How should strategy prevail if organisations are seen as having the properties of complex adaptive systems?

CITATION

Sthandiwe Mthuli, S. (2017). How should strategy prevail if organisations are seen as having the properties of complex adaptive systems? Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 11(4), 140–149

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ABSTRACT
Conventional organisations are continuously and increasingly becoming more complex and
turbulent and there is a need for an alternative conception of strategy-making to assist them.
Several strategy formulation approaches have surfaced over the years and a few have been utilised.
Conventional strategy-making has been assumed to be a decision process involving a Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) followed by subsequent implementation. Research in strategy started
with an interest in a single actor focusing on the characteristics and choices of top management
disregarding the messiness of the process. Starting from the 1970’s, we review systematic studies
that contrast the perspectives approach to strategy where the metaphor of a "messier emergent
process” is preferred. Thus, Mintzberg (1978), Grant (2003), Mason (2007) and Bodhanya
(2011) view strategy-making within organisations as operating within the context of dynamical
systems. We argue that for organisations to achieve organisational success in today’s turbulent
and complex environment, a different approach, dissimilar to traditional conventional
organisations which has proved to be incapable and unsuitable of in designing strategies that are
able to address complex problems in real world situations, is required. At the same time, for
strategies to enjoy the full support of middle managers and employees, remain competitive,
relevant and successful in implementation in their local complex, turbulent environment, there is
a dire need to adopt different ways of formulating strategy in their organisations.
This paper proposes a different theoretical perspective of managing complex, turbulent
environment organisation through the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) approach.


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