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Emergence: Complexity & OrganizationAn International Transdisciplinary Journal of
Complex Social Systems
VOLUME 16, Number 1, 2014Complexity and Administrative Learning
Guest EditorJack Meek
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ROBERT JERVIS University of Columbia, USAALICIA JUARRERO Prince George’s Community College, USAROBERT KAY University of Technology, Sydney, AUSRICHARD KNOWLES The SOLiance Group, USALEV LEVITIN Boston University, USASTEVE MAGUIRE McGill University, CANIGOR MATUTINOVIC GfK: Center for Market Research, HRVDAN MCGRATH IBM Corporation, USAELIZABETH MCMILLAN Open University, UKGERALD MIDGLEY University of Hull, UKEVE MITLETON-KELLY London School of Economics, UKGARETH MORGAN Imaginization Inc., CANDT OGILVIE Rutgers Business School, USAPASCAL PEREZ Australian National University, AUSNICHOLAS C. PEROFF University of Missouri-Kansas City, USAMARIO ANTONIO RIVERA University of New Mexico, USAENZO RULLANI Ca’ Foscari University, ITAANDREW TAIT Idea Sciences, USAROBERT E. ULANOWICZ University of Maryland, USAWILLARD UNCAPHER Network Emergence, USAMARIUS UNGERER USB, ZAFLIZ VARGA Cranfield School of Management, UKCAROL WEBB University of Sheffield, UKMAURICE YOLLES Liverpool John Moores University, UKRODRIGO ZEIDAN University of Nottingham, CHN
Editors-in-ChiefPETER ALLEN, Complex Systems Research Centre, Cranfield University, Bedford, UK
JEFFREY GOLDSTEIN, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USDAVID SNOWDEN, Cognitive Edge, UK
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Founding Editor of EmergenceMICHAEL LISSACK, ISCE, Naples, FL, USA
Graphic DesignMARSHALL CLEMENS, Idiagram, Boston, MA, USA
Subject EditorsInnovation & Networks: PIERPAOLO ANDRIANI, Durham University, UK
Organizational Knowledge & Learning: ELENA ANTONACOPOULOU, University of Liverpool, UKStrategy, Leadership & Change: DOUGLAS GRIFFIN, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Economics & Markets: STAN METCALFE, University of Manchester, UKPhilosophy: RIKA PREISER & JANNIE HOFMEYR, Department of Philosophy, Stellenbosch University, ZAF
Methodology: PEDRO SOTOLONGO, Instituto de Filosofia de La Habana, CUB
Emergence: Complexity & OrganizationAn International Transdisciplinary Journal of
Complex Social Systems
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VOLUME 16, Number 1, 2014Special Issue
Complexity and Administrative Learning
CONTENTS
ContentsEditorial: Complexity theory and administrative learning—Adaptive practices in complex governance systems.................................................................................................1
Jack Meek
Special Issue PapersInstitutional interventions in complex urban systems: Coping with boundary issues in urban planning projects ................................................................................................7
Stefan Verweij, Ingmar F. van Meerkerk, Joop F.M. Koppenjan & Harry Geerlings
Decision making in complex public service systems: Features and dynamics ................................................................24
Jack Meek & Mary Lee Rhodes
Complex multi-state transportation collaborative ............42Perry D. Gross
Making ecosystem-based management effective: identifying and evaluating empirical approaches to the governance of knowledge ..................................................60
Diana Giebels & Victor N. de Jonge
Planning for adaptivity: Facing complexity in innovative urban water squares ...............................................77
Nanny Bressers & Jurian Edelenbos
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Complexity and PhilosophyDefining and exploring a complex system’s relational spaces ..............................................................................................100
Gus Koehler
Classic PaperThe notion of emergence ........................................................131
E.S. Russell, C.R. Morris and W. Leslie Mackenzie (with an introduction by Jeffrey A. Goldstein)
ForumAdjacent opportunities: Mindful complexity.................... 169
Ron Schultz
Calling notices and announcements ...........................................................173Featured image ....................................................................................................181
CONTENTS(continued)
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Editorial: Complexity theory and administrative learning
Editorial: Complexity theory and administrative learning—Adaptive practices in complex governance systemsJack W. MeekCollege of Business and Public Management, University of La Verne, USA
Complexity and administrative learning
In addition to addressing citizen interests, the demands placed on public admin-istration include coordinating interests among public agencies with differential jurisdictional authorities and working with private institutions influenced by proj-
ect priorities and stakeholders. Policy initiatives designed to ameliorate social issues or enhance public service are often characterized by very different perspectives and competing interests. These initiatives very often carry unknown or partially known challenges for administration to consider and incorporate in the design and imple-mentation of public service. Managing uncertainties (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2004) is now a known common characteristic of contemporary public administration.
Public and social issues are often difficult to address as they contain unresolved differences among stakeholder preferences and policy initiatives offer only a direction for social action and resolve. These policy settings are complex in that the issues ad-dressed embody competing stakeholder values and often competing administrative jurisdictions and prerogatives. Indeed, many social issues and public services—health, transportation, safety, environment, and income distribution—are cross-boundary and cross-institutional in nature. These kinds of cross-jurisdictional issues represent a condition referred to by H. George Frederickson (1999) as the ‘disarticulated state’ where administrative driven solutions coordinated across jurisdictions can be found (Linden, 2002; Meek & Lyu, 2010; Frederickson & Meek, 2011). These kinds of cross-jurisdictional issues are also the source of administrative collaboration (Agranoff, 2012) and collaborative management (O’Leary & Bingham, 2009).
For some time, scholars have drawn on the potential of complexity theory to ad-dress policy development (Tait & Richardson, 2009; Morcol, 2012), decision-making (Gerrits, 2012; Rhodes et al., 2012), managing governance networks (Kickert et al.,
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1997), governance systems (Teisman et al., 2009) and the public agency management (Keil, 1994) of public service in complex public settings. Readers of this journal are familiar with these important advances, including previous efforts published in this journal examining applications of complexity theory for public administration (Meek, 2010).
The result of the network governance and complexity-related research is impres-sive in that scholars are now more familiar with and have identified the nuances of managing and governance within complex systems. The promise of complexity theory has drawn attention to patterns of administration and management that are found in areas characterized by highly interdependent organizations, continuous interactions among stakeholders and where no single authority or sovereign operates directly within the system. The promising themes derived from complexity theory include an improved understanding of emergent behavior, self-organization and adaptive prac-tices. Two important advances in the field are important to mention here: the devel-opment of emergent rules (Rhodes, 2008) in complex decision making environments and the appearance of complexity-friendly management approaches in the context of institutional fragmentation (Koppenjan et al., 2011; Buijs, 2010; Meek, 2011). Both emergent rules and approaches reflect deeply administrative practices that are tools or instruments constructed in complex settings. These constructions are representa-tive of administrative learning and evolution that construct bridges or administrative adaptations among competing stakeholder interests and develop a kind of architec-ture to support a path forward in strengthening nuanced solutions within complex settings.
The articles of this symposium continue this effort to improve our understand-ing of how complexity theory informs the practice of governance. In an initial confer-ence sponsored by Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in July 2011, COMPACT Work I—The Challenges of Making Public Administration and Complexity Theory Work—papers were shared among scholars that examined central features of complexity theory that would be relevant for public administration with some illus-trating efforts of applying complexity theory to public administration practice. These works were published in the volume Administration in Complexity (Gerrits & Marks, 2012). The papers selected for this symposium for Emergence: Complexity & Organi-zation were selected from COMPACT II, held in June 2013 at the University of La Verne, La Verne California. The central focus of these papers is on decision-making and plan-ning in complex settings. To improve our understanding of decision making in com-plex governance settings, these papers examine the significance of boundary deci-sions, emergent rules and structures, collaborative dialogue, and adaptive planning.
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Stefan Verweij, Ingmar F. van Meerkerk, Joop F.M. Koppenjan & Harry Geerlings in their paper, “Institutional interventions in complex urban systems: Coping with bound-ary issues in urban planning projects” offer an overarching frame for this symposium by examining how three urban planning projects in Rotterdam—planned through in-stitutional arrangements that redrew project boundaries—initially facilitated and then threatened the success of projects. The authors argue that in establishing projects that calls upon the redrawing of institutional boundaries—typical of multi-jurisdictional ur-ban projects—management must then anticipate ways to cope with new challenges to projects that emerge due to the initially redesigned arrangements.
As a connection to this observation, “Decision making in complex public service systems: Features and dynamics,” Jack W. Meek and Mary Lee Rhodes identify both emergent decision rules and structures that are symptomatic of agencies operating in these kinds of environments. Through the examination of seven cases in Ireland and one in the United States, the authors examine factors that influence decision mak-ing in complex public service systems in order to distinguish decision processes form those identified in traditional settings.
Perry Gross, in “Complex multi-state transportation collaborative,” examines a multi-year, multi-state (California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming) collaboration convened through virtual environments by Nevada’s Transportation Department. Seeking a cross-jurisdictional consensus regarding the development of a common transporta-tion structure, the assessment of the collaborative dialogue reveals stakeholder adap-tations are evident and that complexity conditions require more time than anticipated.
In their work, “Making ecosystem-based management effective: Identifying and evaluating approaches to the governance of knowledge,” Diana Giebels and Victor de Jonge identify, describe and explore four different types of Ecosystem-Based Manage-ment (EBM) knowledge governance approaches—holistic, database, alignment, and assessment.
In this examination, it is observed that while each approach aims to reach evi-dence-based decision-making, each knowledge approach implies a different type of planning leading to differences as to when and how knowledge is connected to the decision-making process. The authors evaluate whether and to what extent each of the planning approaches is capable of coping with ecosystem knowledge challenges —knowledge reflecting the volatile and dynamic character of ecosystems, the lack of knowledge, the uncertainty of knowledge, the contestation of knowledge, and knowl-edge limited to one institution—rising from the complexity of the socio-ecological
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system they intend to govern. The authors conclude that these approaches are not sufficient to meet the demands of EBM approaches and additional knowledge man-agement efforts are needed.
In a reflective paper that closes our symposium, Nanny Bressers and Jurian Edelen-bos in “Planning for adaptivity: Facing complexity in innovative urban water squares” assess how different forms of planning are related to the implementation of inno-vative urban projects. In their examination, the authors found that planners actively incorporate contingency and (dissipative) self-organization—derivatives of concepts found in complexity theory—along with traditional blue-print planning in approach-ing the design and implementation of projects. In the assessment of a Water Square project in Rotterdam, this finding leads the authors to assert the need for ‘situational responsive leadership’ that relies upon a mixture of adaptive and traditional project planning elements.
Boundary design, emergent rules/structures, collaborative dialogue, ecosystem-based management approaches and situational responsible leadership are impor-tant contributions to our continued exploration of how complexity theory continues to offer fruitful insight into improving public management of complex governance systems. The demands on administrative leadership to meaningfully incorporate in-terests within new project boundaries, to improve ecosystem-based management approaches, to enhance coordination with new rules and structures and to develop ‘situational responsive leadership’ are the contributions established by the authors in this symposium. Governance of complex systems includes the management of uncer-tainties that are very much part of contemporary public administration. The research presented in this symposium illustrate evolving strategies within complex governance systems—administrative learning—that are informed by complexity theory and guide our theory and practice.
ReferencesAgranoff, B. (2012). Collaborating to Manage: A Primer for the Public Sector, ISBN
9781589019164.Buijs, J.M. (2010). “Understanding connective capacity of program management from a
self-organization perspective,” in K.A. Richardson, W. Gregory and G.Midgely (eds.), Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISBN 9780979168857, pp. 29-38.
Frederickson, G.H. (1999) “The repositionong of American public administration” PS: Political Science and Politics, ISSN 1049-0965, 32(4): 701-711.
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Frederickson, G.H. and Meek (2011). “Bureaucratie sans frontiéres: Legitimacy, authority, accountability in geo-governance systems,” in E. Ongaro, A. Massey, M. Holzer, and E. Wayenberg (eds.), Policy, Performance and Management in Governance and Intergovernmental Relations: Transatlantic Perspectives, ISBN 9781848443204.
Gerrits, L. and Marks, P. (eds.) (2012). COMPACT I: Public Administration in Complexity, ISBN 9781938158018.
Keil, D.L. (1994). Managing Chaos and Complexity in Government: A New Paradigm for Managing Change, Innovation and Renewal, ISBN 9780787900236.
Kickert, W., Klijn, E., and Koppenjan, J. (1997). Managing Complex Networks: Strategies for the Public Sector, ISBN 9780761955481.
Koppenjan, J.F.M., Veenemanb, W., van der Voortb, H., ten Heuvelhofb, E., and Leijten, M. (2011). “Competing management approaches in large engineering projects: The Dutch RandstadRail project,” International Journal of Project Management, ISSN 0263-7863, 29(6): 740-750.
Koppenjan, J.F.M. and Klijn, E.H. (2004). Managing Uncertainties in Networks: Public Private Controversies, ISBN 9780415369411.
Linden, R.M. (2002). Working across Boundaries: Making Collaboration Work in Government and Non-Profit Organizations, ISBN 9780787964306.
Meek, J.W. and Lyu, H.K. (2010). “Bridging jurisdictions: Conservancies working across borders as adaptive systems,” in K.A. Richardson, W.J. Gregory, and G. Midgley (eds.), Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISBN 9780979168857, pp. 39-51.
Meek, J.W. (2010). “Complexity theory for public administration and policy,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 12(1): 1-4.
Morcol, G. (2012). Complexity Theory for Public Policy, ISBN 9781138015746.Tait, A. and Richardson, K.A. (eds.) (2011). Moving Forward with Complexity: Proceedings of
the 1st International Workshop on Complex Systems Thinking and Real World Applications, ISBN 9780984216598.
O’Leary, R. and Bingham, L.B. (eds.) (2009). The Collaborative Public Manager: New Ideas for the Twenty-first Century, ISBN 9781589012233.
Rhodes, M.L. (2008). “Complexity in public management: The case of urban regeneration in Ireland,” Public Management Review, ISSN 1471-9045, 10(3): 361-379.
Rhodes, M.L, Murphy, J., Muir, J., Murray, J.A. (2012). Public Management and Complexity Theory: Richer Decision-Making in Public Services, ISBN 9780415457538.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1997). Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability, ISBN 9780335197279.
Schulman, P.R. (1976). “The reflexive organization: On decisions, boundaries and the policy process,” The Journal of Politics, ISSN 0022-3816, 38(4): 1014-1023.
Tait, A. and Richardson, K.A. (eds.) (2011). Moving Forward with Complexity: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Complex Systems Thinking and Real World Applications, ISBN 9780984216598.
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Teisman, G., Buuren, A.V. and Gerrits, L.M. (2009). Managing Complex Governance Systems: Dynamics, Self-Organization and Coevolution in Public Investments, ISBN 9780415459730.
Verweij, S., Klijn, E.H., Edelenbos, J. and Van Buuren, A. (2013). “What makes governance networks work? A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of 14 Dutch spatial planning projects,” Public Administration, ISSN 1467-9299, 91(4): 1035-1055.
AcknowledgementsI extend my appreciation to the participants in COMPACT II for their commitment to exploring how complexity theory can inform public administration and to reviewers of the articles in this symposium for their contributions. I wish to thank Dean Abe Helou, College of Business and Public Management, for supporting this effort.
Jack W. Meek, Ph.D. is a Professor of Public Administration, Fellow of the University of La Verne Academy and Director of the Master of Public Administration Program. His research focuses on metropolitan governance including the emergence of administrative connections and relationships in local government, regional collaboration and partnerships, policy networks and citizen engagement. Jack coauthored Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy (CRC Press, 2011) and coedited Networked Governance: The Future of Intergovernmental Management (CQ Press 2012) and Business Improvement Districts: Research, Theories and Controversies (2008). Jack has also edited symposia on complexity Theory in Emergency: Complexity & Organization (2010) and coedited a symposium on Integrity in Public Administration in Public Integrity (2012).
Knowledge Cartography by Marco QuaggiottoKnowledge Cartography is part of a PhD research on the visual representation of knowledge. The aim of the research is to extend the cartographic metaphor beyond visual analogy, and to expose it as a narrative model and tool to in-tervene in complex, heterogeneous, dynamic realities, just like those of human geography.
The map is thus not only a passive representation of reality but a tool for the production of meaning. Just like a text, the map makes selections on reality, distorts events, classifies and clarifies the world in order to selections better tell a particular aspect of a territory, an event, a space.
The images shown here are screenshots taken from ATLAS, the application that’s being developed to explore the possibilities of the application of a car-tographic metaphor to the realms of knowledge. The concept of ATLAS in this context doesn’t only depict a list of maps, but rather a system of representa-tions of space, a communication device aimed at representing complex con-texts through the use of many partial overlapping narrations: a network of maps, diagrams, texts and peritexts, combined together to describe the space of research in its multifaceted aspects.
For more details visit:
http://www.knowledgecartography.org/
If you have an image—which may be a photograph, complex computer gener-ated image, or some interesting data—that you’d like to have published in full color on a future issue of E:CO then please send it along to [email protected] along with a paragraph or two describing what the image depicts and how it was created.
