Search results

Complex systems adapt to survive, but little comparative literature exists on various approaches. Adaptive complex systems are generic, this referring to propositions concerning their bounded instability, adaptability and viability. Two classes of adaptive complex system theories exist: hard and soft. Hard complexity theories include Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Viability Theory, and softer theories, which we refer to as Viable Systems Theories (VSTs), that includes Management Cybernetics at one extreme and Humanism at the other. This paper has a dual purpose distributed across two parts. In part 1 the purpose was to identify the conditions for the complementarity of the two classes of theory. In part 2 the two the purpose is to explore (in part using Agency Theory) the two classes of theory and their proposed complexity continuum.

Explanation is provided for the anticipation of behaviour cross-disciplinary fields of theory dealing with adaptive complex systems. A comparative exploration of the theories is undertaken to elicit concepts relevant to a complexity continuum. These explain how agency behaviour can be anticipated under uncertainty. Also included is a philosophical exploration of the complexity continuum, expressing it in terms of a graduated set of philosophical positions that are differentiated in terms of objects and subjects. These are then related to hard and softer theories in the continuum. Agency theory is then introduced as a framework able to comparatively connect the theories on this continuum, from theories of complexity to viable system theories, and how harmony theories can develop.

Anticipation is explained in terms of an agency’s meso-space occupied by a regulatory framework, and it is shown that hard and softer theory are equivalent in this. From a philosophical perspective, the hard-soft continuum is definable in terms of objectivity and subjectivity, but there are equivalences to the external and internal worlds of an agency. A fifth philosophical position of critical realism is shown to be representative of harmony theory in which internal and external worlds can be related. Agency theory is also shown to be able to operate as a harmony paradigm, as it can explore external behaviour of an agent using a hard theory perspective together with an agent’s internal cultural and cognitive-affect causes.

There are very few comparative explorations of the relationship between hard and soft approaches in the field of complexity and even fewer that draw in the notion of harmony. There is also little pragmatic illustration of a harmony paradigm in action within the context of complexity.

This chapter explores the interaction between different kinds of knowledge and representations in the making of the ‘fleshed’ female reproductive body in an Indian city. In particular, it analyzes how women perceive contraception and how the reproductive governance helped to produce the female sterilization as the most widely used contraceptive method in India. The study is based on the case of the city of Bhuj, in the state of Gujarat (India), where three anthropological fieldworks (15 months) were conducted. Modern contraceptive methods are based on a biomedical representation of the body, drawn from Western categories of knowledge and experience, whereas women live the ‘fleshed’ reproductive body through local categories of substance and fluids. How is this knowledge mobilized and affected in relation to reproductive technologies and the government of reproduction? This question is addressed through the analysis of women's embodied experiences of contraception. The narratives collected show a resistance to biomedicine, considered to be a model that alters the female body and its reproductive capacity. Nevertheless, even when sterilization was considered to be a deliberate act of tampering with the functioning of their bodies, women displayed a pragmatic agency in choosing this method. The experiences of respondents reflected complex negotiations between bodily suffering, socio-economic structures and the microphysics of power surrounding them, rather than a unilateral submission to medical authority and reproductive governance.

The ability to act in a purposeful and effective way amid institutional tensions and paradoxes is, right now, a highly prized quality in public leadership. The purpose of this chapter is to qualify moderately brave acts as a learning format that combines the analytical and performative skills implied in this kind of agency.

The chapter explores the engagement with paradoxes as a narrative praxis. From existing literature, it sums up an understanding of agency as a social process of mediating paradoxes in order to make action possible. Drawing on Northrop Frye’s theory of modes, the chapter explains this praxis as a narrative endeavour balancing the dynamics of tragedy (disintegration) and comedy (integration). Moderately brave acts are formed as a kind of low-mimetic synthesis – very much akin to comedy and realistic fiction. The narrative dynamics of low-mimetic synthesis are pursued in the case story of Christian, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) student from Copenhagen.

Moderately brave acts appear as a learning format that can inspire a less idealised, but not entirely ironic approach to the paradoxes of management. In this way, they can foster a nuanced and pragmatic agency that combines analytical reflexivity with the ability to take practical action in problematic situations.

The chapter may inspire teachers to use narrative techniques to allow students to deal with real problems of daily praxis in a way that embraces the tension between idealisation and deconstructive irony.

Modelling the organisation to enable purposeful analysis and diagnosis of its ills is often problematic. This is illustrated by the unconnected non‐synergistic plurality of organisational models each of which relates to a particular isolated frame of thought and purpose. A cybernetic approach is adopted to create a generic psychosocial model for the organisation that is used to characterise its emergent normative personality. Organisations are often complex, and seeing them in terms of their normative personality can reduce the complexity and enable a better understanding of their pathologies. This paper seeks to do two things. The first is to show that it is possible to set up a generic model of the organisation as an agency, and the second is to show that this same model can also be represented in the alternative terms of the emergent normative personality. In order to do this, an understanding of what it is that constitutes generic criteria is required. In addition, the paper shall show that organisational and personality theories can be connected generically. One of the consequences of the theory is that the patterns of behaviour which occur in an agency have underlying trait control processes.

A meta‐systemic view of the organisation is adopted through knowledge cybernetics that enables more flexibility and formality when viewing organisational models. The paper develops a formal generic model of the organisation that should facilitate the exploration of problem situations both theoretically and empirically.

The outcome of the research formulates the cognitive processes of normative personality as a feasible way of explaining organisations and provide a capacity to analyse and predict the likelihood of their behavioural conduct and misconduct. As an agency trait model, agency explains the socio‐cognitive aspects of self‐organisation and the efficacy of connections between the traits. These traits control the personality, and inter‐trait connections are Piagetian intelligences that orient the traits and work through forms of first‐ and second‐order autopoiesis. The development of a typology of pathologies is also suggested as feasible.

There are previous metaphorical notions that link agency with traits. Here, metaphor is extended to produce a formal model for the emergent normative personality. This is the first time that socio‐cognitive and trait approaches are formally linked, as it is the fist time that a typology for organisational pathologies is proposed.

This chapter addresses growing concerns that, despite being a radically intentioned community, Critical Management Studies (CMS) lacks an orientation to achieve pragmatic change. In response I argue that the failure to address the continuing marginalisation of the subaltern is key to CMS being negatively represented as an elitist self-preoccupied endeavour. This state of affairs is linked to a legacy of the ‘postmodern’ turn, which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, as evidenced by the nature of contemporary debates continuing to reflect the stylistic fetishes of that time. I contend that the ghost of postmodernism is evident in the continuing predilection to produce signification discourses marked by symbolic absences, which politically confine such texts to the level of epistemology. The lack of integration of ontological concerns means that corporeal aspects of daily life are neglected, resulting in an abstracted ‘subjectless’ mode of representation. To address these limitations, a feminist activist version of post-structuralism (PSF) of the time is revisited, which through its distinctive attention to community concerns, enabled the linking of epistemological and ontological representations; thereby facilitating the creation of a framework for pragmatic change. As the chapter demonstrates, by drawing attention to the integral relationship between the modes of representation, power relations and subsequent social effects, poststructuralist feminists were able to achieve praxis outcomes. Accordingly, I argue this treasure house of ideas needs to be reclaimed and provides illustrations of the design principles proffered to support my contentions.

The study aims to consider the overall impact of the service encounters and projects undertaken on the long-term relationship between the agency and its clients.

The study uses a parallel mixed-method design incorporating quantitative and qualitative elements in the client–advertising agency context. Data obtain via an online survey in Study 1 were analysed using structural equation modelling and bias-corrected bootstrapping technique. Study 2 featured 15 in-depth interviews with marketing managers and project leaders.

The findings revealed that advertising agencies deliver value and create trust through creativity aspects as well as project management processes. In addition, both perceived value and trust have crucial roles in fostering client–agency relationships and the continuance of business relationships. Value has a stronger direct effect on loyalty when compared with trust, confirmed by the results of Study 2. Several respondents pointed out the influence of client characteristics on both evaluation of creativity as well as loyalty.

The results highlight the importance of project management and planning which should be seen as an investment by both parties. Moreover, agencies need to involve clients in the creative process and focus on marketing themselves and the value they add to enhance client loyalty.

This study was the first to develop a model for the drivers of loyalty, drawing from literature in three key areas: service quality, relationship marketing and project management. An additional contribution of the study stems from the incorporation of an integrated parallel mixed-methods approach.

The experience of “misfit” between individuals’ professional identities and their work roles or work contexts is common in career transitions. In contrast to extant literature that focuses on the identity struggle of these people, this study examines how problematic identity dynamics associated with misfit motivate the shift toward the development of positive identities and induce creativity in meaning-making and change-oriented actions. It builds on the insights of Mead (1934) and Joas (1996) who view creativity as the most significant aspect of human agency, and the identity work literature that highlights the agentic process in identity construction. The study looks at a group of “pracademics” whose career trajectories deviate from the prototypical patterns in academia. It examines the identity work strategies that these people undertake to overcome misfit and shows how identity work liberates them from the limits of a particular identity, and facilitates new activities that alter aspects of their work contexts. The study advances our understanding of identity work as a creative human endeavor and sheds new light on the change-oriented agency of misfits.

This article will consider the various ways in which accounting can be conceptualized within Boltanski and Thévenot’s economies of worth theoretic. Drawing on two case illustrations, a not-for-profit welfare agency and a government-owned water utility, we follow the unfolding of disputes and the variety of outcomes in which accounting is implicated. We illustrate the role of accounting in justificatory actions and the ways in which it “holds things together” in compromise arrangements. We also illustrate the situations which challenge the “test” of worth and the innovative accounting responses that either facilitate coordination and agreement or become controversial and be the object of organizational and institutional dispute.

This paper examines several common features that animate Stuart Scheingold's The Politics of Rights and The Political Novel. In exploring the affinities between these contrasting works, the paper takes up Scheingold's engagement with the cultural imagination – the legal imagination in The Politics of Rights and the literary imagination in The Political Novel – and shows how this engagement informs Scheingold's analysis of illusion, dualism, contingency, and agency.

Purpose – This chapter provides an overview to the challenges of policing both natural and man-made disasters. Questions surrounding police preparedness to respond to large-scale disasters as well as the causes of failure are likely one of the single biggest system threats faced by police today.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter starts out with a short discussion about the important impact the 9/11 attacks as well as both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had on policing in the United States. The materials presented also provide a conceptual framework for understanding the meaning of “disasters,” as well as making sense of the effectiveness of the police response. Finally, this chapter provides an overview of the role of police in disasters, and more importantly, their role in “creating order out of chaos” (Punch & Markham, 2000).

Findings – After more than 10 years of substantial attention to problems associated with responses to natural and man-made disasters, significant barriers remain in the level of communication and coordination among first responders. These barriers are best understood as cultural and not technical in nature.

Originality/value of paper – The conceptual role of police in both pre-disaster planning and post-disaster responses has been largely ignored in the literature. This chapter provides a strong framework for conceptualizing these roles. We argue that police, as core members of the first responder system, must continue to break down cultural barriers that diminish their capacities to effectively serve communities in the wake of disasters.