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There is a growing interest in applying the principles of biophilic design to hotel lobbies to enhance positive user experiences. However, there is little empirical research in this area, particularly for abstract or indirect biophilic approaches. The current study analyzed the biophilic strategy of “organized complexity” (which entails structured hierarchical patterns) in a hotel lobby in relation to attention restoration outcomes.

A virtual reality approach was used to create three lobby designs, differing only in their degree of organized complexity. A between-subjects study was conducted with 91 participants, evaluating reactions to the lobby designs in terms of perceived attention restoration, perceived environmental complexity and environmental preferences.

A strong positive relationship was found between participants' perception of environmental complexity and feelings of restoration. However, no statistically significant correlation was found between restoration and the objective measures of organized complexity. This suggests that individual preferences or baseline responses may play a crucial role in the benefits associated with this aspect of biophilic design.

The findings suggest a novel possibility – that responses to organized complexity may not be universal but may instead depend on an individual’s background and personal preferences. While the study found that perceived complexity was associated with restoration, the objective features of the environment that incited these perceptions were different for different participants. This indicates that more research is needed into potentially relevant personal factors.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how order‐generated rules applied to organizing form dualities can assist in creating the conditions for emergent, self‐organized behavior in organizations, thereby offering an operational deployment of complexity theory.

The paper begins by showing that the concept of dualities is consistent with complexity‐thinking. In addition, when applied to organizing forms, dualities represent a practical way of affecting an organization's balance between chaos and order. Thus, when augmented with order‐generating rules, organizing form dualities provide an access point for the practical instigation of edge of chaos conditions and the potential for emergence.

The paper maintains that many attempts to “manage” complexity have been associated with changes to organizing forms, specifically toward new forms of organizing. It is suggested that organizing form dualities provide some management guidance for encouraging the “edge of chaos” conditions advocated in complexity theory, although the details of self‐organization cannot be prescribed given the assumptions of non‐linearity associated with complexity theory perspectives. Finally, it is proposed that organizing dualities can elucidate the nature and application of order‐generating rules in non‐linear complex systems.

Dualities offer some guidance toward the practical implementation of complexity theory as they represent an accessible sub‐system where the forces for order and chaos – traditional and new forms of organizing respectively – are accessible and subject to manipulation.

The commonalities between dualities and complexity theory are intuitive, but little conceptual work has shown how the former can be employed as a guide to managing organizing forms. Moreover, this approach demonstrates that managers may be able to stimulate “edge of chaos” conditions in a practical way, without making positivistic assumptions about the causality associated with their efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to: give a brief history of the development of complexity science for people unfamiliar with the details of complexity science; describe the different types of complexity; discuss examples of the types of complexity, and introduce some ideas about how complexity could be introduced into education.

This paper summarizes other work in the field of complexity science, and organizes the results in a new way with the intent of making a difficult subject easier for the reader to understand.

Two different types of complexity are described – organized and unorganized. The focus of the paper is on organized complexity of which three categories are described – complicated, chaotic and critical. Examples, descriptions and characteristics of each category are given.

Suggestions are given as to how this transformational science could be integrated into education.

The paper summarizes other work in the field of complexity science, and organizes the results in a new way with the intent of making a difficult subject easier for the reader to understand.

The premise of this paper is that tension exists among participants and parties engaged in projects. The uniqueness of development virtually assures this. The purpose of this paper is to propose that tension is a product of the precursors of complexity, uncertainty and equivocality, and an attempt is made to characterize tension as it arises in projects – its genesis and its nature.

An in-depth case study was conducted in a manner in which the contextually sensitive empirical researches for which Nordic studies are known. Within discussions on the strategy, decision making, intra- and inter-project interdependencies and managing across development sites associated with a flagship project, 77 statements concerning tension were identified for analysis. Through a literature review, 12 tension-driving factors were identified. These factors were used as base for analysis.

These statements were analyzed for content to produce a model associating tension with its precursors and the literature on tension. It is found that due to innovation turbulence, tension-driving factors are cascaded in and around organization(s). Tension is manifested in various ways for different stakeholders and tension management is performed through cognitive and emotional responses. The texture of tension is characterized by fluidity, multiplicity and parallelism.

Case studies can of course not be generalized; they are valuable, however, in indicating important observations for further studies.

A contribution is made to management theory where knowledge about project context is seen as essential in order to understand best practices for project execution and effectiveness.

Although common, even virtually assured in projects, tension tends to be neglected in successful management. This study associates the genesis of tension through the underlying contributions of complexity, uncertainty and equivocality. It is believed to be the first study of its type.

This article aims to develop a conception consisting of insights from complexity theory and additional notions from Weick's sense‐making theory and existentialism for examining organization behaviour.

This paper carries out a literature review of Karl Weick's theory of sense‐making and some notions from existentialism to discuss the possible contributions to complexity theory and with this a further comprehension of organizational behaviour.

Four existential conditions, namely death, freedom, existentialism and meaninglessness, give a further comprehension of Weick's concept of equivocality. Equivocality is an important input for organizing processes. The complexity of organizing processes is an object for examining organizational behaviour from a complexity scientific standpoint. The authors argue that the concept of equivocality and with this the states of equilibrium in an organization can be approached with examining the states of the mentioned four existential conditions.

An important point of application for change managers in an organization is equivocality. The increase of equivocality will lead to a shift in the state of equilibrium in which new themes will emerge and corresponding organisational behaviour. The level of equivocality is due to the presence of existential fears. Hence, change managers should focus on existential themes and anxieties in an organization to advance emergent change.

New in this paper is the usage of notions from existentialism to elaborate Weick's conception of sense‐making. Also this paper discusses the possible contribution of this elaboration to research of organisational behaviour from the perspective of complexity theory.

Existing literature acknowledges information systems development (ISD) to be a complex activity. This complexity is magnified by the continuous changes in user requirements due to changing organizational needs in changing external competitive environments. Research findings show that, if this increasing complexity is not managed appropriately, information systems fail. The paper thus aims to portray the sources of complexity related to ISD and to suggest the use of complexity theory as a frame of reference, analyzing its implications on information system design and development to deal with the emergent nature of IS.

Conceptual analysis and review of relevant literature.

This article provides a conceptual model explaining how top‐down “official” and bottom‐up “emergent” co‐evolutionary adaptations of information systems design with changing user requirements will result in more effective system design and operation. At the heart of this model are seven first principles of adaptive success drawn from foundational biological and social science theory: adaptive tension, requisite complexity, change rate, modular design, positive feedback, causal intricacy, and coordination rhythm. These principles, translated into the ISD context, outline how IS professionals can use them to better enable the co‐evolutionary adaptation of ISD projects to changing stakeholder interests and broader environmental changes.

This paper considers and recognizes the different sources of complexity related to ISD before suggesting how they could be better dealt with. It develops a framework for change to deal with the emergent nature of ISD and enable more expeditious co‐evolutionary adaptation.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach for analyzing place making structure and processes and discuss strategies for inclusive place making in urban areas.

The theoretical approach is based on social systems theory and organization design theory, representing a constructionist and socio-structural approach to inclusive place making. The methodology is based on a comparative analysis of three cases of inclusive place making.

The main findings are that place making systems today lack the necessary complexity in their politics and planning to secure inclusive place making and fail to organize for face-to-face interactions in place making processes.

In a social systems approach, the author observes how place stakeholders and systems observe place making realities and problems and constructs place images. This introduces some degree of uncertainty into the analyses but constitutes an effective basis for studying inclusive strategy development.

The findings indicate that observing how place stakeholders construct their opinions about the problems and possibilities for inclusive place making and face-to-face interactions probably constitutes the best basis for practical support for inclusive place making.

The paper directs attention to the fact that current urban development strategies and policies toward inclusion of groups with limited resources today lack the necessary knowledge bases and means to deal effectively with the complexity related to current inclusion problems.

The paper demonstrates that an approach, which supplements the basic governance systems with face-to-face interactions, can deal effectively with today’s problems of inclusivity.

The scientific world has for a long time worked with linear tools to explain complex non‐linear phenomena. Also non‐linear relationships were transformed to linear in order to be handled. This was so despite the fact that nature has been giving us examples showing that the real world was complex, dynamic and non‐linear. This was so until developments in computer science provided the calculating means to the theory of complexity. Today, the theory of complexity is applied to many sciences and to disaster management as well. The application of complexity theory is attempted from a disaster management point of view. As the first attempt to incorporate management science into marine disaster prevention was the so‐called International Safety Management Code of the International Maritime Organization in 1998, we will attempt to connect the theory of complexity to the ISM code. The ISM code, being a safety standard, has been based on good management and organization rulesl. However, ISM code was accused of increasing the bureaucracy of the system with a result that no substance work could be done at the end. Moreover, a need has now emerged, i.e. to establish a “particular ISM code man” among the crewmen on board all ships. On the other hand, modern complexity management suggests more flat hierarchies where information travels faster, and this is something needed in a marine disaster.

Working to improve organizations is the mainstay of organization development (OD) practice and includes figuring out the sources of workplace disruptions and dysfunctions. Casting aside the focus of most change-management initiatives, the organization, organizing intelligence (OQ) relies on paying attention to what people actually do, making meaning of complex, messy human-social organizing activities, in the interests of fostering productive workplaces. Resting on dialog with and among participants “feeling their way” as they organize their work, OQ is an exercise in synthesis rather than analysis. A holistic understanding of organizing activities is helped by exploring the roles of a triad of closely interwoven factors – organizing structures, work-practices, and relationships – in how people get things done, while understanding how these are interconnected. This chapter examines why the capacity for OQ matters, why and how OQ differs from widely practiced, technically framed, organizational analysis, and what distinguishes people with OQ from those with a more conventional interest in organizational change. A case study of the Dutch home-nursing organization, Buurtzorg, illustrates OQ in practice. With small groups of nurses who self-organize, this is a structure that changes both the way people work and their relationships, to the benefit of nurses and the quality of life and care of their patients, while reducing costs; clearly an example of a more productive workplace.

To follow the modern movement of using “positive feedback” to explain companies' behaviour with special focus on historical accidents.

To contribute to the emergence of new complexity theory as applied to management and prove that historical accidents matter, combining and bringing together literature sources.

The concept of unique equilibrium has been seriously disputed – the selection process is shown, as is the path dependent process using probability theory.

A location theory as case study is outlined – great for those fond of unique equilibrium.

To show another theory, which is dynamic, non‐linear, and complex as reality; to apply it to management underlying at the same time the role of historical accidents (random process).