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To create circular economies, we need supply systems to convey materials between their use lives. Often, though, it is not possible to control an entire supply network. Without a coordinator to implement circular economy principles, how can circular supply systems come to be? This chapter sets out to build on complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory and circular economy research to conceptualize how information flows between actors can facilitate the emergence of a circular supply system. It begins by outlining why a supply network can be considered a CAS, as well as the CAS progression from information to adaptation to emergence. Next, it argues that information on local supply networks, extended supply systems, and biosphere impacts is particularly important for circular production. Finally, it concludes with two potential types of emergence that can stem from these information flows: (1) new actor roles and networks and (2) new spatial and temporal patterns. Ultimately, this conceptual overview aims to give researchers and practitioners a CAS frame for thinking about how continual adaptation to information flows can enable change toward circular supply systems.

“Mirror Worlds” were suggested by David Gelernter based on a bold assertion: “You will look into a computer screen and see reality.” With mirror worlds, managers could be proactive, anticipating what might happen and acting accordingly, instead of waiting till events happen and then reacting. This paper extends the notion of mirrors worlds to supply chain management. In the case of supply chain management, managers could test the impact of making changes in their supply chains to study the impact.

However, mirror worlds could be extended to help actually monitor and manage supply chains to respond and adapt to changes in the world that affected the supply chain. In particular, mirror worlds could be “real” worlds if control for some of the activities between supply chain participants is in effect “turned over” to the mirror world. In that case, the mirror world would show the actual world, with the system making many of the decisions.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

Manufacturing companies today are part of a dynamic, globalized system of production and consumption. Globally dividing labor is now the predominant way of organizing business, but it is clear that the resource demands of linear supply chains have created vulnerability and harm in the system and beyond. The authors draw inspiration from ecology to explore the role of manufacturers in the transition from linear to circular supply chains. Borrowing the adaptive cycle model, originally developed to describe dynamic ecological systems, they employ case examples to illustrate the ways that supply chain management is being reimagined in the shift to a circular economy. This conceptualization uses the adaptive cycle to consider the transition from linear to circular supply chains as part of broader systems change, and the opportunities for manufacturers to play a transformative role in shaping a sustainable future.

Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.

The intention of this article is to show possible contributions of the concept of autonomous cooperation to enable complex adaptive logistics systems (CALS) to cope with increasing complexity and dynamics and therefore to increase the systems' information-processing capacity by implementing autopoietic characteristics. In order to reach this target, the concepts of CALS and autopoietic systems will be introduced and connected. The underlying aim is to use the concept of self-organization as one of their essential similarities to lead over to the concept of autonomous cooperation as the most narrow view on self-organizing systems, which is discussed as a possible approach to enable systems to handle an increasing quantity of information. This will be analyzed from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view.

Project networks are an increasingly salient organisational temporary form to deal with complex problems. It remains unclear, however, whether and how project networks adapt over time, and hence implement changes, both within the span of the specific project, and across projects. The authors apply the performance feedback (PF) perspective to explore how adaptive responses to PF are organised and absorbed within project networks. The authors investigate these matters in the area of humanitarian and development aid efforts, which represent complex social issues. In this context, project networks involve a multitude of actors at different distances from the implementation field, ranging from the donor, through an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), to the NGO’s country offices, local NGOs and the beneficiary communities. This study’s qualitative findings, which the authors generate through an abductive analytical process, highlight that project networks dealing with complex social issues face six paradoxes based on work by DeFillippi and Sydow: the distance, difference, identity, learning, temporal and performance paradoxes. Collective goal setting, adaptive monitoring and evaluation practices, and continuous re-negotiation of aspiration levels emerge as coping mechanisms enabling project networks to internalise insights from the field and translate them into adaptive behavioural responses, mainly at the intra-project level. The authors contribute to a better understanding of adaption in these temporary forms, and particularly in its behavioural consequences. The study also advances knowledge on the PF perspective, through its application in temporary settings, on the level of the project network and in the context of complex social issues, where organisational arrangements strive to pursue multiple interdependent goals.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

As the demand for new services strains library resources, directors of research libraries must practice efficient cost management and demonstrate alignment with institutional objectives. For technical services, this requires managing the effective cost of metadata services, assessing core functions, and evaluating operational performance. This paper uses Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs) as a framework to expose the network of local and global dependencies that currently define the field of operation for technical services. Comparative analyses using a CASs framework were conducted on reports by the Library of Congress, the Heads of Technical Services in Large Research Libraries Interest Group, and the British Library. Each report addresses financial pressures placed on bibliographic control services in response to the 2008 recession. Statements within the reports were assigned to one of three dominant systems: bibliographic control, institutional identification, and distributive networks. The statements were then mapped to the CASs characteristics to determine environmental pressures and areas of adaptation. The reports exposed long-standing dependencies that tie local bibliographic control to a complex network of external agencies. Institutional shifts toward user-centered services coupled with growing fiscal restraint has disrupted the stability of these networks. The analyses found that in all cases network instability led to localized institutional adaptation to existing economic pressures. The paper recommends applying a CASs model to assess the alignment of distributed metadata standards and systems development to local institutional objectives.

Certain elements of Hayek’s work are prominent precursors to the modern field of complex adaptive systems, including his ideas on spontaneous order, his focus on market processes, his contrast between designing and gardening, and his own framing of complex systems. Conceptually, he was well ahead of his time, prescient in his formulation of novel ways to think about economies and societies. Technically, the fact that he did not mathematically formalize most of the notions he developed makes his insights hard to incorporate unambiguously into models. However, because so much of his work is divorced from the simplistic models proffered by early mathematical economics, it stands as fertile ground for complex systems researchers today. I suggest that Austrian economists can create a progressive research program by building models of these Hayekian ideas, and thereby gain traction within the economics profession. Instead of mathematical models the suite of techniques and tools known as agent-based computing seems particularly well-suited to addressing traditional Austrian topics like money, business cycles, coordination, market processes, and so on, while staying faithful to the methodological individualism and bottom-up perspective that underpin the entire school of thought.