This article argues for the adoption of complicated approaches by management educators. The argument rests on the position that if uncertainty and ambiguity are inherent to management, particularly in view of the profound changes that have occurred during recent years in the competitive environments of organizations, there is the need to develop complex managers, that is, managers more skilled in dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity. Four approaches (hypertext, dialectics, linkages, and metaphors) are presented to illustrate complementary ways of operationalizing the logic of complication in a management education context. These approaches have the potential for increasing the awareness and alertness of management students to the challenges with which they will probably be confronted in the emerging competitive landscapes.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley .
2.
Ashford, S. J., & Cummings, L. L. (1983). Feedback as an individual resource: Personal strategies of creating information . Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 32, 370-398 .
3.
Attewell, P. A. (1994). Information technology and the productivity paradox. In D. H. Harris (Ed.), Organizational linkages: Understanding the productivity paradox (pp. 13-53). Washington, DC: National Academy Press .
4.
Bartunek, J. M., Gordon, J. R., & Weathersby, R. P. (1983). Developing “complicated” understanding in administrators . Academy of Management Review, 8, 273-284 .
5.
Beazley, H., & Lobuts, J. (1998). Systems and synergy: Decision making in the third-millennium . Simulation & Gaming, 29, 441-449 .
6.
Bettis, R. A., & Hitt, M. A. (1995). The new competitive landscape . Strategic Management Journal, 16, 7-19 .
7.
Boje, D. M. (1995). Stories of the storytelling organization: A postmodern analysis of Disney as Tamara-Land . Academy of Management Journal, 38, 997-1035 .
8.
Boulding, K. E. (1956). General systems theory: The skeleton of science . Management Science, 2, 197-208 .
9.
Brews, P. J., & Hunt, M. R. (1999). Learning to plan and planning to learn: Resolving the planning school/learning school debate . Strategic Management Journal, 20, 889-913 .
10.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
11.
Champoux, J. E. (1999). Film as a teaching resource . Journal of Management Inquiry, 8, 206-217 .
12.
Chan, D. (1998). Functional relations among constructs in the same content domain at different levels of analysis: A typology of composition models . Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 234-246 .
13.
Clegg, S. R., Cunha, J. V., & Cunha, M. P. (2002). Management paradoxes: A relational view . Human Relations, 55(5), 483-503 .
14.
Cosier, A., & Aplin, J. C. (1980). A critical view of dialectical inquiry as a tool in strategic planning . Strategic Management Journal, 1, 343-356 .
15.
Czarniawska-Joerges, B., & de Monthoux, P. G. (Eds.). (1994). Good novels, better management. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood .
16.
Daft, R. L., & Weick, K. E. (1984). Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems . Academy of Management Review, 9, 284-295 .
17.
D’Aveni, R. (1994). Hypercompetition. Managing the dynamics of strategic maneuvering. New York: Free Press .
18.
Dehler, G., & Welsh, M. (1993). Dialectical inquiry as an instructional heuristic in organization theory and design . Journal of Management Education, 17, 79-89 .
19.
Dehler, G., Welsh, M., & Lewis, M. W. (2001). Critical pedagogy in the “new paradigm”: Raising complicated understanding in management education . Management Learning, 32, 493-511 .
20.
Dennehy, R. F., Sims, R. R., & Collins, H. (1998). Debriefing experiential learning exercises: A theoretical and practical guide . Journal of Management Education, 22, 9-25 .
21.
Edelman, L. F., & Benning, A. L. (1999). Incremental revolution: Organizational change in highly turbulent environments . Organization Development Journal, 17, 79-93 .
22.
Eisenhardt, K. M. (2000). Paradox, spirals, ambivalence: The new language of change and pluralism . Academy of Management Review, 25, 703-705 .
23.
Eisenhardt, K. M., & Bhatia, M. M. (2002). Organizational complexity and computation. In J. A. C. Baum (Ed.), Companion to organizations (pp. 442-466). Oxford: Blackwell .
24.
Eisenhardt, K. M., & Sull, D. N. (2001). Strategy as simple rules . Harvard Business Review, 79(1), 107-116 .
25.
Fineman, S., & Gabriel, Y. (1994). Paradigms of organizations: Exploration in textbook rhetorics . Organization, 1, 375-399 .
26.
Fleishman, E. A., & Harris, E. F. (1962). Patterns of leadership behavior related to employee grievances and turnover . Personnel Psychology, 15, 43-56 .
27.
Frost, P. J., Mitchell, V. F., & Nord, W. R. (1992). Organizational reality: Reports from the firing line (4th ed.). New York: HarperCollins .
28.
Gallos, J. V. (1997). On learning about diversity: A pedagogy of paradox [Editor’s corner]. Journal of Management Education, 21, 152-154 .
29.
Gherardi,S. (1998). Competence—The symbolic passe-partout to change in a learning organization . Scandinavian Journal of Management, 14, 373-393 .
30.
Glynn, M. A., Barr, P. S., & Dacin, M. T. (2000). Pluralism and the problem of variety . Academy of Management Review, 25, 726-734 .
31.
Goodman, P. S. (2000). Missing organizational linkages. Tools for cross-level research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .
32.
Guillén, M. (1997). Scientific management’s lost aesthetic: Architecture, organization, and the Taylorized beauty of the mechanical . Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 682-715 .
33.
House, R. J., Rousseau, D. M., & Thomas, M. (1995). The meso paradigm: A framework for the integration of macro and micro organizational behavior. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 15). Greenwich, CT: JAI .
34.
Kamoche, K., & Cunha, M. P. (2001). Minimal structures: From jazz improvisation to product innovation . Organization Studies, 22, 733-764 .
35.
Kamoche, K. N., Cunha, M. P., & Cunha, J. V. (Eds.). (2002). Organizational improvisation. London: Routledge .
36.
Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley .
37.
Kilduff, M., Angelmar, R., & Mehra, A. (2000). Top management-team diversity and firm performance: Examining the role of cognitions . Organization Science, 11, 21-34 .
38.
Lewis, M. W. (2000). Exploring paradox: Toward a more comprehensive guide . Academy of Management Review, 25, 760-776 .
39.
Lewis, M. W., & Dehler, G. E. (2000). Learning through paradox: A pedagogical strategy for exploring contradictions and complexity . Journal of Management Education, 24, 708-725 .
40.
Lewis, M. W., & Grimes, A. J. (2000). Metatriangulation: Building theory from multiple paradigms . Academy of Management Review, 24, 672-690 .
41.
Lundberg, C. (1994). Techniques for teaching OB in the college classroom. In J. Greenberg (Ed.), Organizational behavior.: The state of the science (pp. 221-244). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum .
42.
Mair, A. (1999). Learning from Honda . Journal of Management Studies, 36, 25-44 .
43.
Miller, D. (1993). The architecture of simplicity . Academy of Management Review, 18, 116-138 .
44.
Miller, D., & Chen, M. J. (1994). Sources and consequences of competitive inertia: A study in the U.S. airline industry . Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 1-23 .
45.
Miller, D., & Chen, M. J. (1996). The simplicity of corporate repertoires: An empirical analysis . Strategic Management Journal, 17, 419-439 .
46.
Mitchell, T. R., & Wood, R. E. (1980). Supervisors’responses to subordinate poor performance: A test of an attributional model . Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 25, 123-128 .
47.
Mitroff, I. I., & Mason, R. O. (1981). The metaphysics of policy and planning: A reply to Cosier . Academy of Management Review, 6, 649-652 .
48.
Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .
49.
Nonaka, I., & Ichijo, K. (1997). Creating knowledge in the process organization: A comment on Denison’s chapter. In P. Shrivastava, A. S. Huff, & J. E. Dutton (Eds.), Advances in strategic management (Vol. 14, pp. 45-52). Greenwich, CT: JAI .
50.
Nystrom, P. C., & Starbuck, W. H. (1984). To avoid organizational crises, unlearn . Organizational Dynamics, 12(4), 53-65 .
51.
O’Reilly, C. A. (1991). Organizational behavior: Where we’ve been, where we’re going . Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 427-458 .
52.
Packer, M. J. (1985). Hermeneutic inquiry in the study of human conduct . American Psychologist, 40, 1081-1093 .
53.
Pascale, R. T., & Christiansen,E. T. (1983a). Honda(A). Boston,MA: HarvardBusiness School .
54.
Pascale, R. T., & Christiansen,E. T. (1983b). Honda(B). Boston,MA: HarvardBusiness School .
55.
Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction . American Psychologist, 54, 741-754 .
56.
Roberts, K. H., Hulin, C. L., & Rousseau, D. M. (1978). Developing an interdisciplinary science of organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass .
57.
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attributional process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-220). New York: Academic Press .
58.
Rousseau, D. M. (1985). Issues of level in organizational research: Multi-level and cross-level perspectives. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 7, pp. 1-37). Greenwich, CT: JAI .
59.
Schweiger, D. M., Sandberg, W. R., & Ragan, J. W. (1986). Group approaches for improving strategic decision making: A comparative analysis of dialectical inquiry, devil’s advocacy, and consensus . Academy of Management Journal, 29, 51-71 .
60.
Starbuck, W. H., & Milliken, F. (1988). Challenger: Fine-tuningthe odds until something breaks . Journal of Management Studies, 25, 319-340 .
61.
Tsoukas, H., & Hatch, M. J. (2001). Complex thinking, complex practice: The case for a narrative approach to organizational complexity . Human Relations, 54, 979-1013 .
62.
Van de Ven, A. H., & Poole, M. S. (1995). Explaining development and change in organizations . Academy of Management Review, 20, 510-540 .
63.
Von Bertalanffy, L. (1956). General systems theory . General Systems: Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Theory, 1, 1-10 .
64.
Webster, J., & Starbuck, W. H. (1988). Theory building in industrial and organizational psychology. In C. L. Cooper & I. Robertson (Eds.), International review of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 93-138). London: Wiley .
65.
Weick, K. E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley .
66.
Weick, K. E. (1999). The aesthetic of imperfection in orchestras and organizations. In M. P. Cunha & C. A. Marques (Eds.), Readings in organization science (pp. 541-563). Lisbon: ISPA .
67.
Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. J. (1999). Knee-jerk anti-LOOPism and other e-mail phenomena: Oral, written, and electronic patterns in computer-mediated communication (Tech. Rep. No. 150). Cambridge, MA: Center for Coordination Science .
