Relationships and interactions should be an important focus of attention in organizational scholarship. In contrast to traditional research approaches that focus on independent, discrete entities, methodologies oriented to relational concerns in organizations allow researchers to study the intersubjective and interdependent nature of organizational life. In addition to providing historical and philosophical bases for a perspective which emphasizes relationality, we review the growing number of methods that capture relational aspects of organizational life. Examples include network analysis, and “complexity” modeling, correspondence analysis and participatory research, case study methods, the learning history approach, psychometrics, and action inquiry. Our goal is to establish a “palette” of methodological choices for the researcher interested in operationalizing a relational perspective within organizational research/practice.

According to recent studies applying Resource-Based Theory [RBT] to entrepreneurial firms (e.g. Chandler & Hanks, 1994; Brush & Greene, 1996), in the early stages of new venture development it is the identification and acquisition of resources—rather than deployment or allocation activities—that is crucial for the firm's long-term success (Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985). This study explores that relationship longitudinally, tracking salient resources in three rapidly growing new ventures, and analyzing how these resources change over time. Our findings identify the most common types of salient resources, the primary types of changes in resource and resource bundles, and a pattern linking the type of change with short-term performance results in each firm.

The article explores issues of what matters most in individual organizational and societal transformation ± economic issues or spirit? Transformation is defined and literature on individual, organizational and societal transformation is presented. The article looks at the standard arguments that economics are the driving force in transformation and then postulates that spirituality may be as much ± if not more ± of a driving force. Evidence is provided on the growth of interest in spirituality. Then three theories of transformation are offered, one at the level of societal transformation. Each of these theories incorporates elements of spirituality in order to understand the prerequisites of transformation.Why must anyone seek for new ways of acting? The answer is that in the long run the continuity of life itself depends on the making of new experiments F F FThe continuous invention of new ways of observing is man's special secret of living (Young, 1960, quoted in Vaill, 1984.

Complexity researchers have identified four basic assumptions underlying non‐linear dynamic systems (NDS): the assumption that change is a constant; the assumption that emergent systems are not reducible to their parts; the assumption of mutual dependence; and the assumption that complex systems behave in non‐proportional ways. In this paper I use these new assumptions as a basis for explaining why order emerges in organizations, and for uncovering a three‐stage process model of complex adaptive systems change (CASC). The insights from these NDS models are revealed through examples from two entrepreneurial firms undergoing transformative shifts in their development. These assumptions of NDS and the model of CASC may therefore be useful for understanding order creation and self‐organizing processes in work groups, project ventures, and organizations.

Over the past two decades there has been a shift in the career literature from the view of a career as being a linear progression of job responsibilities within an industry, to that of a ‘boundaryless’, competency-based exploration that evolves in unexpected ways. This article argues that core constructs from ‘new science’ (non-linearity, interdependence and emergence) can provide a useful theoretical foundation for understanding the current dynamics of career behavior. The article also discusses implications of these constructs for career development practice and its contexts.