Complexity, Management and the Dynamics of Change

McMillan, Elizabeth

doi:10.4324/9780203885659

Cited by 76 publications

(82 citation statements)

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“…As a result, administrators should not expect the past issues to repeat identically and should avoid offering inflexible prescriptions previously developed for certain kind of problems in the past. Instead, they should try to understand what is unpredictable and unexpected (MacMillan, 2008) and take the framework of potential changes and pattern options into consideration (MacMillan, 2004). Because making choices regarding the organizational environment might give better results than attempting to directly influence emerging behavioral or interactional patterns (Lissack, 1999).…”

Section: Environmental Scanningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, making schools instable could carry them to the creativity zone on the edge of chaos (Walker, 1999). Administrators must foster order and disorder as the occasion arises by manipulating interactions between teachers or units, since a new order emerges from uncertainty on the edge of chaos (MacMillan, 2008) for the reason that emergence associates with the frequency of interactions between components. Besides that of complexity, the frequency and variety of emergence increase as interactions between organizations, groups and individuals increase (MacMillan, 2004).…”

Section: Environmental Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When that kind of order emerges, the teams should be dismissed and complexity should be maintained (MacMillan, 2004) because disorders, despite uncomfortable and stressful, might be the part of transitions that schools need and offer administrators opportunities to introduce the desirable conditions or relationships. Eventually, transitions include creating new contexts by breaking the power of prevailing attractor patterns in favor of new ones (MacMillan, 2008).…”

Section: Environmental Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Managing schools as complex adaptive systems: A strategic perspective

Fidan

2017

iejee

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This conceptual study examines the analogies between schools and complex adaptive systems and identifies strategies used to manage schools as complex adaptive systems. Complex adaptive systems approach, introduced by the complexity theory, requires school administrators to develop new skills and strategies to realize their agendas in an ever-changing and complexifying environment without any expectations of stability and predictability. The results indicated that in this period administrators need to have basic skills such as (a) diagnosing patterns emerging from complexity, (b) manipulating the environment by anticipating potential patterns organizations may evolve into, (c) choosing organizational structures compatible with an ever-changing and complexifying environment and (d) promoting innovation to create and manage organizational changes. Although these skills enable administrators to reduce complexity into a manageable form to some extent, stakeholders' having a common perspective regarding their schools and environments, and executing their activities in accordance with a shared vision are required to turn these skills into complexity management strategies.

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Section: Environmental Scanningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Managing schools as complex adaptive systems: A strategic perspective

Fidan

2017

iejee

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“…It is referred to as complexity theory's anchor point phenomenon (Chiles, et.al., 2004). It is a phenomenon of the process of adapting and transforming spontaneously to changes in circumstances (McMillan, 2008). Emergence enables the coming-into-being of superior level structures, patterns and processes and the way complexity arises out of the interactions among people (agents) that constitute the system (Goldstein, 1999).…”

Section: And Video Data From Retail and Other Settings And From Videomentioning

confidence: 99%

From Bureauphobia to Bureaucognitio

Yüksel¹

2016

Pressacademia

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Bureaucracy had been referred to as the usual suspect whose door was knocked with an attempt to address an organizational failure and had always been pointed at as the villain that rendered organizations incapable to adapt to the shifting paradigms in the global business environment. Nothwithstanding the fact that it has survived throughout the last century there is an extensive literature in organizational studies that is dedicated to reveal its imperfections especially after the incorporation of such concepts as fluidity and complexity into management studies. This conceptual paper proposes that bureaucracy and complexity are not mutually exclusive concepts. They both can co-exist on the way to create knowledge-based organizations in which novel ideas emerge and innovative outcomes are cultivated.

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“…), that designing curricula for an ODeL environment from the outset would create a model and supporting resources that could then be adapted, with varying degrees of additional face-to-face engagement, also for work-place-based and campus-based part-and full-time provision. An extensive body of literature exists on the systemic nature of ODeL provision and the implications of changing elements of institutional subsystems on the whole system (CoL, 2001(CoL, , 2004(CoL, , 2005(CoL, , 2009Holmberg, 1995;Hülsmann, 2016;Moore & Kearsley, 1996Perraton, 2000;Peters, 1998;Rowntree, 1992;Rumble, 1997Rumble, , 2004 as well as the implications for human resource management thereof (CoL, 2004;Fullan, 1993Fullan, , 2006McMillan, 2008). The researcher had argued prior to the study that OER should be able to contribute to supporting these more flexible forms of provision which all require the developing, sourcing and / or adapting of appropriate learning resources (Mays, 2014).…”

Section: Review Of Previous Research On Curriculum Transformation In mentioning

confidence: 99%