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Ralph D. Stacey. Complexity and Creativity in Organizations. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1996, 312 pages, $34.95.
Reviewed by Susan Phelps (formerly Susan E. Heinbuch), Visiting Fellow, Yale University, New Haven, CT and President, Management Solutions, PFC, New York, NY.
Ralph D. Stacey (strategic management, U. of Hertfordshire, England, and management consultant) has contributed for years to our knowledge of organizations and management. His previous publications primarily served to illuminate the relevance of applying strategic approaches and complexity theory to organization and management (see, for example, Stacey, 1991,1992, 1993).
His latest installment, Complexity and Creativity in Organizations, represents a significant step forward in his thinking by reviving systems theory and integrating insights from a variety of disciplines to create what he proposes is an original perspective. Stacey combines his acquired acumen from the fields of chaos and complexity, organizational behavior, biology, and psychoanalysis to demonstrate how complexity concepts may be fashioned into a framework for understanding organizational processes and learning.
During the course of his presentation, Stacey reviews the current status of human networks and complexity theory. He explores the place of complexity in understanding individuals, groups, and organizations. He also discusses the implications of applying the complexity paradigm to management research and practice.
Complexity and Creativity in Organizations is aimed at "consultants, and managers, those concerned with life in organizations, to new efforts being undertaken to understand life in nature." It is organized into 10 chapters divided into four parts: (a) "The Complex Nature of Human Networks" attempts to demonstrate "that human systems are indeed the kind of system that the science of complexity deals with." (b) "The Science of Complexity" reviews...