Topic
Complex adaptive system
About: Complex adaptive system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3190 publications have been published within this topic receiving 111947 citations. The topic is also known as: Complex adaptive system, CAS.
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10 Feb 2003
TL;DR: This chapter identifies a series of key differences between the complexity science and established theoretical approaches to studying health organizations, based on the ways in which time, space, and constructs are framed.
Abstract: From its roots in physics, mathematics, and biology, the study of complexity science, or complex adaptive systems, has expanded into the domain of organizations and systems of organizations. Complexity science is useful for studying the evolution of complex organizations -entities with multiple, diverse, interconnected elements. Evolution of complex organizations often is accompanied by feedback effects, nonlinearity, and other conditions that add to the complexity of existing organizations and the unpredictability of the emergence of new entities. Health care organizations are an ideal setting for the application of complexity science due to the diversity of organizational forms and interactions among organizations that are evolving. Too, complexity science can benefit from attention to the world’s most complex human organizations. Organizations within and across the health care sector are increasingly interdependent. Not only are new, highly powerful and diverse organizational forms being created, but also the restructuring has occurred within very short periods of time. In this chapter, we review the basic tenets of complexity science. We identify a series of key differences between the complexity science and established theoretical approaches to studying health organizations, based on the ways in which time, space, and constructs are framed. The contrasting perspectives are demonstrated using two case examples drawn from healthcare innovation and healthcare integrated systems research. Complexity science broadens and deepens the scope of inquiry into health care organizations, expands corresponding methods of research, and increases the ability of theory to generate valid research on complex organizational forms. Formatted
330 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider three cases of water policy making in California, including the San Francisco Estuary Project, the CALFED Bay-Delta Program and the Sacramento Area Water Forum.
Abstract: Collaborative policy making has become increasingly significant in environmental management, but it is often evaluated by whether or not agreement is reached and implemented. The most important outcomes of such policy dialogues are often invisible or undervalued when seen through the lens of a traditional, modernist paradigm of government and accountability. These dialogues represent a new paradigm of governance that can be best understood in the light of a complex adaptive system model of society. From this perspective collaborative policy making is a way of making a system more flexible, adaptive and intelligent. The authors document such outcomes in three cases of water policy making in California, including the San Francisco Estuary Project, the CALFED Bay-Delta Program and the Sacramento Area Water Forum. The outcomes include social and political capital, agreed-on information, the end of stalemates, high-quality agreements, learning and change, innovation and new practices involving networks and fle...
330 citations
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TL;DR: The applicability of complex systems theory in economics is evaluated and compared with standard approaches to economic theorising based upon constrained optimisation as mentioned in this paper, and it is argued that much of heterodox thought, particularly in neo-Schumpeterian and neo-Austrian evolutionary economics, can be placed within a complex systems perspective upon the economy.
Abstract: The applicability of complex systems theory in economics is evaluated and compared with standard approaches to economic theorising based upon constrained optimisation A complex system is defined in the economic context and differentiated from complex systems in physio-chemical and biological settings It is explained why it is necessary to approach economic analysis from a network, rather than a production and utility function perspective, when we are dealing with complex systems It is argued that much of heterodox thought, particularly in neo-Schumpeterian and neo-Austrian evolutionary economics, can be placed within a complex systems perspective upon the economy The challenge is to replace prevailing 'simplistic' theories, based in constrained optimisation, with 'simple' theories, derived from network representations in which value is created through the establishment of new connections between elements
315 citations
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TL;DR: Agent-based computational economics (ACE) as mentioned in this paper is the computational study of economies modeled as evolving systems of autonomous interacting agents, which is a specialization to economics of the basic complex adaptive systems paradigm.
309 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, a complexity-based definition of entrepreneurial ecosystems is proposed and three related forces that will influence entrepreneurial ecosystem emergence are intentionality of entrepreneurs, coherence of entrepreneurial activities, and injections of resources.
306 citations