Earlier this year, renowned historian Niall Ferguson authored a piece in Foreign Affairs which presented human civilisations as complex adaptive systems, in contrast with the traditional view of civilisations as moving through a gradual cyclical of growth and decline. As Ferguson argues, the cyclical model of civilisations has been long shared by historians, political theorists, anthropologists, [...]
Archive for the ‘Financial crisis’ Category
History on the edge of chaos
Posted in Chaos, Financial crisis, Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Strategy on September 14, 2010 | 9 Comments »
Complexity, crises and moving beyond recipes…
Posted in Chaos, Conflict and peace building, Financial crisis, Innovation, Institutions, Leadership, Natural disasters, Networks, Organisations, Public Policy, Self organisation on August 6, 2010 | 5 Comments »
The argument that modern organisations have to deal with complexity on a daily basis is fast becoming one of the least controversial statements any analyst, policy maker or practitioner can make. But what this actually means in practice is up for debate. Some suggest that there is little or no rigour in statements such as ‘the world [...]
From the Neoclassical Logic Piano to All That Jazz
Posted in Economics, Evolution, Financial crisis, Innovation, Public Policy, Resilience, tagged Agent-Based Modelling, Earthquakes on August 3, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Over on Rethinking Development Economics, a recent post highlights a provocative speech by Dr DeLisle Worrell, Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados. Worrell focused on the problems with economics today, with much of his talk given over to ‘complexity economics‘. To quote directly from Worrell: Our theories can’t deal with reality, so we ignore the real [...]
Global CEO survey reveals primary challenge as addressing the ‘complexity gap’
Posted in Financial crisis, Institutions, Leadership, Networks, Organisations, Reports and Studies on June 8, 2010 | 5 Comments »
IBM recently released the 2010 Global CEO Survey, its 4th such study since 2004, based on over 1,500 face-to-face interviews with private sector CEOs and senior public sector leaders from 33 different industries spread over sixty countries. A concise summary, drawing on work by Irving Wladawsky-Berger, is below. In the past three studies, CEOs consistently said that coping with change was [...]
Lessons rising from the ash
Posted in Financial crisis, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Natural disasters, Public Policy, Reports and Studies on May 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In the 1970s, systems thinker Russell Ackoff argued that some of the greatest problems happen when messy problems are dealt with as if they were simple puzzles. The true extent of interconnectedness and interdependence of the world we live in is ignored or downplayed until a crisis – i.e. when it is already too late. Time [...]
New York Times Article on Making Sense of Complexity
Posted in Conflict and peace building, Financial crisis, Healthcare, Public Policy, Strategy, Technology, Urbanisation, Water on May 2, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Today’s New York Times Review has a nice piece on ‘making sense of complexity’ which cites the work of Brenda Zimmerman, noted complexity specialist whose work on health systems has featured on two previous Aid on the Edge posts (here and here). Here it is in full: The Great Recession and the wars in Iraq and [...]
Bank of England Director uses complexity theory to explain global financial crisis
Posted in Economics, Financial crisis, Networks, Public Policy, Resilience, Strategy on December 16, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Andrew Haldane, Executive Director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England gave a speech earlier this year which focused on the idea of the global financial system as a complex adaptive system. In his speech, Haldane focuses on applying the lessons from other network disciplines – such as ecology, epidemiology, biology and engineering – to [...]
