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Emerging inquiriesUNDERSTANDING HOW COMPLEXITY SCIENCE APPLIESTO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGEComplexity science has been drawn from the scientific world, andapplied to organizations in an attempt to understand and explain thebehaviour of large systems. There is no formal definition of whatcomplexity science means in an organizational context, nor indeed how itis best applied to organizations.In this discipline, large systems are often referred to as complex adaptivesystems. Complex adaptive systems are made up of multiple interconnectedelements, and have the capacity to change and learn from experience.Complexity science is a collection of theories which seek to explainhow these systems work. This branch of science is eclectic and draws itsideas from many other areas of science, for example the fields of neurologyand microbiology. Examples of such large complex systems are communities,the stock market, the human body’s immune system and the brain.One of the most intriguing features of complex adaptive systems tothose who study them in the context of human social organization, istheir capacity to produce coherence, continuity and transformation in theabsence of any external blueprint or nominated designer. The control of acomplex adaptive system is highly dispersed and decentralized, and thewhole system’s behaviour appears to arise from competition and cooperationamong the local agents in the system, coupled with sensitivity toamplifying or dampening feedback. Even if a major part of the system isout of action, the system continues to function. A good example of this inthe field of biology is the human brain.At the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, where scientists have studiedthe behaviour of computer-simulated complex networks for some time,the following six characteristics of a complex system were identified:• there is no central control;• there is an inherent underlying structure within the system;• there is feedback in the system;• there is nonlinearity; things do not happen in a cause and effect manner;• emergence is an outcome of the system. This happens withoutplanned intent;312