Managing Complexity in Organizations: Text and Cases

`Big and internationally operating companies are faced with high and ever increasing complexities. The managerial implications of this are rarely understood or analyzed. This book offers a conceptual framework and empirical experience to demonstrate how leaders can deal successfully with complexities with regard to their organizations and strategic and operational decisions.'---Manfred Gentz, Chairman of the Board, Zurich Financial Services: Chairman of the Board, Deutsche Borse AG: and President, International Chamber of Commerce of Germany

`As Asian companies are integrating into the global economy as important players, they are confronted with a new level of complexity. The truly international character of this research-based but practical book provides valuable lessons for them to meet this new challenge and compete successfully with their already global peers.'---Tan Sri Dato' Azman bin Hj. Mokhtar, Managing Director of Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Malaysia

`This is a timely and important book. The mix of text and case studies will make wonderful material for MBA students. This book will add great value, helping our next generation of business leaders in solving the problems of a complex and interconnected world.'- Wolfgang Jank, Director of the Center for Complexity in Business, The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, USA

`This book tackles the lived reality that organizations today are messy. It offers a way of structuring our engagement with the complexity we experience and it is therefore a book aimed at the hopeful and the optimistic amongst us. The authors are to be commended for combining insights from a range of theoretical domains with an engaging narrative and truly exceptional case material.'---Robert Maclntosh, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Glasgow Business School, UK

Managing Complexity in Organizations is a lively new text written by academics from one of the world's leading business schools. Using a series of global case studies from a variety of industries, the authors outline their frameworks for understanding and managing complexity.

The book examines the role of complexity theory in organizations and the importance of flexibility in decision-making, and discusses how flexibility allows for improved, quicker, responses to ongoing change - a necessity in today's unpredictable business environment. The authors present four key drivers of complexity - diversity; interdependence; ambiguity; and fast flux - thereby providing the reader with an effective and thorough understanding of how businesses can successfully adapt and respond to constant change.

Applying complexity theory to business organizations, Managing Complexity in Organizations: Text and Cases is an essential companion for MBA, EMBA and executive education programmes.

Christoph Nedopil is Managing Director of YOUSE, an innovation consultancy in Berlin, Germany, and Consultant for the World Bank.
Ulrich Steger is Professor of Environmental Management at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Wolfgang Amann is the Executive Director of Executive Education and Faculty at the Goethe Business School, Frankfurt, Germany