Strategic Implications from Complexity Science Perspective

Complexity Science or Complex System Theory originates from the research fields such as Mathematics, Economics, and Biology. It covers many different disciplines, including Complexity Theory, Catastrophe Theory, Dissipative Structure, Chaos Theory, Fractal Theory, and Self-Organized Criticality, etc., and can be generally called “complexity science perspective”. Due to the fast-changing environment and increasing emphasis on process research orientation, social sciences are trying to apply complexity science perspective in related studies. However, many of them are inclined to merely grasp part of concepts or tools for analysis, because of the limitation of theoretical diversity. In essence, different disciplines focus on the same complex system. It is possible to weaken the understanding of the overall system dynamics and obscure the contribution of complexity science perspective if the concepts are only separately applied. Therefore, by thoroughly investigating different disciplines, we concludes common core concepts and derives four strategic implications, including cultivating or choosing far from equilibrium conditions, constructing attractors to initiate self-organization, leveraging self-organization to reinforce attractors’ influence, and managing feedback process to facilitate emergence of macro-structure. The strategic implications include the full process of system evolution to clarify the value of complexity science perspective and can be referred for future studies.