Organizational Level

When putting the organizations under lenses at different levels of study, the properties of the system are needed to be defined each time accordingly. The organizational level study of the organizations as complex adaptive systems will have some similarities with organizational studies of the same level, although the differences root from the perspective from which the system is viewed from. The organization from a CAS viewpoint has an organic structure that supplies the organization with the flexibility required in order to be adaptive at the time of changes. The other perspectives may deem the organizations with mechanistic structure, unable to change or adapt. These perspectives are mainly among the ones ignoring the adaptation, but regarding the selection as the key impact of environment on the organization.

In addition, the organization is a whole consisting of physical and nonphysical assets, and all can be taken as parts of a system when being taken into consideration from other perspectives, yet the individuals are the main focus of the CAS perspective in the context of the social sciences.

Interorganizational Level

Widening the locus of focus of study from the organizations to the interorganizational level necessitates the concentration on how organizations interact with each other, and the answers to several questions are sought: How do organizations exchange information and resources with each other? How often and to what extent is this flow seen? How is the direction of this flow most of the time? How are the relationships between organizations? Do they compete against each other or do they collaborate together? To what extent are competition and collaboration seen between the organizations? While answering these questions, some issues should not be turned a blind eye to. The first is that in cases where an organization control the market and has a dominant position like what is in a monopoly market, the competition or collaboration might seem to get faded but they actually exist. The extent to which these two take place may differ from time to time, and from case to case, but they may not become zero in practice. An example can help with the understanding of this statement. Suppose there is only one TV manufacturer in a country and there are no imports from other countries as well. The market is a monopoly. A smartphone manufacturer starts to produce phones with bigger screens and sells its phones with a free video streaming application already installed on them. At first glance, a TV manufacturer does not assume a smartphone manufacturer as a rival; nonetheless, as the time passes, it indicates that the time of watching videos on TV is decreasing drastically whereas the time of watching on a smartphone has been rocketed to the top. This can imply that even in a blue ocean, a breeze can make waves that can gradually turn into a storm. Living in a dynamic world makes it unavoidable to compete or for those who are reluctant to use the word ‘competition,’ it will be impossible to ignore what others are doing and refuse to take the next steps according to the acts of the others. That is what being part of a system means, not being isolated, but being intertwined with the system.

The second issue is that competition and collaboration may coexist although in some situations one will be too low to be noticed. This is the desire for competition and collaboration which push the organizations toward the choice of forming alliances, joint ventures, and horizontal or vertical integrations. What matters is to put a mile, or miles of distance, between the organization and its rivals, and as already known, this is not a kind of paving the path for the rivals, yet using some strategies to slow them down or even stop them from progressing such as creating market entry barriers.

The third issue is the competition, either positive or negative. Though the negative and positive competitions have been mostly highlighted among the individuals, the same notion can be utilized for the organizations similarly. Sometimes the efforts of an organization to overcome its rival are destructive to the point that it worsens the situation for all who are present in the market, even itself. Hence, when competing, the consequences of the actions which are going to be taken must always be anticipated and estimated for they may at last return to the actors themselves since all of them are part of a macro system, and any changes, even the mild ones, have the potential to cause catastrophic results.

In order to investigate how the relationships between the organizations are and work, first, the context at which they are posited should be determined; whether they have built clusters with the ones in the same industry or if they are part of a network or to be more precise and plain, which economic agglomerations they have formed with other organizations. Studying the organizations in their contexts is what is prescribed by CAS perspective for the reasons that first, the elements of the system are not separate from each other, oppositely, they are interdependent with each other, and second, the system is an open system which is interdependent with its environment.

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Organizational Complexity

Organizational complexity definitions vary widely, and the operationalization differs accordingly. Organizational size and the structural complexity were mentioned as two of the aspects of organizational complexity (Damanpour, 1996); what is meant by structural complexity may change between studies but it can be summarized as the level of differentiation on diverse dimensions of organizations. Starting from the definition, the traditional approaches toward the complexity were categorized under two main strands: first, the complexity related to the structure of an organization which can be divided into vertical and horizontal complexity, and second, the complexity associated with the behavior of the system (Fioretti & Visser, 2004).

The structural complexity represents the complexity in the elements and their relationships in a system. By complexity, the differentiation of the elements and the number of the elements and the relationships can be signified. The vertical and horizontal division is based on the vertical and horizontal concepts of the structure. The vertical dimension points at the number of hierarchical levels that exist in an organization. For instance, in a software development company the levels can be depicted as the technical team within which there might exist hierarchies as well, the project manager, the chief technology officer, and at the top, the chief executive officer. This may vary between the organizations in different sectors, and even between the organizations from the same sector. Apart from this variety, the hierarchical levels of an organization might change during the lifetime of an organization too; some levels can be added, some can be excluded or interestingly, they can be only labeled differently. For instance, in agile projects, the project manager is sometimes labeled as the scrum master disregarding the righteousness of this action. To sum up, the vertical complexity is the differentiation of the hierarchical levels of an organization compared to its size.

Likewise, the horizontal complexity is the differentiation in the number of units or departments or the job positions at the same level of the hierarchy. In accordance with the purpose of the study, each or some of these dimensions may be chosen to represent the horizontal complexity. For instance, in one of the studies available in the literature, the departmentation and the occupational differentiation were preferred as the dimensions representative of the extent of the horizontal complexity (Damanpour, 1996).

There still remain some gaps which are to be filled with further research concerning the structural complexity. Most of the gaps take their root from the operationalization of the concept, and to be more precise, to turn all these verbal definitions into a number or numbers which can be compared and illustrated much more easily. For those opposing this positivist view, the verbal notion may remain verbal, nonetheless, for the application of agents-based models, and to fulfil the final goal of all these studies, which is running an estimate of the future behavior of the system, there seems to be the need for some kind of quantitative data. What is worth emphasizing here is that the complex adaptive systems are neither predictable nor controllable in a similar vein with what was stated in the literature: the view of the future is unpredictable; one of the assumptions of the complexity science (Fidanboy, 2020; Begun, Zimmerman, & Dooley, 2003). It should be kept in mind that this fact does not devalue the attempts to model the systems and run the simulations and estimations. In some cases, the researchers want to understand the behavior of the system in the past and/or find some explanations for the current behavior of the system. The behavior of the system in future may or may not vary from its previous behavior, it cannot be foreseen, yet, getting to know the system, its elements, the relationships, the patterns of its behavior, all within the boundaries of the system, all out in its environment, and all on its boundaries will provide some ideas on the probable behavior of the system. Even though this is all about probability, even a 1% is worth a lot relative to a mysterious black box where even the elements of the system are not known. Here is where the point rests: managing the complexity. The suggestions and the findings of the studies in complexity science are not after controlling the uncontrollable, nonetheless, managing the complexity has always been of great attention. Managing the complexity is not about controlling. Oppositely, it enables the organization to maintain its freedom between choices of diverse patterns; thus, the organization might be enabled to show these patterns of behavior without being entangled in any impending situations, or being too dependent on the past, deterring it from experiencing the new patterns. Managing the complex adaptive systems is more difficult because these systems are complex and adaptive at the same time. For adaptability to become a lasting property of these systems, the choice between exploration and exploitation must be considered carefully. It is noteworthy that the balance between these two is used for the determination of adaptive capacity of the systems (Duit & Galaz, 2008).

Before looking at the second strand of complexity research, there is a need for clarification. Horizontal and vertical complexity are not the only types of complexity associated with the structure of the organizations. The differentiation may occur in other structural dimensions of the organization as well. The spatial differentiation is another dimension (Daft, Organization Theory and Design, 1992; Anderson, 1999), and the complexity concerned with it originates from the numerous locations at which the employees of a company can work at. To determine the extent of this kind of complexity, factors such as the number of locations, their proximity, and their relationships can be taken into account.

As it is seen, the complexity is mostly taken in association with the structure of the organization, and in many researches, it was defined and measured accordingly. Nevertheless, there were attempts to shift the consideration of complexity as an objective property to the cognitive effort taken by the decision makers for solving the problems and issues the organizations face (Fioretti & Visser, 2004). The second strand of complexity views the complexity as no structural property. In this view, complexity is comprehended as the effects it has on the human cognition specific to each problem or the way the decision makers interpret them (Fioretti & Visser, 2004). In line with the steps taken in this approach, after the preparation of the cognitive map of the decision maker, it is compared with what are seen in practice, and complexity is determined as the extent of their variance. To say it in a straightforward way, the complexity is the mismatch between the reality in the mind and the reality in the real world.

Taking the operationalization, complexity can be measured in accordance with the purpose of the study being taken place. For example, in one study, it was measured as geographic and/or product line diversification, and the industry and geographic concentration were stated as two aspects of the organizational complexity (Bushman, Chen, Engel, & Smith, 2004). In addition, it can be taken as properties of an organization which is associated with the number of parts making up an organization, the diversities among them, and the relationships between them (Fioretti & Visser, 2004).

Like what was mentioned earlier, organizational size is sometimes considered as an aspect of organizational complexity, and sometimes, as an indicator of structural complexity. The measurement of organizational size is usually done using the number of employees in an organization; however, in some studies, the non-personnel indicators were also utilized, for instance, the physical capacity of the organization (Damanpour, 1996). Simply, the organizational size refers to the fact that whether the organization is large or small. When an organization is perceived large, the first reason which comes to the mind is the number of employees. Rethinking about it, then, widen the meaning it implies such as the number of the physical assets or the amount of the resources like financial resources. Precisely, it can denote different meanings as regards the type of the organization. Assuming a hotel as the organization adds an extra meaning to the organizational size. The size of the hotel can be represented as the number of rooms it has. In educational institutions such as schools or universities, the number of students may indicate the organizational size. For a sports facility, the size may be displayed in the form of the number of the branches of sports it provides courses at or, perhaps, the number of its gyms and pools. It doesn’t matter which definitions or the indicators for measurement are preferred. The important issue is to select the one consistent with the purpose and the nature of a specific study.

Interorganizational Complexity

Apart from the complexity at the organizational level, it can be present at upper levels as well. Organizations are not isolated properties with no bonds with their context; however, they are sometimes so embedded in their context that makes it hard to identify the boundaries of the organization. This is where the term ‘blurred boundaries’ is preferred. Beyond the boundaries, whether clear or blurred ones, the other organization, elements, or agents exist which may be in some kind of relationship with the organization. The complexity which is seen between the organizations is dependent on the type of economic agglomeration the organization is posited in. Due to the different characteristics and properties of the numerous economic agglomerations, complexity can be defined for each of them separately.

In clusters, complexity can be identified in relation to the structure of clusters. The factors that influence the degree of complexity in clusters may include the number of firms, the number of dominant firms, the number of firms that are branches of a main firm, the homogeneity of the size of the firms located within the cluster, and the number of connections. In a similar vein with structural complexity in organizations, an increase in the number of the firms, the variety among them, and the number of connections within a cluster are expected to increase the degree of complexity. Conversely, the number of the branches connected to a central firm is anticipated to have a negative relationship since the branches move in harmony with each other which can be considered as a whole; thus, the increase in the number of branches of a certain company in a cluster is predicted to reduce the degree of complexity for that cluster. The homogeneity of the cluster in terms of the sizes of its firms is expected to have a negative relationship with complexity, whereas the increase in the difference between the sizes of the companies is foreseen to increase the complexity. Finally, the more dominant firms can be perceived as more influential decision makers, naturally followed by more decisions and more various types of behavior which raise the cluster complexity.

The complexity of the networks will be much harder to evaluate since networks are more complex with respect to their elements and connections. Within a network, individuals, teams, or organizations can be connected with each other from different geographical locations. Regardless of the type of entities connected, the increase in the number of entities, the rise in the variety of the connections, and the number of various locations are expected to cause the network complexity rise.

Almost true for any other economic agglomerations, the number of the agents and entities, the number of the connections, the variety of the connections, the heterogeneity in terms of the size of the firms in that economic agglomeration, and the number of dominant and controlling firms are proposed to be positively related to the degree of complexity within that economic agglomeration.

Looking back at the literature shows us that the complexity between organizations have attracted more researchers’ attention as the partnership and alliances are becoming the popular choices organizations prefer. This need for collaboration and cooperation might root from different reasons. The more dynamic environment compared to the past can be just one of the sources. This way the organization can alleviate the negative outcomes from the risks and the decisions it is taking by sharing it with another partner. This sharing of the bad can be in the form of sharing the monetary loss or even the resources. Imagine the cooperation between two companies. Both companies designate different staff to the common project. It means that they are limiting their human resources for the other projects by this designation or to put it in another way, the employees working on the common project cannot be included in other projects full time. Even if the failure seems to bring no monetary loss to the sides, it sure causes some kind of loss in one or several kinds of the resources since the occupied resources cannot be utilized for the other projects utterly.

Other than sharing the risks taken by collaboration and/or cooperation, the companies can have the resources they haven’t had before. These resources might be the ones who bring some kind of competitive advantage. For example, there may be some rare resources owned by a few number of companies, or perhaps, the resource cannot be easily afforded. These can be clarified in the explanation of the cases brought in the following. It might not seem believable when it is presented in the movies; nonetheless, there have always been individuals who are sought out by many companies for working with them. This person may own special technical knowledge, for instance, a great programmer, or may own the experience which makes the companies look for it, like some of the recognized CEOs employed by big companies. When talking of the human resources, one or some of the following three traits may be what makes an individual unique: the knowledge, the skill(s), or the experience. Apart from the human resources, the resource which the company wants to own as a result of the partnership can be a technological asset that is rare or probably costly to afford. Similarly, the nonphysical assets such as a software or a certification or an accreditation can be the reasons behind the partnerships as well. Moreover, the financial resources may push the companies toward the preference of partnership in a similar way. Especially in the small- or medium-sized companies, the realization of some of the goals needs an extra financial resource beyond the companies’ affordable financeable resources. In the past, lots of similar cases were seen. To summarize, owning the unaffordable or hard-to afford resources such as human resources and technological resources can tempt the companies into partnerships.

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Organizational Adaptation

An organization as a whole bear many characteristics, and they have always been the interests of the researchers. The organization may be hard to be supposed as a living thing; however, as long as it lives it shows certain types of behavior and holds specific characteristics. Just like the personal traits at the individual level, each organization possesses some features and characteristics which make it identifiable from other organizations such as age, size, identity, and so on.

One of the very interesting studies was the one exploring diverse perspectives toward organizational adaptation. In that study, some of the main organizational theories were categorized under three main perspectives: deterministic, voluntaristic, and coevolutionary (Abatecola, 2012). As comprehended from their names, the deterministic perspectives include the theories which consider the environment as the key role for selecting which organizations can survive; thus, the fate of an organization is determined by the environment. In contract, the voluntaristic views highlight the role of the management in taking actions on the environment voluntarily; therefore, they have the chance to select their responses. With reference to the coevolutionary perspectives, the first two perspectives can exist at different periods of time and at different intensities (Abatecola, 2012).

The studies on organizational adaptation were suggested to regard three groups of variables: the variables associated with the environment, the variables related to the structure of the organization, and strategy making (Miller & Friesen, 1980). The debate between the structure and the strategy gains attention in this condition; whether the strategy comes before the structure or the structure is prior to the strategy. Using the CAS perspective, the change in the structure means any kind of changes in the elements of the systems or their connections while the change in strategy originates from the changes in the behavior shown by the agents, and this behavior itself originates from the schemata of the actors or decision makers. Consistent with the changes infused into the system, there may be a need to modify the schemata or change the structure of the system. To be plainer, the CAS perspective does not make any specific preference between strategy and structure, but leave the choice to be made in consistency with the situation. This is when adaptation makes sense.

Adaptation to the environment depends on many factors. The factors can be grouped as environmental factors and organizational factors if to be viewed as an open system from a CAS perspective. In line with the assumptions held for the open systems, these systems have boundaries that separate the systems from their environment. This categorization of the factors will be the easiest way to investigate them. Starting with the organizational factors, there will be many of them like the employees’ openness to change, their individual adaptive capacity, the structure of the organization in terms of its flexibility to adapt, and the decision makers as the key roles. In most of the researches, the organizational construct comes forward, and the role of the decision makers in the adaptation is usually faded and dissolved when exploring the construct at the organizational level. Nonetheless, the decision makers influence the adaptation in countless ways. In the available literature on the organizational adaptation, the importance of how decision makers interpret their environment was emphasized (Ford & Baucus, 1987), and these are the interpretations on which the organizations act in response to the changes. The other possible way of the decision maker’s influence is how he depicts the changes in the eyes of the other employees. If he does not welcome changes, the chance that employees will welcome the changes will be low. For example, a manager is introducing some new requirements as part of the adaptive response, but he uses the words which can be perceived in a negative way. In such a situation, when the employees don’t feel the support from the top management, they may not accept the changes or they may not be fully committed to them. One of the factors which impact the acceptance of the changes may be the job satisfaction of the employees. The employees unsatisfied with their jobs may be more unwilling to endure any changes when the changes seem to be hard to be implemented. Another factor can be the organizational commitment. Regardless of the kind of the commitment, the less commitment might be related to less contribution to the adaptation processes.

Looking at the structure of the organizations, determination of the type best for being adaptive is not that easy. The structure of an organization has many dimensions such as formalization, specialization, and centralization (Daft, 2007). There will be a host of combinations of all these dimensions and each will show a different level of adaptation when confronting changes. This requires further research to predict the adaptation of these combinations in different contexts. In part of the literature, the companies with high R&D performance were found to show more adaptation in all the dimensions except for rules and regulations when compared with the companies with low R&D performance (Fidanboy, 2020).

Adaptive responses have been brought up a lot in all previous discussions, but what is really meant by adaptive responses needs some more explanations and examples. Suppose you are the manager of a food company. The manufacturing processes are done on a regular basis and everything seems to be monotonously going on. Even you, as the manager, sign the same papers and do the same office work. Do you think everything will keep working like this forever? Of course, not. Even in the bluest ocean, when no competitors are present and no one seems to enter the market for a long time, what you view as a slight and minor change can ruin all the routines, procedures, and processes. All at once, a new scientific research shed light on the potential harms on one of the ingredients in your products, and the media begin making news of these harmful ingredients. The sale starts to fall drastically. What happened to that blue ocean? You have no choice except finding solutions or downsizing your company which will continue till the complete collapse of the company and failure of your strategies as a manager. Your employees will start to blame you as the manager for not being able to predict such an incident or at least finding a solution when it happens. Referring to the scientific terminology, the first response is called the proactive response and the latter response is the reactive response to the changes. In the similar vein with the literature, adaptation is not all waiting for the changes in the environment to occur and then initiating the reactions accordingly (Cameron, 1984). It is worth emphasizing that the proactive responses are also demonstrated in the existence of some kind of mismatch between the organization and the environment. It cannot be necessarily a change in the environment, but a change inside the organization which gives rise to an inconsistency between the organization and the environment it is posited at. The point which should be paid attention to is that what is labelled as the adaptation is any kind of changes sourcing from the environment or imposed on the organization by the environment even if the changes seemed to root from something within the organization at the first glance. As the managers, the identification of the main sources of changes requires more than taking a look at it, but deepening the understanding of the change and the factors affecting it, and finally, pinpointing the source.

In addition to the reactive and proactive responses to the changes in the environments, there is another possible situation in terms of the relationship between the environment and the organization which was named as ‘defensive’ (Chakravarthy, 1982). The companies that are ‘defenders’ (Chakravarthy, 1982) try to ignore the changes in the environment, and in spite of making adjustments, they make efforts to narrow their exchange with their environment and deter from interacting with it. The decisions are then made and the strategies are defined according to this approach. The success of such companies is dependent on the level of similarity between the future and today’s environment. If the environment stays same as before, they have the opportunity to survive, though today’s dynamic environment aggravates the possibility of success and survival.

Two main reasons were provided for the selection of specific adaptive responses by the firms which are the adaptive ability consisting of organizational and material capacity along with the process of adaptation which embraces adaptive generalization and adaptive specialization (Chakravarthy, 1982). This categorization can be further expanded to the debate between the strategy and structure. During the adaptive generalization, the adjustments in the material and organizational capacity are followed by the adjustments in the strategy while at the time of the adaptive specialization process, the modifications and alterations in the strategy induce the structure of the organization to adapt accordingly.

One of the very enlightening explanations was exhibited in the literature on how to differentiate planned change from adaptation. To summarize, some of the main differences of planned organizational change and the adaptation were proffered as the source of the changes, the level of the changes whether individual or organizational, the focus of change, and their literature (Cameron, 1984). These can be described with some examples from the practice and experience. Moving back to the food company example, the change related to the ingredients is compelled to the company from the environment; hence, this is considered an adaptation. In the same company, training is scheduled for the employees in the manufacturing process in association with a food standard. The training is supposed to be informative and educative in a supplementary way as the employees have already known the standard. The management decides to hire a consultant to assure that what had been taught during the training are executed in practice as well. After several weeks, some behavioral changes in the employees are seen in accordance with the training concepts. Some visible changes are like being more careful, more cautious, and performing more elaborate observations. Having it viewed from the eye of an organizational researcher, the training has obviously impacted the organizational culture. Approaching from a CAS perspective, the changes in the schemata of the employees have resulted the changes in their behaviors and these changes are also be reflected in the organizational culture. This type of organizational change is not taken into account as an adaptation but as a planned organizational change. As it has always been of great attention, in uncertain and dynamic environments, the adaptation matters more, when predications and anticipations can hardly be made or require professional insight and knowledge.

The next difference between the planned organizational change and adaptation is the focus of change which are intraorganization and on the exchange of resources and information between the organization and its environment, respectively. The last difference is their literature. For the planned organizational changes, the manager or the project manager or the one has the authority prepares a plan containing cost, budget, and time needed for the change along with the scope of the change. In some of the companies, there are forms required to be filled out for the approved changes. On the other hand, the literature of adaptation is about how the changes are taking place and what is obtained from the adaptation at the end. Like what mentioned earlier, the adaptation is a process, not a rule, not a specific task or a product. It is more about answering the ‘how’ questions rather than the ‘what’ questions.

Another issue related to the adaptation is the modes of adaptation; what the different kinds of adaptation are, to say it simply. In this respect, ‘track’ was introduced as the paths taken by the organization over its lifecycle, and it can be used to explain whether the organization will change and if so, how it will change (Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal, & Hunt, 1998). In the same article, four different modes for adaptation were discussed. Integrating these modes of adaptation with the assumptions of CAS produces the following four possible conditions a system may experience at the time of encountering with changes. Before moving through the conditions, emergence should be discussed first. What is implied by emergence is the new patterns, properties, qualities, or structures that appear in the system (Mitleton-Kelly, 2003) as a result of change. As for the first condition, facing some of the changes leads to the emergence temporarily, and after some time, the organization will go back to its initial status. It cannot be a good example in terms of the nonethical issues it bears; however, it is just like the organizations under some kind of appraisal, and during the time of their appraisal, they make some changes. After the appraisal is finished, they start doing what they do as they did before and everything goes back to its previous form.

The second condition is the permanent emergence. The organization takes a new form in terms of one, all or some of the patterns of behaviors, properties, the structures, or/and qualities. For instance, a new model is going to be applied to an organization for the purpose of improving some of the current processes, creating some new processes, and excluding some of them. The organization will keep on doing the processes in their updated manner. One example of this condition can be a transition from using the traditional project management to agile methods. In such a case, not only the processes are modified and altered, but also some structural modifications will be made. The traditional project management is compliant with the hierarchical structure of the organizations, whereas the agile methods favor and suggest a more vertical structure. Till now, in this example, the processes and the structure have been changed. Moving forward with the same example, the agile methods welcome changes while the traditional project management is more reluctant to infuse any changes into the project after the planning. This is reflected in the difference between their quality approaches, the customer-oriented quality approach, and the outcome–income-based quality approach, respectively. As a result, in this case, the emergence of new patterns of behaviors is demonstrated too. The emergence of new patterns of behavior can also be noticed as a result of the change in the hierarchical structure. In the traditional project management, the project manager is the authority control who checks and orders the members of the technical team; nonetheless, in the agile methods, the hierarchy is not seen, and the one standing near the team, helping them, and guiding them is called coach or master based on the agile method being utilized. This omission of the command-control authority induces behavioral changes in the members of the team like feeling more motivated to work, more willing to share their new ideas, more creative, or more helpful to their team members. Granted all mentioned, the agile methods are one group of methods very well fitted within the CAS perspective as they are concentrated on the acceptance of changes throughout the project lifecycle. This implicitly points toward the constant adaptation since the source of the changes is mostly customers, beyond the boundaries of the organization, part of its environment.

The third condition is chaos. Imagine an axis. On the left side is the order state, in the middle is the complexity, and on the right side rests the chaos state ranging from zero connections to full connections (Potts, 2000). In the chaos condition, the system experiences no dominant pattern, but fluctuating between different patterns. The absence of a structure makes barriers on the way of the exchange of information which, at last, will cause the system to ‘disintegrate into unpredictable performance’ (Comfort, 1994). What is needed to be stressed here is that creativity and innovation come about at the edge of chaos (Bak, 1996; Faucher, 2010).

The fourth condition is what was labelled as inertia (Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal, & Hunt, 1998). It happens when the organization resists the change and it is reluctant to experience any kind of changes, trying to maintain its previous pattern. The inertia is one of the key issues at the failure of the change. Poor change management cannot handle the inertia naturally shown by the organization. The use of the word ‘naturally’ is to accentuate the fact that inertia, as originated from natural sciences, is accompanied with natural phenomena. It is not a notion that exist apart and then added to the phenomena, but it comes with them in a natural manner. Inertia may seem to be a trivial matter, yet it has been among the main reasons the organization couldn’t implement the change desirably. Taking a look at one real-world example can shed light on this fact. An educational organization tended to apply a new system to its language-teaching processes. The employees were designated for each of the tasks planned to get done. For the aim of control and check, a person was assigned the tasks related to supervision. After a few months, the outcomes of the system were not as expected. From an organizational studies viewpoint, the organization’s attempts for executing the changes might not be sufficient or appropriate. Sometimes the team members do not attempt enough to achieve the goals or oppositely, they make lots of efforts but the efforts are not made in the right direction for reaching the goal. The continuous effort with no desired outcome gained is just one of the factors that make the employees to become worn out and in some cases, it eventually ends with quitting. The same thing happened in this instance. After several months, the turnover rate increased and even those who didn’t leave their jobs have thought of resignation at least once. What was not foreseen in this case was the inertia on the way to change. In agreement with what was stated before, the inertia cannot be prevented, but can be mitigated to the level which does the least harm to the organization, to the extent it would not be felt much. Managers, based on their knowledge or experience, have diverse ways to deal with inertia. For the example discussed earlier, inertia could have been mitigated by more transparency in terms of giving description on the tasks, the process of the assignments of the tasks, the benefits provided by the changes, and the justifications for the need for the changes. This may not suffice without a control mechanism. The tasks should be observed closely, and the staff should be monitored constantly to see whether they are performing according to the plans or not. Too much observation and monitoring may have negative effects on the employees. A useful solution can be self-organized teams in which the team members are empowered to add their own methods and techniques, and they are kept motivated to work, committed to the changes. What should be kept in mind is that even the strictest model or framework devised for implementation in the organizations presents the option of tailoring. Not every change is absolutely profitable for every organization or every context. Consequently, a good decision is to leave some subjects open to negotiations through a small and trivial amount, so that the employees feel the empowerment and the value organization gives them. Being able to speak their opinions and ideas openly can help to increase their motivation and job satisfaction, and the feeling of being actively involved in the process of change makes them more committed. Commitment to the changes is very crucial throughout the change period as it may vary easily due to many factors. Keeping the members of the organizations committed is one of the responsibilities of the managers. There are many companies which are really hard for people to get into, and those who start working in these companies usually won’t resign, but continue working till their retirement. Whatever their commitment strategy is, they are successful in preventing the drawbacks originating from the turnover, especially the turnover of human resources which are the source of competitive advantages.

A very similar and almost same concept to adaptation modes were named as the adaptation forms: relative inertia, adjustment, reorientation, and strategic renewal (Burgelman, 1991). These forms were defined and described in association with the strategy-making processes. Here, they are integrated with CAS perspective, explained within examples. An electronics company has just changed its R&D strategies to catch up with the worldwide technological innovations. The R&D strategy changes were imposed on the company as a result of their choice for entering the global market. Viewing it from a CAS lens illustrates the widening of the environment; the national market remains while an international market has been added. The part of the environment new to the organization urges it to take new steps toward reaching a fit with the bigger environment. Consequently, the strategies were modified. After some time, the fit turns into the misfit for the reason that the requirements for the fit have been replaced, and the environmental changes trigger more strategic changes in the organizations posited within it. What is simply needed is to change the strategies again. The new changes can also take place, nevertheless, the relativity of inertia points at the reduction of such changes as time passes, and when making a comparison between the changes required by the environment and the changes in the strategies, the changes in the strategies will be relatively lower. The reactive response is the most probable response at the first stages of the process, even so, by the time passing, reactive responses are less made and thus, the defensive responses will become perceptible.

The adjustment argument delineates that despite the inertia on the way to adaptation, adjustments, even minor ones, may come out. Although the minor adjustments are useful to some point, after a period, there are needs for major changes of the strategies. The aforementioned electronics company might go on with some minor changes, yet the strategies will not be fruitful, sufficient, and legitimate later. This is consistent with the earlier discussions of temporary emergence and permanent emergence. The emergence of new strategies can be temporarily experienced, but the permanent emergence will be demanded eventually. In terms of the type of response, the reactive response is seen during adjustment.

The reorientation is same as the chaos state described earlier. The interesting issue here is that the major changes in the strategies might save the organization from the collapse for the time being, albeit in the long term, it decreases the life expectancy of the organization (Burgelman, 1991). In addition, the type of adaptive response is mainly reactive, waiting for the environment to force changes on the organization and then commencing taking actions. Regarding the electronic company, the company efforts in order to develop its R&D activities had continued, even though, due to the major changes in the structure pursued by major changes in the strategy, it had already made lots of trouble for the company. The strategies worked at first; nonetheless, after several months of struggling, the company failed in the global market and receded to its previously concentrated national market. It is noteworthy that the concept of environment for a CAS as a kind of open system might be deemed more related to natural sciences than the social studies, although underestimating it in the social studies will give rise to devastating problems and failures to the organizations. Consequently, before making any decisions concerning the environment like expanding the environment by entering into new markets, or changing the environment by changing the product manufactured, or the service being provided, or changing the location of the company, the changes which were and are in demand by the environment should be explored well. The current needs should not suffice for a deep comprehensive understanding of the environment; thus, it would be better to take a look back at the history of the environment and investigate the trend of the changes in the past, probing into the factors playing key roles in the changes, and further, link the past with the current situation. The lack of a clear view of the environment is a barrier on the adaptation processes since the environment is what the organization intends to adapt to.

The last adaptation mode is the strategic renewal. During the strategic renewals, first, the internal experimentation and selection occur which are what differentiate the renewal from reorientation, followed by strategic changes which helps the organization to remain adaptive (Burgelman, 1991). Moreover, the strategic renewal enables the company to show proactive adaptive responses in the future (Burgelman, 1991).

The adaptation modes have been discussed earlier in this section. A question which is still left unanswered is that ‘what makes the organizations choose similar or different adaptation modes?’ Three sources of forces were offered for the similarities between the choices of the adaptation modes: coercive, normative, and mimetic forces – where coercive forces compel the organizations to select the same modes while the normative forces root from the norms regarding the institutional context, and the mimetic forces are related to the imitation of the mode preferred by the successful organizations (Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal, & Hunt, 1998).

The extent to which organizations experience adaptation differ, and a division was made in the literature for the levels. According to an article, an organization can go under the adaptation at different levels: high, medium, and low levels (Jennings & Seaman, 1994). The relationship between the adaptation and the structure of the companies has become apparent in the same study. The structure of the firm is either as organic or as mechanistic structure, where the organic structure has the flexibility to adapt to the changes compared to the mechanistic structure which is more rigid and stricter toward the changes. In this regard, the organizations with high level of adaptation will have organic structure, whereas the organizations with adaptation of low level will have mechanistic structure (Jennings & Seaman, 1994). One good example of the companies with organic structure is the companies that are implementing agile frameworks. Such companies do not possess the traditional hierarchical structure through which the communication whenever needed should follow the below-top or the top-below directions. The communication is so frequent in these companies and it is mostly taking place among the vertical levels. Whenever communication between hierarchical levels is required, due to the low number of levels, it can also occur quickly and easily comparatively.

With regard to the rules, the companies with organic structure are mainly working with fewer but just fundamental rules, whereas in the companies with mechanistic structure, conformance to the rules is of great importance to the point that it sometimes turns into chains, keeping the organizations from finding an optimal solution rapidly, and it costs time to the organization, besides, in some situations it is accompanied by the negligence of creative and innovative solutions. Furthermore, adaptation in terms of rules and regulation has shown a different behavior from other dimensions of adaptation among companies with low and high R&D performance. The high performers were found to show more adaptation in terms of all organizational adaption dimensions except for rules and regulations (Fidanboy, 2020). The occurrence of adaptation in dimension may be low due to the few numbers of rules and regulations in high performers. They don’t feel any need to modify or alter these few rules for two main reasons; the first is that they are few in number, and the second reason is that the rules are the fundamental rules, rarely demanded to be altered.

Moving toward the field of practice, one of the very useful features of the agile companies is the omission of the extra unnecessary hierarchical levels which brings about numerous critical benefits. First, the communication taken place at the vertical level can be done in a shorter time, and subsequently, the solutions can be reached faster. Second, the employees may feel more empowered, less under pressure and stressed when the hierarchical structure does not compel them to report their works to the upper levels, but to a person at the same level with them, designated as the team coach or the team master. Third, whenever new ideas and opinions emerge at the technical level, they should not follow all the hierarchical levels since they will be reported directly to the coach at the same level. The convenience provided to the employees for sharing their thoughts and ideas makes the working environment more innovative and creative. In spite of efficiency, the effectiveness of the agile methods cannot be denied. Fourth, in the agile organizations, the changes are proceeded neither in a top-down manner nor in a down-top manner, however, within and through the organization as a whole. The approval of the changes will usually need the confirmation from the top management or any other top-level authority; hence, they will be informed of the changes. Nonetheless, the changes do not go through all top-down structures to be announced to the technical team members. Conversely, the approved changes are handled by the team coach or master and shared with the technical team members directly. This is the prominent reason why the agile organization are good at adaptation, dissolving the change right into the project.

‘Which organizations are successful in terms of adaptation?’ has been the main research question of many studies. Some of the characteristics for the organizations with successful adaptation are: having flexible structure, going under more changes, recruiting employees more than removing them from their jobs, bearing a higher ratio of change to the number of agents (Carley, 1997).

The changes in an organization come out at two levels: strategic and operational levels (Carley, 1997). At the strategic level, an organization make attempts to obtain a fit with its environment through the strategies being made while the operational level adaptation is about the agents performing the tasks in the organizations and are capable of learning from the experience and using the lessons learnt in their future execution of tasks. The learning is a crucial characteristic sought in the employees in adaptive organizations. Considering the agile companies as a good exemplification of the adaptive organizations, the learning takes place throughout the project, all the time. It is happening continuously and the lessons learnt are both stored in the memories of the team members along with keeping them in written forms, either hard or soft forms as a guide for future reference. The advantage of agile companies with respect to the lessons learnt is that they don’t leave the learning to the employees due to the fact that the lessons learnt might be perceived dissimilarly from one individual to another one and may be forgotten after some time. Thus, after the completion of a project, the team members and other authorities gather in a meeting to discuss the lessons they have learnt from the completed project and they are recorded and saved for further reference. Since the agile companies confront the changes a lot, they should be so careful with their decisions in order to make wise and appropriate decisions, together with making efforts to avoid the past mistakes.

In a similar vein with the levels of changes in an organization, the capability of learning can be investigated at two levels in an organization as well: the strategic and the operational level (Carley & Lee, 1998). At the strategic level, the learning is done by altering the connections, whereas at the operational level, the employees obtain experience (Carley & Lee, 1998).

A model consisting of five processes was proposed for the organizational adaptation to environmental changes: scanning, noticing, interpretation, choosing, and learning (Milliken, Dutton, & Beyer, 1992). These processes will be explained integrated with the CAS perspective. Consider an electronics company which produces home appliances. Employees in almost all departments related to the production usually research for the new technologies, changes in the market, changes in the needs of customers, follow the latest trends related to home appliances, and a host of other information. Of course, not all the information is useful and can be utilized later. Thus, some of the information is worth paying attention to since the attentional resources were stated to be constrained (Milliken, Dutton, & Beyer, 1992). The next stage is to interpret the data which were noticed before. The interpretation is a subjective process just like the noticing process for the reason that what data should be heeded and what should be omitted is dependent on the subjectivist view of the relevant agents together with how to interpret the data. These subjectivist opinions and decisions remind the cognitive part of a CAS, schemata. The schemata, the source of the behavior shown by the individuals, bear an important role especially during these two processes. What is labelled as the organizational schemata will help to reduce the disagreements and variations among diverse interpretations; nonetheless, in case of any existing disagreements which cannot be fixed or when sufficient information is not supplied for making the right interpretation, a scanning process will be asked to be repeated. Subsequently, the noticing process will face some changes too. This feedback mechanism assures the decision makers to make the most intelligent decision despite all uncertainty that is present in all projects all the time. What matters here is that the uncertainty that is not inevitable in any projects can be thought of, which implies the uncertainty of the environment. On the other hand, the organization is a CAS and its behavior is neither predictable nor controllable. Thus, good managers don’t tend to control the behavior of a CAS or predict it as it is not really feasible. A good decision is the one being made after taking into consideration all available data as well as exploring the history of the organization including, but not limited to, the best practices, experiences, lessons learnt, and the previous decisions.

The next process of organizational adaptation is choosing the best interpretation of the problems and changes which will be then responded to. The selection of the interpretation is again partially subjective. The data based on the fact shape the objective part of the decision; nonetheless, due to the involvement of a decision-making process or to be clearer, the engagement of the cognitive map of the decision makers with the decision making is partly subjective too. This is true for almost every matter dealt with in management. In spite of the use of engineering tools and other quantitative tools in the field of management and the organizational studies, these tools remain solely as supportive tools, not determining tools. The data are given to the software or are entered into the processing and the information is the outcome either in a qualitative form or in a quantitative form. Based on this information and the experience and knowledge of the decision maker, a decision is made. The quantitative information such as the tables depicting the production on a monthly basis cannot be reported to the employees labeled as the ‘new decision of the manager.’ These raw information needs to be processed cognitively to become comprehensible and executable. The decisions are next announced in the form of statements or in some cases, they may include a quantitative statement like increasing the production by 10% which is the outcome of processing the information extracted from software, figures, tables, etc., subsequently simplified in such a sentence to be clearly understood by the relevant staff. The clarity of the decisions is an important issue which its dearth causes many problems. Some examples associated with the vagueness attributable to the use of words when numbers are needed are ‘increase in production is needed’ or ‘the deadline is next month.’ The questions rise after such statements are: ‘How much increase is aimed at? How is the increase calculated; in the form of percentage or the number of products manufactured?’ or ‘when is exactly the deadline? Which day? What is the date?’ To conclude, the management of an organization is involved with both objective and subjective decisions and, additionally, dealing with quantitative and qualitative data and information.

Learning is the last process of organizational adaptation, through which the organization begins taking actions in response to the changes in the environments. The first issue here is that the organization must learn how to learn. Furthermore, the culture of the organization should support the learning as well. The trainings, workshops, and seminars organized by the organizations for their employees are just some of the means for reaching this goal. Giving promotion to the employees who continue learning new skills is another way to buoy the learning culture in the organization.

Interorganizational Adaptation

The organizations in a network may be loosely or tightly connected with each other. As the strength of the connections varies, the characteristics of the connections differ too. In one of the previous studies, the findings suggested that strong ties help the organizations to reduce the uncertainty and foster adaptation through communication and sharing information with others (Kraatz, 1998). Thus, it can be implied that the weak relationships would not assist the organization in dealing with the changes in the environment. The exchange of information is not good in weak relationships, and the organization may not receive enough information regarding the changes in the environment or concerning the actions the other organizations are taking in response to the changes toward the adaptation.

Apart from the strength of the connections within a network, the size of the network also plays an important role in predicting the benefits it provides its members with or, oppositely, the restrictions it chains its organizations with. What is usually seen in the organization with large networks is that they have the novel information sooner than the atomistic organizations, and thus, whenever being fast is required in this dynamic world, they are the ones who exceed their rivals in this rat race. Such a situation may not always be of advantage. The risk of the diffusion of wrong information, which is sometimes spread to trap the organizations, is so high. This not-on-fact-based information are created by the organizations to cause harm to the others, and make them involved in a situation, distracting them from what is actually going on and making them waste their resources on unnecessary issues. It is the responsibility of the decision makers to be wise in detecting the truthfulness of information and then start acting on them. The other problem with the large networks is that the communication may not be as frequent as in the small networks along with the less intimacy. For instance, an organization located in a large network can have close and frequent relationships with several organizations, but not the rest. To say it more clearly, the frequency and the closeness of the connections of an organization is not necessarily the same through all of its connections.

Looking at the adaptation in large networks, the organizations have the chance to gain more information from more resources, be aware of their environment more, and therefore, showing more suitable adaptive responses. On the other hand, in networks of small size, the information resources might not be that many, though they have the chance to observe the organizations closely, watch their actions, copy their adaptive actions, or tailor them based on their needs or even deterring the wrong adaptive responses to be given by the organization. Both large and small networks provide some advantages and disadvantages to their members in terms of adaptation. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the size and the strength of connections are not the only factors with influence on the adaptation responses in a network.

Till now, some of the characteristics of the connections have been mentioned; the frequency and the length. By length, the closeness is meant; an arm-length connection represents a close relationship between the organizations. The third characteristic is the age of the connection, whether the connection has been recently established or it is old enough to bring what the passing of time brings to the relationships. The effect of time in the relationship is not negligible; the actors know each other well and they can predict each other’s future actions. In its positive manner, mutual trust can be formed while in the negative manner, it restricts the choices of organization in terms of the options to work with. From a CAS point of view, the aforementioned possible cases are related to path dependency in making decisions concerning the partners and collaborators. Not too high or too low level of path dependency is desired but an average level. Taken all said so far, the strength of the connection is dependent on the frequency, length, and the age of the connection.

The fourth characteristic, which is a determinant of the strength of the connection, is whether there is an amplifier to the connection or not. The amplifier is what makes an organization prefer a connection over another one. This may have different reasons. For example, the managers of the two companies are relatives or old friends. This amplifier can be a contractual condition like the contract to work with an organization for a specific amount of time. This was labeled as ‘bonds,’ an aspect of relationships, which was identified in different kinds as follows: knowledge, technical, socioeconomic, planning, and legal (Johanson & Mattsson, 1987).

Looking at the networks, as mentioned earlier, they may be large or small, subsuming strong or weak ties, or they may be homogenous or heterogeneous. They are homogenous if they consist of firms that are active in the same sector, and they are taken as heterogeneous when their firms come from different sectors.

Interorganizational adaptation literature was studied with respect to two dimensions: technical and behavioral; the behavioral dimension is in association with the organizational behavior on the connection between the two organizations, while the technical dimension is related to technical elements like processes (Knoppen & Christiaanse, 2007). This can be viewed from a CAS perspective, pointing at the fact that after spending time in a connection, the two sides commence to share similar schemata with each other which these schemata, granted that they are the rules behind the behaviors, then cause the organizational behaviors of the two organizations to become more and more alike.

The selection of the adaptation modes is dependent on the context the organizations were founded in. The investigation of the possible modes in different types of networks can clarify the concept more. Starting with the size of the networks, small or large, the choice of adaptation will vary. In small networks, the number of organizations is limited, and for this reason, they have the opportunity to communicate with each other more often, making them become closer. As a result, the mimetic force is the most probable force responsible for the similarities seen in the patterns of organizational adaptation.

The large networks subsume many companies and when the number of companies increases, the communication will be harder to happen frequently. The lack of sufficient communication is expected to fade the role of the mimetic force due to the lack of enough information on the characteristics of the processes performed in other organizations. The most probable force is predicted to be the normative force since the organizations don’t want to act differently from what the other organizations are doing, or to put it in another way, they would rather stick to the norms which look reasonable to the majority than doing what is considered strange and awkward. The power of norms should not be underestimated on many organizational factors such as commitment and adaptation. When saying norms, for some of the scientists with a positivist view, it can be underrated. However, looking at the real-world examples will help in the realization of its importance. These days, social media groups are so common among colleagues. There is no written rule concerning answering the messages; however, in one of the organizations, every member of the group feel obliged to provide a response to the messages within an hour otherwise he felt urged to provide excuses and make apologies for the delay. The other example is again technological, related to social media. Every employee of the organization with a social media account feels impelled to like every post on the social media page of the organization. These were just two of the many instances in which norms put the pressure on employees to adopt the same approaches. An exemplar of conforming to non-technological norms can be depicted in relation to the dress code of an organization. In this organization, apart from the dress code specified in the contract, the employees wear certain pieces of clothes with certain colors. The old employees have become accustomed to this kind of clothing as a norm. During the first weeks of the recruitment, the new employees wore clothes consistent with the dress code defined in the contract but not in agreement with the norms. After some time passed, it was noticed that some of the new employees have conformed to the norms for clothing. Some of them who could not conform to the norms resigned from the organization during the following years. The others still remain in the same organization. The factor that should neither be ignored nor underrated in the social studies is the human factor. The personality of people vary, so do their reactions, and each prescription and theory cannot cover all types of individuals. The ones still working in the organization might bear some characteristics such as the ignorance of others, being self-centered, or simply continuing working due to financial matters.

The next two discussions are concentrated on the forces of adaptation modes in networks with strong ties and networks with weak ties. While the size of the network is about the number of companies found in a network, the strong and weak categorization is in association with the strengths of the connections formed in a network. Within networks of strong connections, both normative and mimetic forces are expected to be active. The networks with weak connections are more prone to be under the impact of the coercive forces attributable to the lack of enough communication within them. They don’t communicate and share their information with each other sufficiently which then deter them from getting to know the norms and the processes of other organizations, making the normative and mimetic forces less powerful and more ineffective.

In the clusters, the extent to which an organization is engaged in an industrial cluster has an impact on its adaptation outcomes though the advantages provided by the adaptation is dependent on how the engagement is taking place (Niu, 2010). The companies in a cluster compete and/or collaborate with each other, and the degree of competition and collaboration and their probable interaction are some of the factors related to how involved they are with their clusters.

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Case 1: Organization and Customer Relationship

A software company took an order to create a software compliant with one type of quality standards. The customer company did not have a clear understanding of the mentioned standard, only requested it in order to be able to meet the requirements of a project; therefore, it hired a consultant to help them with improving their knowledge of those quality standards. Similarly, the software company also asked a consultancy company to observe their current processes and to guide them through the whole project regarding the quality standards.

After the first release and demonstration, the problems started to rise due to the variance between the customer company’s expectations and the software company’s deliverables.

As of the first solution, the project manager of the software company held several meetings with the customer to adjust the list of requirements according to their requests. After several meetings, the project manager found it hard to satisfy the customer for the reason that not any solutions seemed to be adequate. The project manager approved the changes time after time; nevertheless, the feedbacks from the customer’s side did not become positive. The technical team started complaining about the number of changes imposed on the project.

The second approach toward solving the problems taken by the project manager was to offer the customer to ask his consultants to meet their consultants in the hope of the clarification of any blurred insights. The meeting took place with the attendance of the consultants from both sides together with the project managers of the both companies. The first meeting did not end much fruitful as the consultants did not make any efforts to listen to each other. The meeting was mostly an event for them to prove their knowledge and experience instead of a tool for negotiation or reaching a compromise.

Already learnt from the experience, as the third solution, the project managers of the customer and software companies asked their consultants to prioritize the clauses of the standards’ guide regarding their importance to them. After preparing the list, the project managers of the two sides held meetings and discussed the priorities in order to find a common solution. This had not been made easy just after the project managers used the same system for prioritization and for assigning weights to each of the items, and at last, the final list was prepared. They, then, showed the final list to their consultants for their opinions. Even if the weights were assigned, the same meaning was not meant by each number. Hence, the project managers made efforts to convince their consultants on their determined list of requirements and it worked.

Approaching the problem from a CAS standpoint identifies the problem as the difference in the schemata of the companies originating from the difference in the schemata of the consultants directing them throughout the processes. The frameworks, models, and the standards are all for harmonizing the schemata of different organizations if to be viewed from a CAS point. Although the harmonization is the main aim, there exists the ‘tailoring’ or in the other cases ‘customizing’ whenever they are being made suitable for the use in a specific context. The solution to inconsistent schemata is to hold meetings and to designate mediators till a shared schemata or similar ones are shaped. The issue which cannot be neglected here is the process of selection of the negotiators. They should have sufficient knowledge of the organization, the processes, and more importantly a positive view of adaptation since modifying, changing, or even replacing the schemata are all part of the adaptation that occurs in the CASs.

Case 2: The Overconfidence of the Organization

The traps on the way of an organization toward success are not few, and they are not sometimes recognized. One of the traps in which mostly the successful organizations get involved is the knowing-all trap. This makes the organization become overconfident about the occurrence of success, and this may occasionally result in overlooking the changes that happen consistently, and the contexts which are altered from time to time. Reviewing some of the failures of big companies can be explained from this viewpoint. Even though, in some cases, the failure might not be directly related to the overconfidence, it might have been rooting from the ignorance of part of the whole of a dynamic context.

In this case, an IT company contacted a quality consultant for their project of gaining a standard certification and get accredited. The standard was not new to the organization and some of the employees had prior knowledge and experience as regards the standard. The consultant tried to teach all the relevant employees, irrespective of their background, the basic principles of the standard first. At this stage, the experienced employees attended the sessions actively trying to show their superiority in the subject, and they, from time to time, asked questions related to the advanced topics in order to prove themselves. The encouraging attitude of the consultant made the sessions so fruitful, and even those advanced questions helped with a better understanding of the subject.

After a few weeks of the practice and review of the basic concepts, the second training session took place. In this session, more advanced topics were discussed, and some disputes were raised between the new learners and the experienced members. Despite the efforts of the consultant to find a common solution and provide a reasonable answer to both sides, they remained unsolved. In alike cases, the remaining issues would again show up when the practice starts.

The implementation of what was taught during the training sessions started, and the consultant guided the members through the processes. There still existed some disagreements rooting from the previously discussed ideas. The attempts of the consultant to reach a consistency between the members in terms of their perceptions of the standard were successful, and the organization was certified and accredited.

When considering the problem from a CAS lens, it becomes clear that there were two main issues which the organization faced. The first was the high path dependency degree of the experienced members, and the second was the differences between the schemata of the experienced and new-to-the-standard members. Path dependency, as an important key factor of the CAS, should not be too high to result in a locked-in situation both for the organization and the individuals, and not too low, since the new decisions will be too departed from the previous ones, making the new decisions even riskier.

Case 3: The Customer Service Problem

The problems are not always present at only the production processes. All after the release of a product, there may exist problems as well at the departments in relationship with the customer, customer service. These departments, regardless of whatever they are called, have the responsibility to reflect the end user problems to the technical team; therefore, the problems will not rise in the future versions of a product or new products. Although three main processes of quality management, including quality planning, quality control, and quality assurance, are among the not-skipped processes done by the companies, there are still feedbacks from customers which inform the company of the failure in some features of a product or minor flaws occurring from time to time. These are not restricted to small- or medium-sized companies, and even large companies known to everyone sometimes recall all products of a special model or version due to certain flaws from the market.

The third case of this chapter is related to the issue which has been already mentioned. A software company had sold one of its products, and after passing some time, the problems started to appear with the usage of the program. There were several calls to the customer service in order to find solutions to the constant problems. The team at the customer service own some kind of technical knowledge; nevertheless, their technical knowledge is not as expert as the ones on the technical teams. Facing the cases where more professional advice and assistance are required, the customer service team asks the customers to leave their numbers and wait for them to call them back. During this time, the customer service team consults with the technical team, seeking solutions, and translating the solutions into an easily comprehensible non-technique language so as to discuss it with the customers. What should be noticed here is that the customers are not always technical people, but just an end user with the knowledge to use the software program, not more, not less. Thus, the role of the customer service team gains more importance in these cases since they are the mediators between the technical team and the customers. Rarely, the problems are hard to fix by this mediation role, and the technical team prefers to contact the customer directly to help them. In such situations, the technical team takes the responsibility to guide the customer as simple as it can be done without involving much technical processes. As of the last option for these rare situations, an appointment can be made for fixing the ongoing problem.

Looking back at the example casts light on the fact that the customer service team was not able to understand the technical team completely, and the technical team couldn’t explain the solutions to the customer service team fully. The mutual misunderstanding between these two teams resulted in a delay to get back to the customer, and there were some more complaints. Viewing the case from a CAS lens identifies two main problems. The first problem is the inadequate or inappropriate connection between the agents of different levels, customer service level and technical level. Based on the definition of a CAS, the agents of the system are interconnected. Each connection bears two main characteristics: quality and quantity. The quality of the connection is about how well the connection is making the transfer of energy and information possible, faster, and easier. By quantity, the extent to which transfers are taking place via the connection is comprehended. It can be operationalized by the frequency of the transfers. With reference to the cases, the quantity of the connection seemed to be at the satisfactory level since the two teams were at continuous communication with each other or to say it differently, the communication was adequate. The issue was with the appropriateness or the quality of the connection between the two teams which appeared to be low. In line with the experience and practice, increasing the quantity of the communications is done much easier by managers comparing with rising the quality of the communication. One example for increasing the adequacy of the communication is holding more meetings or gatherings in order to share their information. Some companies, especially in IT sector, approach agile methods for this purpose, trying to implement them righteously while the others just adopt the concept of holding various meetings at different points of time during a project without implementing any other concepts of the agile methods. This might seem to be fruitful to meet the adequacy goal of the connection, of course, not the appropriateness goal. The quality of the communication is dependent on many factors including the individual factors, for instance, if a person can work as part of a team or prefer doing tasks isolated from others.

The second problem was the inconsistency of the schemata among the two teams. Many factors may have impact on the structure of schemata such as the educational background, work experience, job experience, and so on. The difference between the schemata of technical and nontechnical staff usually originates from how they perceive a problem. The technical staff views the problem in relation with the technical causes like coding problems whereas the nontechnical personnel focuses more on the effects of the problem. For example, a webpage cannot be viewed properly by the end users. The nontechnical statement for the problem is: ‘The web page cannot be displayed,’ and a technical statement might be: ‘There are incorrect settings on the web browser.’

The problem between the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team and the technical team was finally solved by hiring a consultant to attend the two teams’ meetings, having him clarifying the issues whenever they are vague, by simplifying the technical terms, interpreting the daily user problems into the technical language, and easing the occurrence of appropriate communication between them.

Case 4: Top Management and the Technical Team

An IT company had been poring over different frameworks to find the most suitable one for implementation in the organization. The decision of the need for a new framework had been made after the approval from top management and the team coach. After conducting a remarkable amount of research, a framework was chosen and they began to implement it in their company. Prior to the implementation, the top management was informed of their choice and has approved it. The time for release and demonstration of the product finally arrived. The meeting with the customer passed well, although after the meeting, the top manager requested for another meeting with the technical team. During that meeting, he criticized the team for failing to do the tasks in the right way. The disputes were tried to be silenced by the team coach, and the meeting ended this way.

During the following weeks, the team coach made attempts to explain the new framework to the top manager and justify that the team had performed the tasks in accordance with the new framework. Despite the time it took for convincing the top manager, the problem was solved at last.

From a CAS point of view, the different schemata of the top manager from the technical team were the problem in this case. The meetings which are held in the organizations are just one of the many ways to harmonize the schemata in an organization. Organizing seminars, workshops, trainings, and other platforms to share the knowledge and information are also effective for this purpose. Another issue is that the organization is not the only entity to adapt. The top manager of an organization is required to adapt to the changes too. The learning should take place both at the individual and organizational level. In today’s highly volatile environments, the managers are expected to update their knowledge frequently. There is another issue associated with the top management which is that they should have some kind of technical knowledge related to the products and processes of the company. In the past, there were many examples of the managers who managed the companies just because they were the founders. Many of these companies couldn’t survive actually. Management is about both knowing how to manage and having information on what is to be managed. The lack of knowledge on the products, processes, and procedures within an organization can lead to mismanagement which can compel the organization to pay the price.

Case 5: Too Much Paperwork and Agility

As some words have negative impact on listeners, the others are naturally perceived in a positive way like adaptive, agile, and intelligent. After the introduction of agile methods to the companies, they, out of their curiosity, began researching them and learning how they work. Saying that a company is an agile company would have been considered a privileged characteristic. Apart from the companies that had investigated the relevant concepts absolutely, the other companies just imitated some parts of the concepts by looking at the other companies or perhaps, after looking through the methods. There are still some of these companies which just pretend to be agile, but actually none of their processes are executed in an agile manner. One of them was an online educational company that offered online courses to the students. The education market is not immune to the changes, and it has gone under lots of modifications due to the changes in technology. This educational organization intended to become agile so as to be more rapid in responding to the changes in their environment; nevertheless, a huge amount of paperwork was still present in the organization. Documenting is necessary, particularly for an educational organization, although recording everything on the paper demands lots of time and space. They intended to employ a consultant to take them out of this paradoxical situation: abundant paperwork and agility. The consultant suggested them to use the programs to record the information in soft form, and some of the information was automatically recorded at the same time as it was entered onto the website; thus, the time spent on the documentation was reduced. Using the program helped the company to make changes whenever needed without being compelled to look for that certain document in the archives.

Employing the CAS perspective to this case helps with the identification of several issues which are described in the following. The first issue is the imitation of the agile companies which happens because of the mimetic forces. These coerce the organization to adapt; though in some cases, the organization may lack the appropriate infrastructure. The second issue is the partial adaptation where some elements of the organization adapt, whereas the others remain same as they were before. The organizational adaptation is about the adjustments in the organizational elements wherever it has to be done. During some adaptation processes, only a certain number of elements should be altered; however, in other situations, all the elements should experience some kind of change albeit mildly. Even in the partial adaptation, the elements which were first unchanged will experience change at a time in future for the reason that the changes in the other elements have altered the context for their action and behavior. This is what happened at the example of the online educational organization.