An Enterprise Complexity Model

Abstract

In this paper the author offers a methodological extension of earlier work on Viplan (Espejo, 1988, Espejo and Reyes, 2011) as an extension of Beer's Viable System Model (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985). The author calls this extension the Enterprise Complexity Model (ECM). Enterprise is used in the sense of an innovative undertaking in the private, public or mixed sectors rather than as an institutional form. ECM is a model of an enterprise's strategies to manage the complexity that is relevant to its relationships with multiple environmental agents. It is in the nature of an enterprise to operate in a context of challenges and opportunities; these are non-trivial situations within easy control. On the contrary these are complex situations whose control requires the enterprise's ingenuity. The enterprise's complexity is significantly smaller than that of its surroundings or in other words the surroundings' complexity is larger than the enterprise's response variety. The challenge for the enterprise is to find ingenious strategies to bridge this complexity gap. In these efforts technology is playing an increasingly important role.