Organized Complexity in Business

Organized Complexity in Business PDF Author: Johannes Strikwerda
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031252373
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This book explores a most central phenomenon in our contemporary businesses and organization, the growing complexity in business. Economic growth and growth of complexity always have been inseparable, but the last decennia the growth of complexity appears to outrun our growth of knowledge and understanding. For success and continuity, the modern firm in the developing complexity of its markets and societal contexts must have the capacity to master and exploit a commensurate level of complexity in its internal organization. This book is the first of its kind to help the reader to understand the different types of complexity and the different concepts and tools to deal with each of them in business administration, strategy, and organization. This book offers the reader a fresh perspective on conventional concepts and tools in the field of business administration and bridges these to new concepts as are being used to exploit new complexities. In the process, the reader becomes familiar with the rich cybernetic concept of information, as a basis for the information-based organization and to master big data. With that complex decision-making is clarified and a fresh understanding of the core function of the organization, coordination, is offered for those who want to solve the issue of self-coordination. The book provides working examples but even more the strongest tool to master and to reduce complexity: a deeper and broader understanding of what is going on beneath the surface of what we experience daily. This book builds on Herbert Simon’s hypothesis of simplicity: ‘to use the simplicity of process to deal with the complexity of state.’

Organized Complexity in Business

Organized Complexity in Business PDF Author: Johannes Strikwerda
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031252373
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores a most central phenomenon in our contemporary businesses and organization, the growing complexity in business. Economic growth and growth of complexity always have been inseparable, but the last decennia the growth of complexity appears to outrun our growth of knowledge and understanding. For success and continuity, the modern firm in the developing complexity of its markets and societal contexts must have the capacity to master and exploit a commensurate level of complexity in its internal organization. This book is the first of its kind to help the reader to understand the different types of complexity and the different concepts and tools to deal with each of them in business administration, strategy, and organization. This book offers the reader a fresh perspective on conventional concepts and tools in the field of business administration and bridges these to new concepts as are being used to exploit new complexities. In the process, the reader becomes familiar with the rich cybernetic concept of information, as a basis for the information-based organization and to master big data. With that complex decision-making is clarified and a fresh understanding of the core function of the organization, coordination, is offered for those who want to solve the issue of self-coordination. The book provides working examples but even more the strongest tool to master and to reduce complexity: a deeper and broader understanding of what is going on beneath the surface of what we experience daily. This book builds on Herbert Simon’s hypothesis of simplicity: ‘to use the simplicity of process to deal with the complexity of state.’

Organize for Complexity

Organize for Complexity PDF Author: Niels Pflaeging
Publisher: Betacodex Press
ISBN: 9780991537600
Category : Complex organizations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The long-awaited update for work and organizations in the knowledge age

Simply Effective

Simply Effective PDF Author: Ron Ashkenas
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1422156176
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
The level of complexity in most organizations today is staggering-and it's only getting worse. There are so many choices to be made, people to involve, processes to manage, and facts to analyze, it's impossible to get things done. And in today's hypercompetitive world, that can be fatal. Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity: -Constant changes in organizational structures -Proliferation of products and services -Evolution of business processes -Time-wasting managerial behaviors The author provides a diagnostic for identifying how these causes of complexity are affecting your organization-and presents practical tactics for combating each one. Ashkenas also explains how to craft a strategy that will make simplification an ongoing driver of your company's success-no matter where you work in your organization. Abundant examples from companies like ConAgra Foods, GE, Cisco, Zurich Financial Services, and Johnson & Johnson illuminate his points. A crucial resource in today's overly complex age, Simply Effective should be required reading for everyone on your management team.

Understanding Complexity in Organizations

Understanding Complexity in Organizations PDF Author: Timothy Ludwig
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317986946
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Organizations are complex entities that must adapt the practices of their employees and management to meet the demands of a dynamic environment. Organizations are behavioral systems that coordinate interactions among its members and environment. Changing practices in one area of an organization can generate a reaction throughout the entire system, thus affecting the behaviors of those working within other areas, the experience of customers, and important organizational results. Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) focuses on these complex contingencies from the macro system all the way down to individual behavior. This book contains articles by internationally recognized experts in Behavioral Systems Analysis who discuss the role of organizational practices in their study of performance improvement and cultural change from both practical and conceptual perspectives. Business and non-profit managers will find tools and case studies to help understand and diagnose their organization’s dynamics. Scholars will appreciate articles’ theory and real-world descriptions when considering their own research direction. Finally, all students of management theory, behavior analysis, and human resources will find this collection a thought-provoking tool for their understanding of behavioral systems and their application in organizations. This book was published as a special issue in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management.

Six Simple Rules

Six Simple Rules PDF Author: Yves Morieux
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 1422190560
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
New tools for managing complexity Does your organization manage complexity by making things more complicated? If so, you are not alone. According to The Boston Consulting Group’s fascinating Complexity Index, business complexity has increased sixfold during the past sixty years. And, all the while, organizational complicatedness—that is, the number of structures, processes, committees, decision-making forums, and systems—has increased by a whopping factor of thirty-five. In their attempt to respond to the increasingly complex performance requirements they face, company leaders have created an organizational labyrinth that makes it more and more difficult to improve productivity and to pursue innovation. It also disengages and demotivates the workforce. Clearly it’s time for leaders to stop trying to manage complexity with their traditional tools and instead better leverage employees' intelligence. This book shows you how and explains the implications for designing and leading organizations. The way to manage complexity, the authors argue, is neither with the hard solutions of another era nor with the soft solutions—such as team building and feel-good “people initiatives”—that often follow in their wake. Based on social sciences (notably economics, game theory, and organizational sociology) and The Boston Consulting Group’s work with more than five hundred companies in more than forty countries and in various industries, authors Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman recommend six simple rules to manage complexity without getting complicated. Showing why the rules work and how to put them into practice, Morieux and Tollman give managers a much-needed tool to reinvigorate people in the face of seemingly endless complexity. Included are detailed examples from companies that have achieved a multiplicative effect on performance by using them. It’s time to manage complexity better. Employ these six simple rules to foster autonomy and cooperation and to effectively handle business complexity. As a result, you will improve productivity, innovate more, reengage your workforce, and seize opportunities to create competitive advantage.

Conquering Complexity in Your Business: How Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Other Top Companies Are Breaking Through the Ceiling on Profits and Growth

Conquering Complexity in Your Business: How Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Other Top Companies Are Breaking Through the Ceiling on Profits and Growth PDF Author: Michael L. George
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071454969
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Conquering the complexity in products and services can generate larger contributions to profits and growth than nearly any other business strategy Here's a guarantee: Somewhere in your business, there is too much complexity. You may also be losing out by having too little complexity where it counts - in the products, services and options you offer to customers. Either way, the impact of complexity is enormous in terms of lost profit and missed growth opportunities. Conquering Complexity in Your Business shows how to break through the ceiling on profits and growth by implementing the three rules for conquering complexity: Eliminating complexity that customers will not pay for Exploiting the complexity that customers will pay for Minimizing the costs of the complexity you offer You'll find methods and tools you need to: Identify the offering and process complexity in your business Quantify the impact of that complexity Decide which complexity you want to keep and which to eliminate Select specific approaches to eliminate different kinds of complexity This knowledge will significantly improve your ability to grow profit, revenue, and shareholder value.

Managing Complexity in Global Organizations

Managing Complexity in Global Organizations PDF Author: Ulrich Steger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780470513118
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This book delivers new IMD insights on an emerging challenge - how to deal with overwhelming complexity. Global organizations face a complex decision-making environment. On one side, diversity of cultures, customers, competitors and regulations creates complexity; on the other, competitive pressures cause expanding countries to extract more synergies across products and regions. In such a climate, a new way of thinking, acting and organizing is needed beyond the familiar ‘control’ mindset. Drawing together insights from across the expert faculty, Managing Complexity in the Global Organization presents IMD’s framework on how to understand complexity and its four key drivers (diversity; interdependence; ambiguity and flux), along with solutions on specific issues in a variety of functions, industries and markets. The focus is on providing practical solutions based on real-life examples.

Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations

Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations PDF Author: Douglas Griffin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415366922
Category : Leadership
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The experienced leaders, consultants and managers contributing to this book provide an alternative way of making sense of experience in a rapidly changing world, using reflective rather than idealized accounts of everyday life in organizations.

Complexity, Organizations and Change

Complexity, Organizations and Change PDF Author: Elizabeth McMillan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134379854
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Complexity science has seriously challenged long-held views in the scientific community about how the world works. These ideas, particularly about the living world, also have radical and profound implications for organizations and society as a whole. Available in paperback for the first time, this insightful book describes and considers ideas from

The Paradox of Control in Organizations

The Paradox of Control in Organizations PDF Author: Philip Streatfield
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134577044
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Business leaders are expected to be 'in control' of the situation in which their businesses find themselves. But how can organizational leaders and managers control matters entirely out of their hands; such as the next action a competitor takes, or the next law a government may pass? In this book, Philip Streatfield reflects on his own experience as a manager to explore the question: who, or what is 'in control' in an organization? Adopting the perspective of complex responsive processes developed in the first two volumes of this series, the author takes self-organization and emergence as central themes in thinking about life in organizations. He focuses on the tension between spontaneously forming patterns of conversation and intentional actions arguing that the order of organizations emerges through a combination of collective interaction and individual intentions. The argument is developed by considering the day-to-day experiences of life in a large pharmaceutical organization, SmithKline Beecham. In today's organization, managers find that they have to live with the paradox of being 'in control' and 'not in control' simultaneously. It is this capacity to live with paradox, and to continue to participate creatively in spite of 'not being in control', that constitutes effective management.