Demystifying the Struggles of Private Sector Paradigmatic Change: Business as an Agent in a Complex Adaptive System

Abstract

In this article, the author applies complex systems theory (CST) to help understand why, after 14 years of management scholar advocacy for a paradigmatic shift in management behavior, the field of management has been unable to move away from a technocentric paradigm. Using four principles of complex adaptive systems (CAS), the author shows that focusing exclusively on business behavior limits our attention to symptoms rather than the broader system of interacting agents whose collective behaviors legitimize and support an economic paradigm. By drawing on complexity and critical systems theory, the author then develops a three-phased process model that provides a preliminary conceptualization of what it might take to shift the business paradigm. The success of this shift is dependent on a consequential shift at the societal level, the interaction of which speaks to the implications for business as a recipient of this broader shift and, more important, its role as an agent in the process of creating new opportunities that sustain the life-supporting environmental and social systems. Through this model, the author presents important implications for policy makers and management theory.