How can we treat science as an object of scientific inquiry? The central problem arises with that question. Science has tried to rid itself of circularity and in so doing has become a very limited method for examining the complex world it tries to have us understand. Self reference is at the center of so many of the interesting thing we want to understand including and especially life itself. T...

Electricity systems are a central component of modern economies. Many electricity markets are transitioning from centrally regulated systems to decentralized markets. Furthermore, several electricity markets that have recently undergone this transition have exhibited extremely unsatisfactory results, most notably in California. These high stakes transformations require the introduction of large...

The AGR family (Ferber & Gutknecht, 1998; Ferber et al. 2004) has been one of the first to give a simple and detailed account of what an OCMAS should be, and has been the conceptual basis for the MadKit platform (MadKit 2004). The Moise+ has also shown its importance in the field by providing a general framework for groups, roles, goal-driven agents and norms (Hübner, Sichman & Boissier, 2002)....

the long term goal attaining of economic system management requires the establishment of a dynamic framework to integrate multiple perspectives. this article considers the problem of economic development in macro level. as economic systems are complex adaptive systems composed of numerous numbers of components of dynamic and multidimensional nature, dynamics method is applied in this research. ...

In this paper we consider the commensurability of complex adaptive systems theory and actor-network theory to study co-evolutionary dynamics of IS emergence. We argue that the theories are defensible meta-theoretically when deployed from the philosophical position of critical realism. We provide a brief example drawn from a case study into the emergence of the phenomenon of research management ...

This paper is concerned with the engineering of systems that are themselves comprised of other component systems, and where each of the component systems serves organizational and human purposes. These component purposes may be locally managed and optimized independently, or nearly so, of the objectives to be met by the composite system. There are a number of inherent characteristics of these s...

Agile software development methods help software development teams respond to changing requirements. Fundamental to this ability to respond to change is the manner in which requirements are communicated and developed. The question of agile requirements development is considered through the lens of Complex Adaptive Systems theory, a theory used to explain agility in software development teams. A...

Complex adaptive systems research adds to the theory of how to design systems that are resilient to change in turbulent environments. This paper reports a case story about using complex adaptive systems theory for designing a quality management system in a politically turbulent organization. The story explains how the quality management system evolved rapidly, exploiting the turbulence of the o...

This qualitative research study explores the leadership challenges in emergency management systems in Canada. Complex adaptive systems theory forms the theoretical paradigmatic perspective of emergency events, such as mass emergencies, disasters and catastrophes. Thematic analysis of a key informant study of emergency leaders identified twelve key leadership capabilities. From the grounded theo...

Organizational safety culture has been a focus of research in sociotechnical systems, such as civil aviation, as organizational factors have been increasingly noted as contributory to accidents. The aim of the present study was to validate the Commercial Aviation Safety Survey (CASS), developed at the University of Illinois, in the context of Chinese flight operations. Two specific goals of thi...