Criticality: How Changes Preserve Stability in Self-Organizing Systems

Abstract

Self-organizing systems are social systems which are immanently and constantly recreated by agents. In a self-organizing system, agents make changes while preserving stability. If they do not preserve stability, they push the system toward chaos and cannot recreate it. How changes preserve stability is thus a fundamental issue. In current works, changes preserve stability because agents’ ability to make changes is limited by interaction rules and power. However, how agents diffuse the changes throughout the system while preserving its stability has not been addressed in these works. We have addressed this issue by borrowing from a complex system theory neglected thus far in organization theories: self-organized criticality theory. We suggest that self-organizing systems are in critical states: agents have equivalent ability to make changes, and none are able to foresee or control how their changes diffuse throughout the system. Changes, then, diffuse unpredictably – they may diffuse to small or large parts of the system or not at all, and it is this unpredictable diffusion that preserves stability in the system over time. We call our theoretical framework self-organiz ing criticality theory. It presents a new treatment of change and stability and improves the understanding of self-organizing.

Linking Sustainable Business Models to Socio-Ecological Resilience Through Cross-Sector Partnerships: A Complex Adaptive Systems View

“…They give priority to full engagement of all agents involved, for example, by investing time in sharing information across all levels of the partnership rather than seeking rapid and cost-effective decision-making processes (Colbert, 2004). Finally, if aware of the nature of CAS, more powerful agents in cross-sector partnerships would voluntarily avoid exerting their power to avoid unintended outbursts of conflict and instead promote participatory processes of interaction (Accard, 2019) to stabilize partners' interactions and mitigate the risks Business & Society 60(5) inherent in nonlinear, recursive, and modular socio-ecological systems (Ashmos et al, 2002).…”

Cyberattacks as “state of exception” reconceptualizing cybersecurity from prevention to surviving and accommodating

“…We argue that cyberattacks have the ability to stabilize organization in the long run through its triggering of change. Thus, we follow existing research that proves how transformation preserves stability (Accard, 2018;François Cooren and Fairhurst, 2009;Farjoun, 2010;Hussenot and Missonier, 2015). CCO underlines this perspective since ever-changing communication processes constitute organization (Ford and Ford, 1995;Taylor and Van Every, 2000).…”

“…Its perpetuation always remains at risk and requires communication to survive (Blaschke et al, 2012;Schoeneborn et al, 2018). This stream of theory reveals the volatile character of organization and depicts organization as an interlocking network of communication processes (Accard, 2018;Blaschke et al, 2012;François Cooren and Fairhurst, 2009;Weick and Sutcliffe, 2011). A cyberattack in its consequences, interrupts the organization process and does not destroy organization in most cases but changes it.…”

Organizing for thoughtful food: a meshwork approach

“…Our second set of interviews gives a longitudinal lens on meshwork relationality, demonstrating how the process of organizing is always an impulse to change (Accard 2019 ; Ingold 2013), “becoming” something else (Chia and Tsoukas 2003 ), and temporal (Bakker et al 2016 ). Our more recent contact with Ooooby participants suggests that Ooooby meshwork has changed and become less resilient than expected.…”

“…Recent research in organization studies has moved away from considering an organization as a static entity, recognizing that the term organization can refer to a continuing process of change as “becoming”, as well as an entity grounded in the action of organizing (Chia 1999 ; Chia and Tsoukas 2003 ; Putnam and Nicotera 2010 ; Accard 2019 ). Both organization and organizing are therefore considered to be dynamic, emergent processes in which communication plays a significant role (Pavlovich and Henderson 2018 ).…”