Why Study the Complexity Sciences in the Social Sciences?
Abstract
Over the past two decades, several new perspectives have emerged in the physical and natural sciences and are collectively referred to as the complexity sciences. Insights from these emerging perspectives have implications that merit consideration for developments and extensions of existing work at the metatheoretical, theoretical, and methodological levels in organization theory. The purpose of this manuscript is to: (a) provide an overview of the complexity sciences, (b) provide a justification and rationale for their inclusion into the social sciences, and (c) review the current organizational literature which utilizes and applies concepts from the complexity sciences to organizational phenomena.
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Complexity research as an academic field is an umbrella term for a number of different perspectives and approaches.
“Complexity research as an academic field is an umbrella term for a number of different perspectives and approaches e.g. in the guise of complexity sciences concerned with problems in Physics and other natural sciences (Mathews et al., 1999;Mitleton-Kelly & Land, 2004) (see Figure 1 for examples), including complexity theory (see overview (Turner & Baker, 2019)).”
From Interactive digital narrative (IDN)—new ways to represent complexity and facilitate digitally empowered citizens (2022) · cites this paper as Mathews et al., 1999
Cites
Horgan, J. (1995) · Scientific American · doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0695-104 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
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Organizations as complex adaptive systems: Implications of Complexity Theory for leadership research
Schneider, M., & Somers, M. (2006) · The Leadership Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.04.006 · Cited by 599 · see citing works
Koenitz, H., Barbara, J., & Eladhari, M. P. (2022) · New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia · doi:10.1080/13614568.2023.2181503 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“…number of di ff erent perspectives and approaches e.g. in the guise of complexity sciences concerned with problems in Physics and other natural sciences (Mathews et al., 1999; Mitleton-Kelly & Land, 2004) (see Figure 1 for examples), including complexity theory (see overview (Turner & Baker, 2019)).”
Background
- Authors
- Mathews, K. M., White, M. C., & Long, R. G.
- Affiliations
- College of Saint Rose (US)
- Louisiana Tech University (US)
- ORCID
- Long, Rebecca G.
- Venue
- Human Relations
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1999-04
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 439-462
- ISSN
- 0018-7267 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-282X
- OpenAlex
- W2138179497
- Cited by
- 195
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 7.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Human Relations (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Chaos, Complexity, and Education
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Complex Systems and Decision Making
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Systems and Dynamics
- Keywords
- complexity science, organizational theory, metatheory, theoretical foundations, methodological foundations, interdisciplinary perspectives, organizational phenomena
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