Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for a Narrative Approach to Organizational Complexity

“, 1997), commerce (Hawken, 1994), social inquiry (Albert, 1995), organizational studies (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001), proposed as sympathetic to, and an explicator of Jung’s psychology of archetypes (Eenwyk, 1997), and as a fundamental paradigmatic orientation (Dimitrov et al.”

“Research findings on the structures of family firms generated in this manner can be generalized as predictable patterns in accordance with the rules of qualitative social research (Tsoukas and Hatch 2001) or quantitative research.”

“First, we provide a narrative account to explicate the dynamics that ensued within Project Caribou (Langley, 1999; Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001; Van de Ven and Poole, 2005).”

“This might require that they problematize their expectations of rationality and linearity, and work toward adopting new, more circular modes of thinking (Chia, 1998; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“The experiential and narrative accounts of two individuals in formal leadership positions in the residents’ association and two street presidents offer insights on the evolution of complex systems such as contextuality and temporality [59].”

“experience of the world and the author's rendition of it (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) go further in their proposal to construe the complexity of any system as an effect of the complexity of the language of its description.”

“Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) argue that it is useful to simply think of all organizations as being complex, Ray and Goppelt (2011) suggest that such an approach safeguards against missing behaviours we might not otherwise be looking for, and Higgs and Rowland (2005) report that an ‘emergent’ approach…”

“The situated activity is investigated using reductionist approaches and thereby assuming, for example, that there are cause- and- effect relationships between complexity, the independent variable, and project performance, the dependent variable (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001, p. 983).”

“travelling concept by drawing on Vygotsky’s (1978) ‘tool-and-result’ methodology and Mead’s (1932) notion of ‘sociality’.”

“This kind of reflexivity requires a conscious ‘second-order’ (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001) appreciation that the ‘things’ we are talking about are a property of the talk and not of the ‘things’ as such.”

“By contrast, studies of complexity that engage in narrative thinking tend to emphasize the contextual uniqueness of the situation as well as the reflexivity involved with the telling of stories, especially including the purposes and motives of the narrator (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“Moreover, special recognition is given to temporal sensitivity [31].”

“Examples of this can be found in innovation management and organizational theory research (Langley, 2007; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001; Van de Ven, Angle, & Poole, 2000) and in research on transitions of sociotechnical systems (Geels, 2011).”

“…we conceptualise brands as socially constructed, co-created symbolic objects and cultural artefacts and brand knowledge as narrative knowledge (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001) that is continuously produced, contested, and transformed through processes and practices of individual and collective…”

“…of management team members to grant us research access suggested we would be able to observe the phenomenon of interest 1014 Human Relations 67(8) (Eisenhardt, 1989), thereby allowing us to richly illuminate the inner workings of this complex collaborative effort (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“Another example is Tsoukas and Hatch (2001), which advances complexity theory by developing a narrative framework for addressing the inherent limitations of logicoscientific thinking in organizational research.”

“• Narrative can draw our attention to blind spots and help us see what we could not see before: that key concepts do not so much constitute a theory with predictive validity as provide a guide for interpretation (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“Measurements therefore hold little absolute value, as in practice, most measurement results need to be interpreted in line with situational demands (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001; Weick, 1985).”

“Narratives might also be able to convey complexity of causality because they are a less “direct” form of representation than a sequential argument ( Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001 ), with greater scope for implication: narratives can suggest a complex array of factors at work without explicitly describing every one of them.”

“Although theories are put into practice, always within specific context-situations (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001), context-situations might change and, therefore, can affect and be affected by the how theories which are put into practice (Letiche”

“Increasingly, complexity has been given more visibility in evolving theories of learning through experience (Boulton & Allen, 2007; Nicolaides & Yorks, 2007; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) highlight that Narrative Analysis is highly appropriate for analyzing different dimensions of a phenomenon, and especially for analyzing complex systems, as is the case in this study.”

“Narratives are able to handle ambiguity (Czarniawska, 1998) and complexity (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001) and move participants comfortably between fiction and fact in order to create meaning, understanding, and knowledge (Phillips, 1995; Whiteman, 2004), all of which may be applied to dealing with the…”

“In the organisational literature qualitative methods, particularly those using narrative, are increasingly accepted as a valid research method (Stacey 2007; Czarniawska 2004; Tsoukas and Hatch 2001).”

“In this sense, a narrative mode of knowing is a way to organise our thinking about complex settings and to create understanding which is grounded in personal experience (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“This study has thus a qualitative character applying the framework of complexity in an interpretive manner giving space for contextuality and the experience of participants (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“Furthermore, when more and diverse descriptions of a system are offered, the perception ensues that it is complex, with subsequent managerial action potentially reflecting such elaboration (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“The use of narrative has already shown to be a powerful tool for exploration and discovery of deeper meaning and interpretation (Denzin, 2001; Irving & Klenke, 2004; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“Weick (1993), in Sensemaking in Organizations, stresses the importance of studying generic sensemaking in organizations, a process that involves revealing ‘roles and rules exist that enable individuals to be interchanged with little disruption to the ongoing pattern of interaction’ (p.”

“…demands of the situation, my stakeholders and I were able to speed up the passage of kairological or process-based time (Orlikowski and yates 2002; Tsoukas and Hatch 2001), and charge into a future of our own design so we could achieve a mutually beneficial temporal position that reflected shared…”

“…a été maintes fois mise en relief et étudiée en théorie des organisations (Weick, 2001 ; chia, 1996 ; tsoukas, 1998 ; tsoukas & chia, 2002 ; tsoukas & Hatch, 2001), en sociologie de l’action (Suchman, 1987) et en management stratégique (mintzberg, 1998). parmi les dizaines de courants…”

“However, the strengths of narratives have also been examined, for example, Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) argue that narrative modes of communication take into account context, human agency within that context, and temporal characteristics, which are absent from paradigmatic communication.”

“As studies on complexity have emphasized, complexity is not only a feature of the systems we study, but also the manner in which we organize our thinking about those systems (Tsoukas and Hatch 2001); a matter of how investigations are made on the components of a complex system and their relations.”

“Hence, Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) state that a qualitative and descriptive approach wherein insights are drawn from the broad principles of the theory itself best reflects the logic of complexity theory.”

“We found it particularly apt because it also lends itself to the contextually sensitive narrative mode of thinking (Tsoukas and Hatch 2001).”

“Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) argue that under unusual circumstances, organizational actors must not only find ways to identify and make sense of these experiences but also to imbue them with meaning.”

“Indeed, when it comes to analyzing historical data in combination with future projections and actors’ current justifications, Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) have argued for verisimilitude.”

“(Lichtenstein, 2014; Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“Examining narratives therefore implies adopting a storied and context sensitive view of human lives and organizational phenomena (Clandinin, 2020; Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001), which provides new understanding of a variety of topics (e.g. Gabriel, 2015; Rosile et al., 2013; Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“The narrative approach to explanation is particularly useful for understanding complex systems; in contrast to logico-scientific modes of explanation, the narrative provides context, showing how the independent and disconnected events come together as a whole (Tsoukas and Hatch, 2001).”

“Except for the complexity of the systems themselves, it is also important to pay attention to the manner of how we organize our thinking regarding these systems [54].”

“…have influenced the works of Van De Ven and his Minnesota Innovation Research Program in the 80s (Van de Ven, Angle, and Poole 2000), scholars such as Pettigrew (1992), Langley (2007) and Tsoukas and Hatch (2001) and research on transitions of complex sociotechnical systems (Geels 2011).”

“…make no absolute claims of truth, but rather suggest verisimilitude, endowing experience with meaning through the careful association of concrete (bottom-up) stories which are historically contextualised (Boje 1995; Brown et al. 2009; Czarniawska 1997; Gabriel 2000; Tsoukas & Hatch 2001:983).”

“Though there is a general consensus in the literature that contemporary forest management is a complex issue, the question of what complexity is, is not that clear [29].”

“…of complexity theory are non-linearity, non-dualist and recursive philosophical thinking that guide theory and analysis in research as elucidated by leading researchers within educational and organizational fields (Fenwick, 2010 ; Hager & Beckett, 2022 ; Morrison, 2008 ; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001 ).”

“Others favoring a more qualitative approach disagree and defend the need for employing the full richness of natural language (e.g., Czarniawska, 1997; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“Using our approach to change and stability for dealing with self-organizing systems such as teams, organizations, networks or social communities requires organization theorists to ‘ complex-ify ’ their thinking (Tsoukas, 1998, 2017; Tsoukas & Dooley, 2011; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“Narrative research lends itself to a dynamic, holistic, qualitative and interpretive understanding of complex systems (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“A key challenge here is the inherent complexity of such interactions, but especially narrative approaches seem to be particularly suited to deal with such complexity (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“For instance, a combination of social network analysis (Borgatti et al., 2009) with narrative analysis is a promising approach (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”

“…is a process of enactment (Ford, 2002), a creative process of action–perception–sensemaking that uses knowledge of past experiences to build new knowledge through a process of narration (Boyce, 1996; Cunliffe, Luhman, & Boje, 2004; Luhman, 2005; Rhodes & Brown, 2005; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).”