Understanding Complexity In Organizations

Author : Timothy Ludwig
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317986946
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Understanding Complexity in Organizations written by Timothy Ludwig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organizations are complex entities that must adapt the practices of their employees and management to meet the demands of a dynamic environment. Organizations are behavioral systems that coordinate interactions among its members and environment. Changing practices in one area of an organization can generate a reaction throughout the entire system, thus affecting the behaviors of those working within other areas, the experience of customers, and important organizational results. Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) focuses on these complex contingencies from the macro system all the way down to individual behavior. This book contains articles by internationally recognized experts in Behavioral Systems Analysis who discuss the role of organizational practices in their study of performance improvement and cultural change from both practical and conceptual perspectives. Business and non-profit managers will find tools and case studies to help understand and diagnose their organization’s dynamics. Scholars will appreciate articles’ theory and real-world descriptions when considering their own research direction. Finally, all students of management theory, behavior analysis, and human resources will find this collection a thought-provoking tool for their understanding of behavioral systems and their application in organizations. This book was published as a special issue in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management.

Author : Timothy Ludwig
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317986938
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Understanding Complexity in Organizations written by Timothy Ludwig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organizations are complex entities that must adapt the practices of their employees and management to meet the demands of a dynamic environment. Organizations are behavioral systems that coordinate interactions among its members and environment. Changing practices in one area of an organization can generate a reaction throughout the entire system, thus affecting the behaviors of those working within other areas, the experience of customers, and important organizational results. Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) focuses on these complex contingencies from the macro system all the way down to individual behavior. This book contains articles by internationally recognized experts in Behavioral Systems Analysis who discuss the role of organizational practices in their study of performance improvement and cultural change from both practical and conceptual perspectives. Business and non-profit managers will find tools and case studies to help understand and diagnose their organization’s dynamics. Scholars will appreciate articles’ theory and real-world descriptions when considering their own research direction. Finally, all students of management theory, behavior analysis, and human resources will find this collection a thought-provoking tool for their understanding of behavioral systems and their application in organizations. This book was published as a special issue in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management.

Author : Ralph D. Stacey
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135188661
Total Pages : 695 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity and Organizational Reality written by Ralph D. Stacey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-18 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaches to leadership and management are still dominated by prescriptions – usually claimed as scientific – for top executives to choose the future direction of their organization. The global financial recession and the collapse of investment capitalism (surely not planned by anyone) make it quite clear that top executives are simply not able to choose future directions. Despite this, current management literature mostly continues to avoid the obvious – management’s inability to predict or control what will happen in the future. The key question now must be how we are to think about management if we take the uncertainty of organizational life seriously. Ralph Stacey has turned to the sciences of uncertainty and complexity to develop an understanding of leadership and management as the ordinary politics of daily organizational life. In presenting organizations as a series of complex responsive processes, Stacey’s new book helps us to see organizational reality for what it actually is – human beings engaged in many, many local conversational interactions and power relations in which they negotiate their ideologically based choices. Organizational continuity and change emerge unpredictably, rather than as a result of any overall plan. This is a radically different picture from the one painted by most of the management literature, which explains "organizational continuity and change" as the realization of the global plans and choices of a few powerful executives within an organization. Providing a new foundation for understanding complexity and management, this important book is required reading for managers and leaders wanting to understand the reality of complexity in organizations, including those engaged in postgraduate studies in leadership, organizational behaviour and change management.

Author : Elizabeth McMillan
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134379854
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity, Organizations and Change written by Elizabeth McMillan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-18 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity science has seriously challenged long-held views in the scientific community about how the world works. These ideas, particularly about the living world, also have radical and profound implications for organizations and society as a whole. Available in paperback for the first time, this insightful book describes and considers ideas from

Author : Ralph D. Stacey
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134538979
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity and Management written by Ralph D. Stacey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity theory is generating increasing interest amongst strategic thinkers. This fascinating book covers issues such as predictability, creativity and relationships as it considers how complexity, and its central principles of emergence and self-organization, are being used to understand organizations. The book: introduces the variety of views put forward by different writers on complexity and management outlines and critiques the way that complexity theory is frequently interpreted purely in the context of systems thinking draws a new perspective on using complexity sciences to understand organizational stability and change by focusing on the emergence of novelty and creativity in the course of everyday processes calls for a radical re-examination of management thinking. Timely and controversial, Complexity and Management is essential reading for anyone interested in strategy, systems thinking, organization and management theory, and organizational change.

Author : Dennis Tafoya
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136959807
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Effective Organization written by Dennis Tafoya and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Project Overview: What the Book’s About "It may not be possible to predict when an organization will confront an operation-challenging event but it is possible to predict the organization's capacity to manage the event when it emerges." (Introduction to Chapter Nine) Performance is the reason why organizations exist. Through performance organizations meet the needs of internal and external stakeholders as defined by their mission, goals and objectives. This is true for all organizations. If a retailer won't stock goods a customer wants, the customer will shop elsewhere. If a religious organization does not meet the needs of its followers, they leave. If a cult doesn't meet the needs of its memberships they seek their goal fulfillment elsewhere. If a manufacturing center can't produce goods that meet customer standards, the customer will reject it. Complexity theory, a tool used to examine the nature of dynamic systems like organizations, can contribute to our understanding of organizations and ways to improve their performance. The models and material outlined in the book illustrate ways competency and organizational programs, processes and procedures are used to manage emerging risks, threats and vulnerabilities that challenge today's organizations. Collectively this information enables the identification of individual organization profiles as a way to advance our understanding of an important theory, complexity, in an applied setting -- organizations. Unique typologies describing organizations (four types), events that effect organizations (six types) and the fundamental structure for organizations are presented to enable the forecasting of an organization's capacity to manage different events as they emerge and how behavior organizes around these events. Academicians studying organizations and practitioners interested in improving them can use this information to facilitate baseline, descriptive thinking and analysis or more sophisticated examinations aimed at understanding the dynamic nature of organizations as fully functioning systems. At the heart of the effort is the examination of what it takes to get the performance needed to achieve a vision or mission and why, despite planning, training and evaluation, few organizations can guarantee or maintain desired levels of performance when faced with events, routine to extreme, that shape their existence. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how knowledge, evaluation, information and, communication management practices need to be tailored to fit particular organizations rather than treated as a "one size fits all" approach. These are not limited, theoretical discussions but are presented as ways to efficiently talk about an individual organization's profile or competencies within a class of, or in contrast to, other organizations.

Author : Yves Morieux
Publisher : Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN 13 : 1422190560
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Six Simple Rules written by Yves Morieux and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New tools for managing complexity Does your organization manage complexity by making things more complicated? If so, you are not alone. According to The Boston Consulting Group’s fascinating Complexity Index, business complexity has increased sixfold during the past sixty years. And, all the while, organizational complicatedness—that is, the number of structures, processes, committees, decision-making forums, and systems—has increased by a whopping factor of thirty-five. In their attempt to respond to the increasingly complex performance requirements they face, company leaders have created an organizational labyrinth that makes it more and more difficult to improve productivity and to pursue innovation. It also disengages and demotivates the workforce. Clearly it’s time for leaders to stop trying to manage complexity with their traditional tools and instead better leverage employees' intelligence. This book shows you how and explains the implications for designing and leading organizations. The way to manage complexity, the authors argue, is neither with the hard solutions of another era nor with the soft solutions—such as team building and feel-good “people initiatives”—that often follow in their wake. Based on social sciences (notably economics, game theory, and organizational sociology) and The Boston Consulting Group’s work with more than five hundred companies in more than forty countries and in various industries, authors Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman recommend six simple rules to manage complexity without getting complicated. Showing why the rules work and how to put them into practice, Morieux and Tollman give managers a much-needed tool to reinvigorate people in the face of seemingly endless complexity. Included are detailed examples from companies that have achieved a multiplicative effect on performance by using them. It’s time to manage complexity better. Employ these six simple rules to foster autonomy and cooperation and to effectively handle business complexity. As a result, you will improve productivity, innovate more, reengage your workforce, and seize opportunities to create competitive advantage.

Author : Ron Ashkenas
Publisher : Harvard Business Press
ISBN 13 : 1422156176
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Simply Effective written by Ron Ashkenas and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2009-02-08 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The level of complexity in most organizations today is staggering-and it's only getting worse. There are so many choices to be made, people to involve, processes to manage, and facts to analyze, it's impossible to get things done. And in today's hypercompetitive world, that can be fatal. Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity: -Constant changes in organizational structures -Proliferation of products and services -Evolution of business processes -Time-wasting managerial behaviors The author provides a diagnostic for identifying how these causes of complexity are affecting your organization-and presents practical tactics for combating each one. Ashkenas also explains how to craft a strategy that will make simplification an ongoing driver of your company's success-no matter where you work in your organization. Abundant examples from companies like ConAgra Foods, GE, Cisco, Zurich Financial Services, and Johnson & Johnson illuminate his points. A crucial resource in today's overly complex age, Simply Effective should be required reading for everyone on your management team.

Author : Ulrich Steger
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 9780470513118
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.1X/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Managing Complexity in Global Organizations written by Ulrich Steger and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-04-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book delivers new IMD insights on an emerging challenge - how to deal with overwhelming complexity. Global organizations face a complex decision-making environment. On one side, diversity of cultures, customers, competitors and regulations creates complexity; on the other, competitive pressures cause expanding countries to extract more synergies across products and regions. In such a climate, a new way of thinking, acting and organizing is needed beyond the familiar ‘control’ mindset. Drawing together insights from across the expert faculty, Managing Complexity in the Global Organization presents IMD’s framework on how to understand complexity and its four key drivers (diversity; interdependence; ambiguity and flux), along with solutions on specific issues in a variety of functions, industries and markets. The focus is on providing practical solutions based on real-life examples.

Author : Chris Mowles
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000505685
Total Pages : 201 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity written by Chris Mowles and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interprets insights from the complexity sciences to explore seven types of complexity better to understand the predictable unpredictability of social life. Drawing on the natural and social sciences, it describes how complexity models are helpful but insufficient for our understanding of complex reality. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book develops a complex theory of action more consistent with our experience that our plans inevitably lead to unexpected outcomes, explains why we are both individuals and thoroughly social, and gives an account of why, no matter how clear our message, we may still be misunderstood. The book investigates what forms of knowledge are most helpful for thinking about complex experience, reflects on the way we exercise authority (leadership) and thinks through the ethical implications of trying to co-operate in a complex world. Taking complexity seriously poses a radical challenge to more orthodox theories of managing and leading, based as they are on assumptions of predictability, control and universality. The author argues that management is an improvisational practice which takes place in groups in a particular context at a particular time. Managers can influence but never control an uncontrollable world. To become more skilful in complex group dynamics involves taking into account multiple points of view and acknowledging not knowing, ambivalence and doubt. This book will be of interest to researchers, professionals, academics and students in the fields of business and management, especially those interested in how taking complexity seriously can influence the functioning of businesses and organizations and how they manage and lead.