Publications
Publications
- 2019
- HBS Working Paper Series
‘Organizing’, ‘Innovating’ and ‘Managing’ in Complexity Space
By: Michael C. Moldoveanu
Abstract
We two-dimensional measure of organizational complexity that distinguishes between the informational and computational dimensions of complexity and aims to function as a maximally context-invariant environment for posing fundamental questions about organizational dynamics, akin to the role and function of a phase space in classical mechanics. The new measure and associated space allows us to understand the effects of a researcher’s or manager’s choice of model or representation on the resulting complexity measure of a phenomenon and to measure the complexity of any organizational phenomenon that can be represented in a form amenable to an algorithmic description. We use the new complexity measure to present a unified treatment of complexity coping mechanisms, complexity-driven organizational failure and complexity-adaptive innovation and draw new distinctions enabling new questions whose answers will be useful to researchers and executives alike.
Keywords
Citation
Moldoveanu, Michael C. "‘Organizing’, ‘Innovating’ and ‘Managing’ in Complexity Space." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-128, June 2019.