The DOI matches its Crossref record; 64 of the 64 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes
Abstract
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.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Granovetter, M. S. (1973) · American Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1086/225469 · Cited by 40,491
The Theory of Economic Development
Schumpeter, J., & Backhaus, U. (2006) · The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences · doi:10.1007/0-306-48082-4_3 · Cited by 22,506
The fifth discipline, the art and practice of the learning organization
Senge, P. M. (1991) · Performance + Instruction · doi:10.1002/pfi.4170300510 · Cited by 20,060
Organizational culture and leadership
(1993) · Long Range Planning · doi:10.1016/0024-6301(93)90120-5 · Cited by 16,462
The Knowledge-Creating Company
Nonaka, I. (1998) · The Economic Impact of Knowledge · doi:10.1016/b978-0-7506-7009-8.50016-1 · Cited by 14,619
Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1997) · Reis · doi:10.2307/40183951 · Cited by 11,113
(1969) · Virtual Defense Library (Ministerio de Defensa) · Cited by 10,735
Organizational Culture and Leadership
Tierney, W. G., & Schein, E. H. (1986) · The Academy of Management Review · doi:10.2307/258322 · Cited by 9,601
Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis
Giddens, A. (1979) · Bloomsbury Publishing Plc eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-349-16161-4 · Cited by 7,939
The Population Ecology of Organizations
Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1977) · American Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1086/226424 · Cited by 7,568
Cited by
Strategies for Theorizing from Process Data
Langley, A. (1999) · The Academy of Management Review · doi:10.5465/amr.1999.2553248 · Cited by 7,008
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Weick, K. E., & Quinn, R. E. (1999) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.361 · Cited by 2,829
Organizational Response to Adversity: Fusing Crisis Management and Resilience Research Streams
Williams, T. A., Gruber, D. A., Sutcliffe, K. M., Shepherd, D. A., & Zhao, E. Y. (2017) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2015.0134 · Cited by 1,945
Paradox research in management science: Looking back to move forward
Schad, J., Lewis, M. W., Raisch, S., & Smith, W. K. (2016) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/19416520.2016.1162422 · Cited by 1,385
Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach
Putnam, L. L., Fairhurst, G. T., & Banghart, S. (2016) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/19416520.2016.1162421 · Cited by 1,116
Metadata
- Authors
- Stacey, R. D.
- Venue
- Strategic Management Journal
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1995-01
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 477-495
- ISSN
- 0143-2095 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-0266
- OpenAlex
- W2127927554
- Cited by
- 1,039
- References
- 64
- FWCI
- 15.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1002/smj.4250160606
- The paper
- Stacey, R. D. (1995). The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes. Strategic Management Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250160606
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.