Understanding Organizations in Complex, Emergent and Uncertain Environments: An Introduction

Abstract

We live in uncertain and challenging times, ripe for the study of complexity in the environments that organizations face. Organizations’ environmental uncertainty and complexity have been typically examined under the light of well-established approaches such as open systems theory (Emery and Trist, 1965) or resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). These approaches contribute to (a) identifying external constituencies and their role, demands or needs when interacting with organizations, and (b) determining the ways in which organizations respond to external demands (Child, 1997). The organization-environment fit construct that emerged from these approaches has guided scholars’ work to identify fit dimensions focusing on diagnosing the extent to which an organization matches or differs from its environment’s requirements and demands (e.g. Miller, 1992).