SBrian Futterman & Scott Renick

SYSTEMS & CHAOS THEORY

Complexity and Chaos(anything but)

“Companies don’t innovate; markets do.” –Dick Foster

Complex adaptive systems Ants scale to organizations Evolving rules, dynamic environment, interacting

agents

Chaos vs. stasis – two possible states of a CAS with shifting patterns and group interactions

Beinhocker says:

All are open systems comprising a number of agents whose dynamic interactions self-organize to create a larger structure.

Eric Beinhocker, Strategy at the edge of Chaos, 1997Writing about cities, forest ecosystems, the immune system, and the Internet.

Beinhocker says:

EMERGENCE

Sources

McBride, N. (n.d.). Chaos Theory and Information Systems (pp. 1-13, Tech.).

Equilibrium Video

Beinhocker,E.D. (1997) "Strategy at the edge of chaos." The McKinsey Quarterly, 1, p. 27

…behaviour in chaotic systems may be perceived as unpredictable. Periods of inactivity may be punctuated by sudden change, apparent patterns of behaviour may disappear and new patterns unexpectedly emerge. Such behaviour emerges in complex systems. This chaotic behaviour does not indicate a lack of order. Rather, the order is difficult or impossible to describe in simple terms and requires complex narrative description.

McBride, 2008EMPHASIS ADDED

“Wait, what just happened?”

Beinhocker,E.D. (1997) "Strategy at the edge of chaos." The McKinsey Quarterly, 1, p. 32

Systems Theory

Chaos Theory

the qualitative study of unstable, aperiodic behaviour in deterministic, nonlinear dynamic systems (Kellert, 1993 quoted in Tsoukas, 1998)

Chaos Theory

Qualitative

Chaos Theory

Unstable

Chaos Theory

Aperiodic

Chaos Theory

Deterministic

Further Reading