Stacey1995

Stacey, R. D. (1995). The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes. //Strategic Management Journal, 16//, 477-495.

The two perspectives of strategy process most firmly established in the literature--strategic choice and ecology--assume the same about system dynamics: negative feedback processes driving successful systems (individual organizations or populations of organizations) toward predictable equilibrium states of adaptation to the environment. This paper proposes a third perspective, that of complex adaptive systems. The framework is provided by the modern science of complexity: the study of nonlinear and network feedback systems, incorporating theories of chaos, artificial life, self-organization and emergent order. Here system dynamics are characterized by positive and negative feedback as systems coevolve far from equilibrium, in a self-organizing manner, toward unpredictable long-term outcomes.