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.

Complex Adaptive Systems and Comparative Politics: Modeling the Interaction between Institutions and Culture

Abstract: Comparative politics aims to explain political, economic, and social patterns within and across countries. Two approaches dominate and divide the field. Rational choice approaches explain differences in accountability, equality, corruption, and growth as a function of institutional features. Cultural and historical approaches rely on thick descriptive accounts that consider the complex interplay between behavior, formal rules, informal norms, identities, and the weight of tradition and history. In this paper, we describe how a complex systems approach might build a bridge between these schema by embedding lean rational choice models within contexts that include cultural, social, and historical detail and generating testable propositions about their interdependence. We first describe some fundamental elements of the complexity approach for comparative politics. As proof of concept, we next describe a research agenda of the effect of culture on institutional performance. Our framework considers multiple institutions in force both simultaneously and in sequence. It allows for behavior to depend on context, on the set of existing institutions, and on individuals’ behavioral repertoires. In the spirit of rational choice models, human behavior will be purposeful. In the spirit of thicker, descriptive accounts, it will be contingent on time and place. It may be used to understand some instances of cultural exceptionalism and to understand the efficacy of economic and political development projects.

Evidence‐based medicine—Not a panacea for the problems of a complex adaptive world

Abstract: The recent sacking of Peter Gotzsche from the Cochrane Collaboration Board raised strong responses and highlights the neglected issue about priorities-maintaining the reputation of the organization or vigorously debating the merits of scientific approaches to find answers to complex problems? The Cochrane approach hales the randomized trial (RCT) as the gold standard research approach and affirms that meta-analysis provides the ultimate proof (or platinum standard) to settle contentious issues confronting the clinician. However, most published medical research is wrong, and critics coined the acronym GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) as a meme to highlight the risks of blind faith in the hyped-up procedures of the EBM movement. This paper firstly explores the differences between the prevailing scientific method arising from the linear cause-and-effect assumption and the complex adaptive systems science methods arising from observations that most phenomena emerge from nonlinearity in networked systems. Most medical conditions are characterized by necessary features that by themselves are not sufficient to explain their nature and behaviour. Such nonlinear phenomena require modelling approaches rather than linear statistical and/or meta-analysis approaches to be understood. These considerations also highlight that research is largely stuck at the data and information levels of understanding which fails clinicians who depend on knowledge-the synthesis of information-to apply in an adaptive way in the clinical encounter. Clinicians are constantly confronted with the linked challenges of doing things right and doing the right thing for their patients. EBM and Cochrane with their restrictive approaches are the antithesis to a practice of medicine that is responsive to constantly changing patient needs. As such, the EBM/Cochrane crisis opens a window of opportunity to re-examine the nature of health, illness and disease, and the nature of health care and its systems for the benefits of its professionals and their patients. We are at the cusp of a paradigmatic shift towards an understanding a praxis of health care that takes account of its complexities.

Toward a Micro-Enactment Theory of Leadership and the Emergence of Innovation

Abstract: Organizations are complex adaptive systems comprised of heterogeneous agents interacting in unplanned ways. According to complexity theory, emergent events occur at various levels within a system, and within organizations. The focus in this paper is at the microlevel of analysis. We describe leadership emergence within groups and describe how innovative action and communication results from this emergence. In particular, we specify how leadership emerges at the individual, dyadic, and group level within events. Taking the complex systems leadership theory (CSLT) approach as a starting point, we describe how micro-enactments, which consist of the individual behaviors of heterogeneous agents as they interact with one another, create organized programs of action that are subject to evolving group dynamics and show how this process can be described as self-organizing by observers who are unaware of the intentionality of the individual agents. Seven micro-enactments are described, along with a framework for examining how they assemble, intersect, and influence one another to enable organized learning, action, innovation, and change, both at the group level, and subsequently at the organizational level, and how they can be assessed. Suggestions for shaping and guiding micro-enactments to generate effective leadership within public sector organizations are provided.

Toward a social capital theory of technology‐based new ventures as complex adaptive systems

Abstract: Purpose – Technology‐based new ventures (TNVs) – which rely on entrepreneurial activities based on science and technology applications in newly created organizations to be successful – are important to current economic growth and innovation. Past research has looked at the importance of networks and social capital to TNV performance. Yet these studies rarely provide theoretical predictions of the attributes of network ties. This paper aims to bring TNV theory up to date with respect to twenty‐first century adaptation and complexity conditions.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on new developments in complexity science (specifically scalability and scale‐free theories) and long‐standing first principles of efficacious adaptation to develop TNV‐relevant theory offering an alternative perspective on the impact of network ties on the performance of TNV.Findings – It is argued that TNVs can achieve superior performance by developing and building moderate numbers of short‐term (and thereby weak) netw...

Reframing hydrology education to solve coupled human and environmental problems

Abstract: . The impact of human activity on the biophysical world raises myriad challenges for sustaining Earth system processes, ecosystem services, and human societies. To engage in meaningful problem-solving in the hydrosphere, this necessitates an approach that recognizes the coupled nature of human and biophysical systems. We argue that, in order to produce the next generation of problem-solvers, hydrology education should ensure that students develop an appreciation and working familiarity in the context of coupled human-environmental systems. We illustrate how undergraduate-level hydrology assignments can extend beyond rote computations or basic throughput scenarios to include consideration of the dynamic interactions with social and other biophysical dimensions of complex adaptive systems. Such an educational approach not only builds appropriate breadth of dynamic understanding, but can also empower students toward assuming influential and effective roles in solving sustainability challenges.