Chaos theory and organisations

1
Chaos theory and organisations

• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
  The unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to
  himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
  unreasonable man. (unknown author)

2
Many names for the same

• temporay society (Bennis, 1967)
• age of discontinuity (Drucker, 1969)
• age of unreason and beyond certainty (Handy,
  1997, 1998)
• a general theory of economic discontinuities
  (Rosser, 2000)

3
Why is chaos theory important?

• Organisations operate in turbulant and dynamic
  environments.
• This means uncertainty, unease and feelings of
  powerlessness with people in and around
  organisations.
• This is unfortunate as it often is on the
  outskirts of chaos that creativity flourishes.

4
Why is chaos theory important?

• Understanding chaos theory is important because
  of its significant implications for world systems
  design, organization design and administrative
  behaviour, and public policy analysis and
  implementation. (Farazmand 2003341)
• Regrettably not much has been written about chaos
  theory and public administration and
  organisations.

5
Chaos theory is about dialectic relations

• Change
• Nonlinear relations
• Turbulence
• Chaos
• Collaps of systems
• Imbalance
• Sharing
• Segments
• The human being

• Continuity
• Linear relations
• Stability
• Order
• Balance
• Transformation
• Unities
• System
• Nature

6
There is not one final definition of chaos theory

• Chaos theory tries to understand the relation
  between chaos and order. In this way, it is
  possible to follow both directions, from order to
  chaos, or from chaos to achieve order. (Dolan et
  al. 200324)

7
There is not one final definition of chaos theory

• The notion of chaos denotes chrisis and
  disorder, a state of non-equilibrium,
  instability, turbulence, rapid changes that
  scramble plans and cause unpredictability, with
  consequenses of anxiety, fear of unknown, and
  triggering and tripling effects of destruction
  and systems breakdown. (Dolan et al. 200324)

8
Catastrophies and chaos

• Microcosmic level chaos, short to middle long
  term
• Macrocosmic level catastrophies, long term,
  paradigmatic in essence, almost like Kuhn

9
Systems theory and chaos theory

• Systems theory is concerned with stability and
  equilibrium whereas chaos and transformation
  theories are characterized by chaotic changes
  that lead to order and vice versa. (Farazmand
  2003351)

10
Punctuated equilibrium and the shaking and
cracking state

• Designed chaos
• The purpose is to change something from an
  unwanted situation to a wanted situation for
  example by changing values in an organisation
  from minus to plus
• Natural evolution chaos
• Surroundings change in a dynamic process both
  including and excluding humans

11
Implications for organisational theory (Farazmand
2003362-363)

• Like other living systems, open organizations
  possess self-corrective mechanisms or
  negentropies that fight forces of decay and
  stagnation and revitalize the system. This is the
  dynamics of all open, living systems.

12
Implications for organisational theory

• From classical closed systems of the early
  twentieth-century bureau-cracy characterized by
  stability, order, and avoidance of change

• To new organizations characterized by
  instability, chaotic changes, system breakdowns
  with bifurcations into new orders, and negative
  feedbacks and non-equilibrium features as
  positive indredients producing dynamism

13
Implications for organisational theory

• Organizations and their leadership must induce
  periodic changes of a chaotic nature to shake up
  and crack the stable system for renewal and
  revitalization.

14
Implicationess for organisational theory

• Chaos and transformation theories imply the
  learning organizational concept necessary for
  change, adaptation, and adjustments to respond to
  the external environmental changes and
  paradigmatic shifts or strands.
• Organizations that learn, adjust, and adapt to
  the external pressures causing systems breakdown
  and bifurcations can survive and evolve, and
  their evolution comes through internal learning
  and transformation.

15
Implicationess for organisational theory

• Nonlinear relationships, chance, and randomness
  may characterize much of modern organizational
  systems, and many organizational problems must be
  managed or solved by nonlinear thinking. This is
  what Karl Weick called natural selection toward
  evolution, with the fittest to survive and those
  selected out to die.

16
Implicationess for organisational theory

• Chaos theory may explain the current chaotic
  changes and trends so pervasive in the management
  of public, private, and nonprofit organizations
  worldwidelike downsizing, sweeping
  privatization, environmental deregulation, and
  expansion of the corporate-based, private sector

17
Implicationess for organisational theory

• The transformation of personal assumptions into
  learning assumptions would make organizational
  leaders able to adapt faster to the turbulent
  organizational environment and to lead
  organizations through learning and managing in
  times of chaotic changes.
• Chaos and transformation theories can be seen as
  an anticipatory management system based on
  perpetual learning principle that makes complex
  organizations manageble and dynamic.

18
A word of caution! (Farazmand 2003364-366)

• Chaos theory can tamper with the dialectics of
  nature by interfering in the natural evolutionary
  processes.
• Chaos theory can be a powerful tool of
  manipulation and control in the hands of few
  powerful elites for economic, social, political,
  and military reasons.

19
A word of caution!

• Unpredictability of outcomes of chaotic states or
  systems pose further dangerous, and potentially
  fatal, threats to individuals, groups, cultures,
  and peoples around the globe.

20
A word of caution!

• If chaotic events or processes will eventually
  lead to order, or order to chaos, how do we know
  that injecting chaotic forces into prevaliling
  stable systems will lead to eventual order,
  especially desired order? Whose order is the
  desiered order?