Technology and Complexity

The increasing pace of globalization; unrelenting innovation in technology; pressure for sustainable management of ecological, human, and technological resources; and the need to manage associated complex interrelationships are creating a challenging organizational environment for managers. Such challenges have been well documented around efforts to create order, predictability, and efficiency in heavy change. The globalization of new technologies and the alignment of economic, social, political, and cultural systems are generating simultaneously new forms of order, while also increasing complexity for managers. The word technology derives from the Greek word technologia combining téchnē (art, skill, craft) and logia (study of). It can be used as a general term or to refer to specific areas, such as information and computer technology, biotechnology, and so on. Technology can be defined narrowly as the development, usage, and knowledge of tools, techniques, or machines to perform specific functions or solve problems, or, broadly to include organizational design and culture, including procedures, systems, and methods used to achieve specific outcomes. Under this latter definition, managing the design of a sociotechnical interface would be an application of technology itself. Such a broad interpretation also illustrates the dynamic, iterative, and interactive relationship between technology and complexity; each concept invokes the other to frame the nature and scope of the managerial challenge. Complexity theory provides insights into this dynamic. Constituting a critique of multiple theories derived mainly from the natural and social sciences, it is concerned with understanding how order appears to emerge rather than be imposed in complex environments. Leadership and management theorists suggest that this body of literature provides insights into effective management philosophies, mind-sets, and practices in dynamic, complex, and uncertain environments. This entry identifies critical constructs to explain dynamic interactions between technology and complexity systems that raise issues for management theory and practice.