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.

Systems thinking and health promotion.

Abstract: The launch of the American Journal of Health Promotion blessed the field with a broad conceptual framework, now refined to include physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions of health. Throughout the years, this framework has become increasingly nuanced as research and practice have woven the rich fabric of what we know as health promotion today. However, although the multidimensionality of health promotion is firmly established, we still have lacked a shared understanding of the realities of multilevel influence and the value in multilevel intervention. The basic concept is well accepted, as illustrated, for example, by the Stokol’ social ecological model or the Bronfenbrenner developmental ecology model. Recently, there has been growing interest in systems thinking as a framework to guide science and strategy for a more comprehensive, integrated way of addressing individual, group, organization, community, and societal factors that influence health behavior. A serious shift to systems thinking for health promotion would require fundamental reworking of our usual ways of thinking, working, and evaluating. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) produced a landmark report called Crossing the Quality Chasm, in which it endorsed the idea that health care systems are complex adaptive systems (CAS). As health promotion shifts to greater attention to multilevel influences and systems change strategy, CAS principles must be considered. The IOM report followed an important publication in 1998 and was accompanied by a series of publications in the British Medical Journal, which advocated the same emphasis on adopting the CAS lens to better understand how to improve and transform health systems. The IOM report was very important, as it was the first high-level consensus report that endorsed the CAS lens. What all of these publications emphasized is the dual nature of CAS: that they are at one and the same time complex and unpredictable, yet amenable to guided transformation by applying simple rules, as long as these rules are applied with the requisite flexibility to allow for adaptation processes. Health promotion issues are increasingly described as complex problems, deeply embedded within the fabric of society; consider, for example, obesity and chronic disease. Complex problems require intervention at many different system levels and the engagement of actors and organizations across levels ranging from the home, school, and work environments to communities, regions, and entire countries. This multi-level, multi-actor view is at the heart of systems thinking. Key features of complex systems that need to be taken into account in health promotion intervention and evaluation include the following: they are self-organizing and constantly adapting to change; they are driven by interactions between systems components and governed by feedback; and they are nonlinear and often unpredictable, with changes on one part of the system producing unexpected changes in other parts. As a consequence of these features, they often are program and policy resistant. This is not the way most of us in health promotion think about the needs and design of our interventions. A fundamental mind shift is needed, as well as major investments in theory, research methods, practice, and policy. Areas of particular importance for further development include interorganizational partnerships, networks, leadership, and integrated strategic communications. To summarize, the health promotion field during the past 25 years has developed a mosaic of research results and intervention strategies, richly colored by a broad, integrative view of key dimension of individual health. What is most needed now is a complementary view of how best to foster and support systems thinking for a more comprehensive, integrated, and dynamic framework for population approaches to health for all.

Conceptualising population health: from mechanistic thinking to complexity science

Abstract: The mechanistic interpretation of reality can be traced to the influential work by Rene Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton. Their theories were able to accurately predict most physical phenomena relating to motion, optics and gravity. This paradigm had at least three principles and approaches: reductionism, linearity and hierarchy. These ideas appear to have influenced social scientists and the discourse on population health. In contrast, Complexity Science takes a more holistic view of systems. It views natural systems as being 'open', with fuzzy borders, constantly adapting to cope with pressures from the environment. These are called Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). The sub-systems within it lack stable hierarchies, and the roles of agency keep changing. The interactions with the environment and among sub-systems are non-linear interactions and lead to self-organisation and emergent properties. Theoretical frameworks such as epi+demos+cracy and the ecosocial approach to health have implicitly used some of these concepts of interacting dynamic sub-systems. Using Complexity Science we can view population health outcomes as an emergent property of CAS, which has numerous dynamic non-linear interactions among its interconnected sub-systems or agents. In order to appreciate these sub-systems and determinants, one should acquire a basic knowledge of diverse disciplines and interact with experts from different disciplines. Strategies to improve health should be multi-pronged, and take into account the diversity of actors, determinants and contexts. The dynamic nature of the system requires that the interventions are constantly monitored to provide early feedback to a flexible system that takes quick corrections.

Scale and Scaling in Ecological and Economic Systems

Abstract: We review various aspects of the notion of scale applied to natural systems, in particular complex adaptive systems. We argue that scaling issues are not only crucial from the standpoint of basic science, but also in many applied issues, and discuss tools for detecting and dealing with multiple scales, both spatial and temporal. We also suggest that the techniques of statistical mechanics, which have been successful in describing many emergent patterns in physical systems, can also prove useful in the study of complex adaptive systems.

Business ecosystem as a perspective for studying th e relations between firms and their business networks

Abstract: In this paper we try to mature the business ecosyst ems concept as a research perspective for studying the relation between firms and their busin ess networks. As economic activities are changing from dominantly stand-alone to networked, new perspectives are needed to study these relationships. The business ecosystem metaphor provides an interesting starting point for such a perspective. We provide an overview of current rese arch on business ecosystems and we define the aspects that are core to a business ecosystem persp ective, namely, the firms, the network, performance and governance. We examine how these core aspects can be further developed building on (social) network theory, biological ecosystem th eory and complex adaptive system theory. Finally, we proposed to integrate these core aspect s into a comprehensive complexity logic.

Complex, but not quite complex enough : The turn to the complexity sciences in evaluation scholarship

Abstract: This article offers a critical review of the way in which some scholars have taken up the complexity sciences in evaluation scholarship. I argue that there is a tendency either to over-claim or under-claim their importance because scholars are not always careful about which of the manifestations of the complexity sciences they are appealing to, nor do they demonstrate how they understand them in social terms. The effect is to render ‘complexity’ just another volitional tool in the evaluator’s toolbox subsumed under the dominant understanding of evaluation, as a logical, rational activity based on systems thinking and design. As an alternative I argue for a radical interpretation of the complexity sciences, which understands human interaction as always complex and emergent. The interweaving of intentions in human activity will always bring about outcomes that no one has intended including in the activity of evaluation itself.