Can unpredictable systems be managed?

Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics

Volumn 2, Issue , 2003, Pages 2013-2020

  Longstaff, P H ^a,b  

^a SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Complex systems; Management; Network science

Indexed keywords

INFORMATION ANALYSIS; INFORMATION THEORY; MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS; MANAGERS;

NETWORK SCIENCE; PRACTICAL DRIFT;

LARGE SCALE SYSTEMS;

EID: 0242721972     PISSN: 08843627     EISSN: None     Source Type: Conference Proceeding    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (29)

1. Scott Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks Over Northern Iraq, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press (2000) p. 204.
2. Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living With High-Risk Technologies, New York: Basic Books, 1984.
3. Duncan Watts, Six Degrees of Separation: The Science of the Connected Age, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co. (2003), p. 15.
4. For an extended discussion of development of all of these ideas, see, F. Davis Peat, From Certainty to Uncertainty: The Story of Science and the Ideas of the Twentieth Century," Washington, D.C.: John Henry Press (2002).
5. This is an adaptation of the "Buttons and Strings" metaphor used by Stuart Kaufman to explain complex systems in At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self Organization and Complexity, New York: Oxford University Press (1995), pp. 55-58.
6. Yaneer Bar-Yam, Complexity Rising: From Human Beings to Human Civilization, A Complexity Profile, NECSI Research Projects, at http://necsi.org/projects/yaneer/Civiization.html
7. Robert Axelrod and Michael D. Cohen, Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier, The Free Pres: New York (1999), p. xi.
8. Dietrich Dorner, The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations, New York: Metropolitan Books (1996).
9. Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of Learning Organizations. Doubleday: New York (1990), p. 7.
10. For earlier work in the same vain, see, Chris Argyris, Integrating the Individual and the Organization. Wiley: New York (1964).
11. For earlier work in the same vain, see, Chris Argyris, Ibid. Wiley: New York (1964). p. 364.
12. Robert Louis Flood, Rethinking The Fifth Discipline: Learning Within the Unknowable, Routledge: London and New York (1999), p. 84.
13. Warfighting, Foreword by Gen. A.M. Gray, U.S. Marine Corps. Department of the Navy, Washington D.C. (1989) Government Printing Office: 1995-401-461/40383.
14. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked: The New Science of Networks, Cambridge MA: Perseus Press (2002), Chapter Six.
15. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked: The New Science of Networks, Cambridge MA: Perseus Press (2002), Chapter Eight.
16. For a discussion of this in human systems see, Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Boston: Little, Brown and Company (2000).
17. Scott Snook, note 1.
18. John W. Meyer and W. Richard Scott, Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality, Beverly Hills CA: Sage (1983).
19. Marc J. Dollinger, "The Evolution of Collective Strategies in Fragmented Industries," Academy of Management Review, 1990, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 266-285.
20. For a comprehensive review, see, J. Douglas Orton and Karl E. Weick, "Loosely Coupled Systems: A Reconceptualization," Academy of Management Review, 1990, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 203-223.
21. Robert B, Glassman, "Persistence and Loose Coupling in Living Systems," Behavioral Science, Vol. 18, pp. 83-98 (1973) at p. 84.
22. For an excellent overview of these ideas, see Karl E. Weick, "Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems," Administrative Science Quarterly, March 1976, Vol. 21, pp. 1-19.
23. Mark Buchanan, Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co. (2002), Chapter Two, "The Strength of Weak Ties."
24. Mark Buchanan, Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co. (2002), Chapter Two, "The Strength of Weak Ties." p. 149.
25. Karl Weick, "Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems," Administrative Science Quarterly, March 1976, Vol. 21, pp. 1-19.
26. Similar ideas about cooperation have been developed in biological systems. These systems can give many other clues about the nature of competition and cooperation that would be useful in competition regulation and business management. See, P.H. Longstaff, The Communications Toolkit: How to Build or Regulate Any Communications Business, Chapter Four, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2002) Chapter 4.
27. Scott Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks Over Northern Iraq, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press (2000) p. 24.
28. Scott Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks Over Northern Iraq, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press (2000) p. 201.
29. Scott Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks Over Northern Iraq, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press (2000), p. 225.