A Review of Managing People and Organizations in Changing Contexts

This paper describes how complexity theory can be applied to itself at a metaphorical level to generate ideas about complexity, including proposals for modeling the evolution of complexity theory and treating computer modeling as a part of complexity theory, not just a medium of its expression. Proposals for more rigorous application of complexity theory to itself include studying the fitness of ideas within complexity theory, using various proxies for measuring those ideas, studying the autocatalysis of ideas, estimating the fractal geometry, and developing general computer models of complexity theory. Introduction Complexity theory is everywhere. It occupies a substantial academic niche with its own courses, programs, departments, and extensive lists of publications, including journals devoted exclusively to complexity. By nature interdisciplinary, complexity theory has been applied across disciplines as diverse as meteorology, biology, geology, mathematics, physics, medicine, history, sociology, economics, education, business management, and political science, to name a few (see for example the range of disciplines in the references provided at the end of this paper). Or perhaps listing the disciplines not yet under the influence of complexity theory would be the shorter way to describe the explosion of complexity theorizing. Still, there is a significant gap. In this paper, I extend the list by sketching the application of complexity theory to yet another subject, itself, and offer specific proposals for further research. What is the purpose of applying complexity theory to itself? This paper has no room for a full treatment of the importance and implications of notions such as self-reference, reflexivity, recursion, and paradox (see for example Luhmann, 1990; Bartlett, 1992). Several observations will have to serve as placeholders for a longer discussion. It is simply interesting and fun to apply a pattern to itself and see where it leads. It is also likely to lead to something useful, since recursive procedures can be very expressive and efficient. To describe something by reference to itself is to abbreviate the description. So self-reference can simplify. Also, parts of complexity theory are already expressed reflexively, so it seems sensible to ask whether the whole thing is reflexive. We might try to construct complexity theory from complexity theories all the way down. Applying theory to itself joins theory and practice: The theory has to put its money where its mouth is, as they say. For instance, Cilliers (2005: 261) has asked whether the statement that we can never have complete of complex systems is trapped in a performative contradiction, between the absolute statement itself and the incompleteness in its claim. This is a logical analog of the ideal that no one, or in this case no concept, is above the law, so complexity theory should not hover in the air above its own rules. Any theory can be challenged by showing its hypocrisy, that it does not fit into its own description of the world, but this discussion is not just about logical consistency, or self-referential consistency, as much as it is concerned with the ways in which complexity theory can provide insight into itself. Complexity theory would be more persuasive if it could parse itself, by analogy to the way a new computer language can be used to write a parser to process and test the new language itself. Piecemeal hints at applying complexity theory to itself appear in the literature. Allen (2001), for example, describes complexity science in the nested expression knowledge of the limits to knowledge. Luhmann (1990) offers a theory of social systems as recursively closed systems with respect to communications. Beyond these and other similar hints, however, I am not aware of any project specifically proposing to apply complexity theory to itself. As these are just early steps, I address only some of the most basic questions, such as asking what is complexity and what is emergence. …