Management transformation to address highly complex challenges in the environment began in earnest in the 1980s. Today the inability of conventional hierarchical control and the need to understand distributed control, self-organization and networks is increasingly apparent. The recent financial fiascos at high profile companies are the latest evidence of the disassociation of management from corporate function. In discussing information age companies, it is important to recognize that there is no one set of "best practices," the primary organizational principle is a matching of the system structure to the environment and function it performs. Recognizing key characteristics of the functional demands on the system can guide choices that are made about organizational structure and information flows. Moreover, the primary mechanism for organizational learning and change is through evolutionary processes. Finally, the attention to personal and corporation-wide networks is an abstraction of the centrality of relationships (relatedness) at every level of the organization.

Complex systems provides a scientific framework for understanding managing complex organizations in a complex world.

If you are interested in learning more about NECSI Education Programs, please contact Debra Gorfine at programs@necsi.org. Click here for a list of NECSI Education participants and clients.

New Book

• Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems in a Complex World

Papers on Complex Systems and Organizations

• Complexity Rising: From Human Beings to Human Civilization, a Complexity Profile
  Yaneer Bar-Yam PhD, New England Complex Systems Institute
• Multiscale Variety in Complex Systems
  Yaneer Bar-Yam PhD, New England Complex Systems Institute
• Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened: Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement
  Nelson Repenning PhD, MIT Sloan School of Management
  John Sterman PhD, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World
  John Sterman PhD, MIT Sloan School of Management
• The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations
  Peter Senge PhD, MIT Sloan School of Management and Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)
• Innovating Our Way to the Next Industrial Revolution
  Peter Senge PhD, MIT Sloan School of Management and Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)
  Goran Carstedt PhD, Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)