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...

Written by leading experts in the field, this volume seeks to provide new insights and tools that have only recently become apparent through advances in complexity science.

This resource explores the emerging understanding of human systems from both the quantitative sciences and the qualitative perspectives. These articles explore a range of complexity-related topics from philosophical concerns through to the practical application of complexity ideas, concepts, and frameworks in human organizations.

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...

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...