From its roots in physics, mathematics, and biology, the study of complexity science, or complex adaptive systems, has expanded into the domain of organizations and systems of organizations. Complexity science is useful for studying the evolution of complex organizations-- entities with multiple, diverse, interconnected elements. Evolution of complex organizations often is accompanied by feedback effects, nonlinearity, and other conditions that add to the complexity of existing organizations and the unpredictability of the emergence of new entities. Health care organizations are an ideal setting for the application of complexity science due to the diversity of organizational forms and interactions among organizations that are evolving. Too, complexity science can benefit from attention to the world’s most complex human organizations. Organizations within and across the health care sector are increasingly interdependent. Not only are new, highly powerful and diverse organizational forms being created, but also the restructuring has occurred within very short periods of time. In this chapter, we review the basic tenets of complexity science. We identify a

Thank you and help! This issue of the Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management is my first as Editor and this pretty much sums up my thinking at this point. With that in mind, I’d like to use this space to thank those who have been instrumental in the success of JBAM and to seek additional assistance in furthering the goals of the journal. First, I would like to thank the leadership of the Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management for the confidence they have shown by allowing me the honor of serving in the capacity of Editor. JBAM has a strong editorial history and it is my intent to continue the tradition of enhancing the quality and reputation of the publication, while maintaining the constructive and developmental tone that separates JBAM from many other management journals. In particular, many thanks to past Editor Herb Sherman for making the editorial transition practically seamless. His knowledge and support were essential in bringing this issue to fruition and in giving me the tools needed to manage such a challenging task. Likewise, huge kudos go to my Associate Editor and Webmaster Len White for his commitment and exceptional technical skills in assuring a quality publication. In putting together this issue of JBAM, it was a great pleasure to work with many excellent

In trying to manage firms, executives confront emergent "order"---ranging from strong culture to ritualistic bureaucratic structure to informal organization---that may work for or against their intentions, whether aimed at near term cost control or strategic novelties. Compared to extant sociological views of emergent order, complexity science offers an explanation and normative approach that is multidisciplinary in its theory base, with better integration of the various dynamics involved. Prigogine's classic argument is that the 1 laws of thermodynamics would not exist if "order" had not been produced in the first place. However, complexity science---as a general explanation of emergent order---is problematic and inconsistent as its literature has emerged from the physical, biological, and social sciences, thus making its application to the managerial setting problematic. Specifically its handling of reductionist and contextual causal generative mechanisms is hit-and-miss and there is no consistent phrasing, or even attention, what we might think of as the 3 law of thermodymics. My review suggests that: (1) The complexity science "bridge" explanation between quantum entanglement and higher levels of order (atoms and above) is missing as a collective belief among complexity scientists; (2) The classic concept of external (Lorenz) energy-differentials (as control parameters) that cause emergence "at the edge of chaos" is frequently missing; (3) The nature of the entanglement pool or "base"---more broadly the set of network ties among agents such as atoms, molecules, organisms, human actors---from which emergence arises, is often ignored; and (4) Given the possibility in biological and social systems that prior emergence events could have fed back to irrevocably "ta...

Thomas Kuhn's analysis leaves organization science, a multidiscipline field, as "prescientific." This essay suggests the use of coevolutionary dynamics to integrate several disciplines into a single paradigm. It uses a concept, macro-leadership---a micro macroperspective---to show how CEOs can improve rent generating probabilities in their firms. Coevolutionary theory suggests a firm may best enhance its adaptation to a rapidly changing competitive context by speeding up its microcoevolutionary processes, that is, the coevolution of agents (whether process events, people, or units). The optimal mix, D, of human and social capital development is then discussed in the context of increasing distributed intelligence (DI) in firms as the basis of more adaptive rent generation---suggesting a new theory of the firm: ) , , ( D L K f Y = . While New Science advocates still see leadership as crucially important in a rapidly changing nonlinear world, many writers also see a disconnect between a vision-led command-and-control hierarchy and the kinds of human and social capital appreciation most apt to give rise to sustainable rents. A review of current multilevel leadership theories shows that charismatic visionary CEOs more often than not create conditions likely to inhibit the develop of DI. Alternatively, a strict constructionist discussion of complexity science shows that adaptive tension dynamics may be used to influence the rate of adaptive DI appreciation. The optimal region for rapidly improving adaptive fitness occurs "at the edge of chaos." This region---in which emergent self-organization occurs---exists between the 1st critical values of adaptive tension. Below the 1st value there is little change; above the 2nd value the system becomes chaotic and dysfunctional. Variou...