Resolving complex wicked problems: new challenges for Asia Pacific managers?

Citation

Dufour, Y. (2010), "Resolving complex wicked problems: new challenges for Asia Pacific managers?", Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, Vol. 2 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/apjba.2010.41502aaa.001

Resolving complex wicked problems: new challenges for Asia Pacific managers?

Article Type: Editorial From: Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, Volume 2, Issue 1

Increasingly managers are called upon to deal with complex wicked problems. These problems are characterized, above all, by what they are not: clear, definable, separable, and easy to solve. In order to understand the challenges of resolving them it is useful to explore what may constitute them. We argue that five basic components feature together – at least to some degree – in many complex wicked problems: stakeholders; behaviours; ideology; knowledge; and boundaries.

The stakeholders are the foundation of the challenges. Indeed, complex wicked problems occur in a social context and the greater the disagreement among stakeholders, the more wicked the problem. Over time the various stakeholders fuel debates and keep the issues alive in the minds of the decision makers. These active stakeholders encompass all of those that use their voice to affect the process, the context(s) and content in the decision-making process. Involving them in designing solutions is one of the key challenges Brian W. Head argues in the first viewpoint paper of this issue of the APJBA. One of his key contentions is that in tackling complex problems, too little attention has been directed to “steering” strategies, that is, to strategies that transcend beyond the analysis of the nature of complex problems and also determine, with the help of experts and stakeholders, the corresponding policy governance arrangements necessary to address such problems. In the final paper of this issue, Ly Kosal investigated a sample of Japanese firms that have voluntarily become members of the Japanese Investor Relations Association; a decision that is thought to represent increased investor relations level and thereafter increased voluntary disclosure. The second element that can feature in complex wicked problems is the behaviour of people. Bilal Khan, Ayesha Farooq and Zareen Hussain outline how human behaviour is a composite of learning and experience and the values and ethics embedded in a human being are reflected through their behaviour. Indeed, in order to achieve some sort of progress toward improving a complex situation a number of people must usually change their behaviour. In his paper, Bilal Khan, Ayesha Farooq and Zareen Hussain remind us that, contrary to a general view held by non-Muslims, the Quran specifically asserts that human beings are able to choose and to intervene in their destiny, and that they are responsible for the consequences of their deeds.

A third element featured in complex wicked problems is ideologies. This includes: the aims and ideas, visions and beliefs, values, emotions, perceptions and interests of people concerned. They give rise to conflicting opinions, rival perspectives and a dynamic plurality of contending points of view about a policy problem or issue and potential solutions. Indeed, there are many actors involved, of different preferences, in attempting to resolve complex problems, and the interactions between their respective views can often be volatile. In the third paper of this issue by Yong Han and Yochanan Altman argue that although employees in China may not understand the specific Confucian doctrines they may implicitly and explicitly regulate Chinese behaviour since Confucian doctrine and tradition are deeply rooted in their mind and to some extant employee codes of conduct can be traced back to Confucianism. They argue that there is no doubt that Confucianism serves as one of main sources of moral standards in China.

The fourth element that features in many complex wicked problems is the scientific and technical knowledge on the nature of the problem, its consequence and the shape of its potential solution. Often the understanding of the relationships between the problem and the solutions advocated are faint and blurred, and what is expected by decision makers reveals stunningly different aims to what ultimately happens. Furthermore, information is usually incomplete, often ambiguous, and unreliable and various people disagree on how to interpret the data that is available. Moreover, causal relationships are numerous, interrelated, and difficult to identify. In the fourth paper of this issue of the APJBA paper, Arran Caza, Richard P. Bagozzi, Lydia Woolley, Lester Levy and Brianna Barker Caza build a case based on scientific knowledge on the usefulness of a diverse sample and the validity for both genders of two recently developed questionnaires: the psychological capital questionnaire and the authentic leadership questionnaire.

The fifth element featured in wicked policy problems is the boundaries of the organisations involved in the formulation and implementation of the strategy to resolve the problem. Indeed, the resources necessary to tackle problems are often scattered across rather fragmented institutional settings. Wicked problems go beyond the capacity of any one organization to understand and respond to, and tackling them is one of the key imperatives for success in working across agency boundaries. Decisions often need to be made in diverse yet interdependent settings and at different levels in order to set collective action in motion. In the final paper of this third issue of the APJBA, David Cooke shows that the traditional boundaries and relationship between commercial for profit organisations and their non-commercial not-for-profit counterparts is changing. He concludes that a new emergent approach based on acknowledgment of mutual benefits where social investment decisions become more strategic and where closer relationships become reciprocal is taking place. He finds that partnerships are now a common feature in Australia as well as in many other countries.

Increasingly managers are dealing with so-called “wicked” problems of a complex nature, which presents new challenges. They must develop their abilities to conduct stakeholder analysis and to find new ways to engage them in the decision-making process. Furthermore, they must explore new paths to set in motion change. At the same time, they must learn to balance conflicting ideologies and find common ground between polar views. Moreover, they must build their scientific and technical knowledge base on the nature of policy problems. Above all, they must learn how to manage inter-organizational relationships anew in a shared decision-making process. This is a new and reforming agenda in problem solving.

In short, this issue of APJBA combines a mix of contributions that relate to the kind of problems the Asia Pacific managers are increasingly called to deal with. This editorial can be taken as providing five distinct unequivocal elements; each of them featuring in a particular wicked problem. However, this neither captures the essence of wicked problems, nor our intent. For example, dealing with climate change and global warming in the Asia Pacific region requires not only understanding the ideologies involved but also the knowledge, the behaviours, the possible joint action across countries and agency boundaries, as well as the various influencer’s strategies to create legitimacy for their own actions, ideas and demands. To return to a point made at the beginning of this editorial, it is our contention that together these elements – metaphorically – form the skeletal frame of complex wicked problems to a greater or lesser degree. What is specific to each of them depends in a large part on how important each of the elements is in relation to the others and how the constellations of these elements impact on the complexity of managing a particular issue. As in the previous issues, it is gratifying to see the scope and scale of topics beginning to manifest through the collection of articles in this journal. It reinforces the trust that Emerald publishing has that the Asia Pacific region will continue to pay a major role in the discourse on business administration. The editors welcome further contributions from the region in subsequent issues.

Yvon Dufour, Peter Steane