Discussing the use of complexity theory in engineering management: Implications for sustainability

What is the state-of-the-art literature regarding the adoption of the complexity theory (CT) in engineering management (EM)? What implications can be derived for future research and practices concerning sustainability issues? In this conceptual article, we critically discuss the current status of complexity research in EM. In this regard, we use IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, because it is currently considered the leading journal in EM, and is as a reliable, heuristic proxy. From this journal, we analyze 38 representative publications on the topic published since 2000, and extrapolated through a rigorous keyword-based article search. In particular, we show that: (1) the adoption of CT has been associated with a wide range of key themes in EM, such as new product development, supply chain, and project management. (2) The adoption of CT has been witnessed in an increasing amount of publications, with a focus on conceptual modeling based on fuzzy logics, stochastic, or agent-based modeling prevailing. (3) Many key features of CT seem to be quite clearly observable in our dataset, with modeling and optimizing decision making, under uncertainty, as the dominant theme. However, only a limited number of studies appear to formally adhere to CT, to explain the dierent EM issues investigated. Thus, we derive various implications for EM research (concerning the research in and practice on sustainability issues)

Darwinism, organizational evolution and survival: key challenges for future research

How do social organizations evolve? How do they adapt to environmental pressures? What resources and capabilities determine their survival within dynamic competition? Charles Darwin’s seminal work The Origin of Species (1859) has provided a significant impact on the development of the management and organization theory literatures on organizational evolution. This article introduces the JMG Special Issue focused on Darwinism, organizational evolution and survival. We discuss key themes in the organizational evolution research that have emerged in recent years. These include the increasing adoption of the co-evolutionary approach, with a particular focus on the definition of appropriate units of analysis, such as routines, and related challenges associated with exploring the relationship between co-evolution, re-use of knowledge, adaptation, and exaptation processes. We then introduce the three articles that we have finally accepted in this Special Issue after an extensive, multi-round, triple blind-review process. We briefly outline how each of these articles contributes to understanding among scholars, practitioners and policy makers of the continuous evolutionary processes within and among social organizations and systems

Research in organizational evolution: what comes next?

The literature about organizational evolution has been witnessing a tremendous amount of and continuous development among strategists since the second half of the 20th century and this critical review article aims to provide readers with a thorough discussion of past and contemporary research within this area. From the beginning, the article works through analogies with biology in attempting to trace the current boundaries of the field, with much of the review’s content thus structured around the proposed conceptual (and methodological) framework. In addressing the question of what forces drive organizational evolution, the article then takes on a middle ground by mainly focusing on the development of the dialectical and co-evolutionary approaches. It ends by prospecting what can come next for evolutionary (and co-evolutionary) research in the strategic management field

Organizational adaptation: an update

Purpose – This article aims at contributing to the debate on organizational adaptation by providing both scholars and practitioners with reasoned observations as to where this research domain is and, perhaps, could be going, and as to what important questions and gaps still exist in this research area. Design/methodology/approach – The article tries to inform the conversation through updating the lenses of the “determinism versus voluntarism” approach seminally used by Astley and Ven de Ven for commenting the state of the art in the 1980s. In particular, the article aims at enhancing the debate through a timely critical discussion of the extant literature, whose comparative analysis starts from the 1960s. Findings – The analysis mainly indicates that, since Astley and Van de Ven’s milestone, the dichotomy between determinism and voluntarism has been reduced, although it still exists. The co-evolutionary approach can constitute a promising tool for the further reducing of the dichotomy, but more research seems to be needed to improve its utility. Originality/value – The key contribution of this article is that it tries to shed light on how and why the discussed schools of thought have been theoretically and empirically evolving, what issues they have mainly addressed and if some visible or invisible colleges can be found among them. Moreover, the article analyses what scholarly positions still remain dichotomous to date and what positions scholars have reconciled, either totally or partially. Finally, it also proposes some possible avenues for further investigations within this research domain

Interpreting corporate crises: towards a co-evolutionary approach

Managing corporate crises has always been a topic of interest in the evolving research about futures, especially as far as recent literature about scenario planning is concerned. Dealing with crises is even more important to date, because of the large amount of corporate failures determined by the current macro-economic recession worldwide. While a number of reliable research methodologies on crises’ antecedents exist, it is still maintained that both the literature and practice of management lack appropriate theoretical perspectives for holistically capturing the overall dynamics of crises’ paths. This conceptual article aims at contributing to filling this gap by suggesting that patterns of corporate crises can be conceived through extensively drawing on the evolving literature about organizational adaptation. The article follows one of the latest streams of research published in Futures. In fact, through adopting co-evolutionary lenses to adaptation, the article provides its readers with an interpretative framework that conceptualizes crises’ patterns as an ineffective adaptation process

Reviewing Corporate Crises: A Strategic Management Perspective

How can be crises classified? What does the term “corporate crisis” mean? Corporate crises have always been a topic of tremendous interest for both the research in and practice of strategic management at an international level. Attention has been given to elaborating appropriate interpretative conceptualizations, together with implementing effective and efficient predicting and countervailing models. To date, scholars have seemingly reached consensus as to the meaning of crises. Conversely, identifying determinants and temporal dynamics still seems to be a lively question to address. This is why in this article we critically review the state of the art on the topic, from which we derive some important implications for the present and future research and practice in the strategic management field

Prioritizing Short-Termism in Behavioural Strategy: Lessons from Enron - 20 Years On

What are the risks of prioritizing short-term goals in corporate strategy against more long-term oriented (and hopefully sustainable) corporate performance? Through a qualitative case study narrative recalling some aspects of the sadly famous, but still insightful, bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation in the US (2001), this article aims at contributing to shed light on this lively research question within the international research on and practice of behavioural strategy. Given that, also currently, the seasons of corporate scandals do not seem to have ended, the main motivation behind this work is that the lessons which we could have learned after almost 20 years since the Enron seminal disaster occurred, can still probably have a value. In parallel, the main conceptual contribution offered by our case perspective is that, while the massive past and recent Enron’s coverage has mostly devoted attention to the aspects of fraud and its associated business ethics, our analysis is, instead, focused on the corporate strategic orientation mainly deriving from the macho culture of the top executives. Of course, we are aware that concentrating on the latter cannot avoid acknowledging also the importance of the former. Furthermore, the case can also offer a methodological contribution; in fact, while much of the research in corporate governance has been implemented through quantitative techniques, scholars have also recently claimed that additional qualitative research is complementarily needed to reach a more exhaustive big picture on how executives behave