step in the evolution of organization and systems theory traces its roots and evolution in organization theory and indicates its actual and potential contribution to that field translates the model into a transformative, strategic organizing process that can be used to organize at any level, in a way that will ensure the achievement of higher levels of purpose, at less cost and in less time than traditional organizational approaches. Developed and tested via his work for organizations including the World Bank, this revolutionary book will change the way organizations and individuals work.

General practices are making greater use of indicators to help shape and develop organisational arrangements supporting the delivery of health care. Debate continues concerning what exactly such indicators should measure and how they should be used to achieve improvement. Organisational theories can provide an analytical backdrop to inform the design of indicators, critique their construction, and evaluate their use. Systems theory, organisational development, social worlds theory, and complexity theory each has a practical contribution to make to our understanding of how indicators work in prompting quality improvements and why they sometimes don't. This paper argues that systems theory exerts the most influence over the use of indicators. It concludes that a strategic framework for quality improvement should take account of all four theories, recognising the multiple realities that any one approach will fail to reflect.

B eing asked to make a short speech as part of accepting the award inevitably leads to some introspection and reflection on major factors that have influenced one’s career, be they events or individuals. Past recipients of the award have been very influential in putting management accounting on the map. Some have been instrumental in developing the way we think about management accounting and teach the subject; some have developed important perspectives such as information economics, combining economics with psychology, the importance of national culture, activity-based cost management, and balanced scorecards. The way these recipients developed their thoughts is well told in their acceptance speeches and collectively provides a wealth of ideas and a historical perspective on the development of our discipline. I commenced my studies in economics, and I maintain a keen interest in economic approaches to management accounting. However, early in my academic career, I was pressed into considering an organizational approach to management accounting, not because it was an easier option; rather it addressed the world of management accounting within which I found myself. In this address, I will share with you some personal reflections on the process of my discoveries in the area of organizational approaches to management accounting from the mid-1960s. The backdrop to this address is that research is something of a growth model. Stage 1: starting from a baseline of skills and knowledge gained at undergraduate studies; stage 2: progressing through refinement of skills with more graduate study; and stage 3: consolidating through work toward publications and other academic outputs. Stages 1 and 2 are somewhat planned and incremental, while stage 3 is more often associated with less ordered processes, often stumbling across potential research areas by way of reading and personal interactions. Research projects can be focused around existing ideas, sometimes being somewhat formulaic, sometimes highly innovative. Often ideas can be serendipitous and develop in unpredictable ways. The key is to recognize when there is a management accounting angle that will relate to an important organizational or social issue.

needed for explanation, or they may not contain enough. The latter practice is a form of reductionism. While deliberate simplification may be in interests of scientific clarity and precision, it may simply be unnecessary omission. This essay draws attention to an example of such reductionism and discusses some related concepts needed for understanding Efforts to characterize organizations as such are surprisingly common. Theories of how human organizations should be designed and operated appear in literature of antiquity. Written as a political and philosophical work, Republic of Plato undoubtedly represents an early form of organization theory. Appearing about same time, Politics of Aristotle is an alternative to Republic and debate as to which is correct still continues. March' points out, moreover, that the study of organizations has a history.... There is scarcely a major philosopher, historian, or biographer who has overlooked management and perversities of organizations. Consequently, a new problem is not being examined here. Yet, while search for an inclusive theory continued, it is not until mid-20th century that systematic empirical theories began to appear in contrast to earlier forms which were largely unsystematic, anecdotal, and normatively descriptive. Naturally, Weber's2 initial work on organizations, especially bureaucracy, comes to mind as a modern turning point. There are still rather wide differences of opinion, however, as to how an organization as a whole * Like all conceptual systems, modern organization theories are subject to some degree of reductionism and oversimplification. It is undoubtedly more appropriate to recognize that organizations are much more complex than even most denotative theories will admit. As a consequence, practical implications of less complex theories may indeed be misleading. An alternative view would be to recognize that a multitude of organizational forms are possible, each arising to meet internal and external demands upon organization. Emphasis upon unique, individual, features of organizations may be necessary before a viable organization theory can be developed. To this end a taxonomy of organiztions would be desirable.

One of the mandatory agendas in Leadership Training in Indonesia is Diagnostic Reading, where participants are trained to be able to analyse problems in their own organizations using appropriate metholodology. Diagnostic Reading as a body of knowledge is originally derived from Organizational theories, thus it is imperative to comprehend the development of Organizational Theory from the beginning to present day. The development of modern Organizational Theory relies a lot on complexity theory and systems theory, where an organization is seen as a system which behaves adaptively in the face of rapid changes in its environment. This paper elaborates principles of System Theory and it relationship with complexity, characteristics of systems, and recent development of systems approach which are widely used in various disciplines, including in Diagnostic Reading agenda. The paper uses explanatory method to describe the use of systems approach in organizations, especially for the purpose of analyzing problems in organizations.

This chapter considers how International Relations (IR) theory and organization theory (OT) have informed each other’s development to date and discusses areas of unrealized potential for future cross-fertilization in analyzing inter-organizational cooperation and conflict as well as limits of such exchange. While IR has made limited contributions to organizational studies, the flow of ideas from organizational scholarship to IR has been more influential. Organizational theories such as transaction cost economics, agency theory, and neo-institutionalist organizational sociology have significantly influenced IR theory over the past 30 years. Network analysis is increasingly employed in IR. Complexity theory has seen some application in both IR and OT. And scholars of international organizations have recently drawn upon resource dependence theory and organization culture theory. Other organizational theories—including contingency, garbage can, and organizational ecology, theories—have the potential to illuminate new puzzles in the study of inter-organizational relations in world politics.

AT first glance it might seem odd that organization theory should concern itself with chaos. Since the study of organizational phenomena is its raison d’etre, it could plausibly be argued that organization theory has very little (if anything) to do with the study of the absence of organization; that is, with the study of disorganization or chaos. Such an argument, however, would not be convincing. Moreover, not only can organization and disorganization not be separated (one presupposes the other-see Cooper 1986); the very concept of disorganization, upon closer inspection, does not make much sense.

Complexity Theory is a relatively new area of research, which has been applied successfully in the chemical and biological sciences and is now beginning to find applications in the social sciences, especially in economics and organizational analysis. The paper sets out an understanding of Complexity Theory and its application to problems in the Management area and, in particular, relates current Complexity Theory thinking in Management with Senge's approach of the “Fifth Discipline.” It puts forward a set of principles for Complexity Theory in organization which form the basis for this comparison. After raising some concerns about the concept of self-organization, which is shown to be one of the key concepts in Complexity Theory, and the apparent lack of focus in Complexity Theory research to date with organizational politics and success criteria, the paper concludes by considering whether, at present, Complexity Theory can be considered to have deeper applications in addition to providing useful metaphors relevant to organizational analysis.

Despite its widely acknowledged influence on implementation, limited research has been done on how the external environment (i.e., outer setting) determines when organizations adopt and implement new interventions. Determinant frameworks identify several outer setting-level factors such as funding streams, inter-organizational relationships, and peer pressure. However, these frameworks do not explain how or why outer-setting factors influence implementation. To advance research in this area, we argue for the importance of deriving theory-based propositions from organization theory to explain how outer setting factors influence organizations. Drawing on the work of the Organization Theory in Implementation Science (OTIS) project, we identified 20 propositions from five classic organization theories—Complexity Theory, Contingency Theory, Institutional Theory, Resource Dependence Theory, and Transaction Cost Economics. We then applied those propositions to hypothesize relationships among outer setting factors, implementation strategies, and implementation outcomes in five case studies of evidenced-based tobacco control interventions. The five case studies address the implementation of smoke-free policies, community health worker-led tobacco education and cessation programs, 5 A's (Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist, and Arrange), point-of-sale tobacco marketing policy interventions, and quitlines. The case studies illustrate how propositions may be used to guide the selection and testing of implementation strategies. Organization theories provide a menu of propositions that offer guidance for selecting and optimizing high-leverage implementation strategies that target factors at the level of outer setting. Furthermore, these propositions suggest testable hypotheses regarding the mechanisms underlying the influence of outer-setting factors on how and why organizations adopt and implement interventions.

This article represents a contribution to the conceptualization of organizational complexity. The first part of the article relates the concept of complexity to the production tasks of the organization by deriving measures of the complexity of production and planning tasks within the organization. This move allows us to analyze organizational activities in terms of the computational complexity of the tasks that the organization carries out. Drawing on concepts from theoretical computer science, the article introduces a taxonomy of production tasks based on their computational complexity and shows how to use the notion of computational complexity to analyze organizational phenomena such as vertical integration disintegration, the choice between markets and organizations as performers of particular production tasks, and the internal partitioning of organizational tasks and activities. The article then relates the complexity of the production function of the organization to the ways in which organizations structure themselves. It attempts to bring theorizing about organizational behavior based on complexity theory closer to the conceptual realm of "mainstream" organization theory and to make the concepts of complexity theory more useful to empirical examinations of firm dynamics and organizational behavior.