COMPLEXITY IN ORGANIZATIONS
AND ENVIRONMENT - ADAPTIVE CHANGES
AND ADAPTIVE DECISION-MAKING
Robert Fabac
Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of ZagrebVaraždin, Croatia
Received: 14. May 2010. Accepted: 30. June 2010.
ABSTRACT
The features of complexity are ever more present in modern organizations and in environments in which they operate, trying to survive and be as competitive as possible.) In the processes of, the so-called emergence, the formal organizational structure, designed purposefully and with a plan, is going through a change due to complexity and the need for adaptation. As a result, there is a variety of new informal groups. At the same time, the intended structural changes and business process changes occur because of the perception that the leadership and senior organizational management have of the strategic situation. Managers in modern organizations often use business intelligence (BI) systems when making important business decisions. These systems offer support to the decision-making by gathering and processing relevant data and information about the company performance, but also about the data on conditions in close and remote environment. A modern company is characterized by the complex adaptive system, but the environment in which it operates together with other business subjects (agents) is also complex. Consequently, the requirements for appropriate or optimal decisions and successfully completed activities are hard to meet. Given that expected future events and circumstances often occur in nonlinear mechanisms, the decisions made by following the models of traditional predicting and planning are not satisfactory. This calls for new approaches to decision making and acting.
KEY WORDS
complexity, complex adaptive systems, business intelligence, decision-making
CLASSIFICATION
JEL: D21, D73, L22
Full paper as pdf version.