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The purpose of this paper is to record an interview with Richard T. Pascale, an international business consultant.

The paper uses an interview technique to reveal Richard T. Pascale's views on the relevance of complexity science to management.

The paper reveals that Pascale believes that there are some common properties to all living things that have great relevance to business. These are: prolonged equilibrium is a precursor to death; innovation occurs near the edge of chaos; all living things exhibit the capacity for self‐organisation and emergence (most recently popularised by the idea of the tipping point); and when you tamper with living things, you confront the law of unintended consequences. All four of these ideas have begun to penetrate managerial consciousness.

This paper provides some usual views on the relevance of complexity science to management from a well‐known international business consultant.

Managers of information units with limited budgets must find little comfort in the endless stream of ‘never had it so good’ articles. Microcomputers are daily becoming more powerful and less expensive, today giving computing power that 10 years ago only me largest institutions with access to mainframes could command. Specialised library software capable of handling all the housekeeping and retrieval requirements can be purchased for mere thousands of pounds. And, with a little ingenuity, general purpose software for a fraction of those prices can be purchased and cobbled together to form a workable system designed to meet specific needs.

The argument on nationalisation grows hotter every day. Benn catches most of the punches, and they're often thrown with an iron fist.

I want first to relate the Rules and their preparation to as wide a professional canvas as possible. Secondly, I intend to connect that relationship with the principles upon which the Rules have been based and upon which their structure has been built. And finally I would like to describe briefly how their value has so far been established and related to current library services.

The circumstances for the emergence of new ideas in organizational theory have previously been explored from several viewpoints. Researchers trace the origins of new ideas to previous literature or compare ideas across continents and countries. The author takes another point of departure. Following Merton (1957, 1963), she focuses on “multiple discoveries” in science, studying the independent, simultaneous (re-)discovery of certain aspects of institutional theory in organizational theory. Specifically, she follows the circumstances under which two pairs of researchers proffered similar explanations for the phenomena they encountered (Jönsson & Lundin, 1977; Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Without ever having met, they suggested an analogous way of understanding the concept of organizing, though their research used different frames of reference and field material and was published in different outlets. The author’s analysis of the circumstances surrounding the two papers led her to explore elements in the emergence of new ideas: the Zeitgeist – the spirit of the times – international networks, and collegial work. When these factors are in play, physical meetings do not seem to be required, but scholars must be involved in networks in which their colleagues provide judgment and advice.

Explores the genesis of a plan to erect a statutory “ring fence” around the accountancy profession in Britain during the 1960s. Focuses on two elemental problems in actualising a closure strategy: defining a basis for inclusion and exclusion; and, gaining the sanction of the state. Reveals that the complexities of devising an exclusionary code permitted opportunities for “inclusionary usurpation” by “outside” practitioner groups. Examines the quest by accountants to elicit government support for monopolisation during a period in which restrictive practices were outlawed and the professions were “under fire”. The achievement of de jure closure is shown to be dependent on the predilections of senior bureaucrats and the capacity of the profession to negotiate an “informal contract” with the state. Contends that the profession‐state interface primarily engages the apex of the organisational élite and mandrinate Civil Servants.