Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding...

Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding...

Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding...

Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding...

With a field so broad in both breadth and depth as that making up the contemporary study of complex systems, it is well nigh impossible to cover all the bases underlying the development of well argued, robust and relevant understanding of these systems. That is one of the reasons why the international journal Emergence: Complexity and Organization has offered a Classical Paper in each issue. Now, in this current volume we have made available in one publication venue the diverse Classical Papers that have been published so far in E: CO. These papers are offered not only to enrich our current...

The role of, and the means to achieve, resilience (the capacity to be sustainable through the impact of multitudinous future changes in a connected, dynamic environment) are increasingly the focus of corporate strategy departments and government think tanks. The increasing volatility in economic markets, the natural environment and society generally require new tools to think about, and take meaningful action towards, the achievement and maintenance of resilient policies and practices. The field of Complexity Thinking arguably has a significant role to play in both informing and assisting our...

Welcome to Volume 9 To begin this new look volume of E: CO we have, among others, brought together a special collection of papers and articles that are drawn from no less than three recent complexity conferences. All of the academic and practitioner section papers were selected from the recent ANZSYS/ISCE collaboration that resulted in the International 11th ANZSYS / Managing the Complex V conference that was held December 5-7, 2005 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The purpose of this event was to provide a lively forum for discussion and debate for a wide range of academics and practitioners...