Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview
Digitalization increasingly enforces organizations to accommodate changes and gain resilience. Emerging technologies, changing organizational structures and dynamic work environments bring opportunities and pose new challenges to organizations. Such developments, together with the growing volume and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-10-01
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| Series: | Information |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/12/10/423 |
| _version_ | 1797514302436933632 |
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| author | Aleksandra Revina Ünal Aksu Vera G. Meister |
| author_facet | Aleksandra Revina Ünal Aksu Vera G. Meister |
| author_sort | Aleksandra Revina |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Digitalization increasingly enforces organizations to accommodate changes and gain resilience. Emerging technologies, changing organizational structures and dynamic work environments bring opportunities and pose new challenges to organizations. Such developments, together with the growing volume and variety of the exchanged data, mainly yield complexity. This complexity often represents a solid barrier to efficiency and impedes understanding, controlling, and improving processes in organizations. Hence, organizations are prevailingly seeking to identify and avoid unnecessary complexity, which is an odd mixture of different factors. Similarly, in research, much effort has been put into measuring, reviewing, and studying complexity. However, these efforts are highly fragmented and lack a joint perspective. Further, this negatively affects the complexity research acceptance by practitioners. In this study, we extend the body of knowledge on complexity research and practice addressing its high fragmentation. In particular, a comprehensive literature analysis of complexity research is conducted to capture different types of complexity in organizations. The results are comparatively analyzed, and a <i>morphological box</i> containing three aspects and ten features is developed. In addition, an established <i>multi-dimensional complexity framework</i> is employed to synthesize the results. Using the findings from these analyses and adopting the <i>Goal Question Metric</i>, we propose a <i>method for complexity management</i>. This method serves to provide key insights and decision support in the form of extensive guidelines for addressing complexity. Thus, our findings can assist organizations in their complexity management initiatives. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T06:29:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-950e7b2eb2fa410688f1f69e77cf9b3f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2078-2489 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T06:29:58Z |
| publishDate | 2021-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Information |
| spelling | doaj.art-950e7b2eb2fa410688f1f69e77cf9b3f2023-11-22T18:37:56ZengMDPI AGInformation2078-24892021-10-01121042310.3390/info12100423Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive OverviewAleksandra Revina0Ünal Aksu1Vera G. Meister2Chair of Information and Communication Management, Faculty of Economics and Management, Technical University of Berlin, 10623 Berlin, GermanyDepartment of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The NetherlandsFaculty of Economics, Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, 14770 Brandenburg an der Havel, GermanyDigitalization increasingly enforces organizations to accommodate changes and gain resilience. Emerging technologies, changing organizational structures and dynamic work environments bring opportunities and pose new challenges to organizations. Such developments, together with the growing volume and variety of the exchanged data, mainly yield complexity. This complexity often represents a solid barrier to efficiency and impedes understanding, controlling, and improving processes in organizations. Hence, organizations are prevailingly seeking to identify and avoid unnecessary complexity, which is an odd mixture of different factors. Similarly, in research, much effort has been put into measuring, reviewing, and studying complexity. However, these efforts are highly fragmented and lack a joint perspective. Further, this negatively affects the complexity research acceptance by practitioners. In this study, we extend the body of knowledge on complexity research and practice addressing its high fragmentation. In particular, a comprehensive literature analysis of complexity research is conducted to capture different types of complexity in organizations. The results are comparatively analyzed, and a <i>morphological box</i> containing three aspects and ten features is developed. In addition, an established <i>multi-dimensional complexity framework</i> is employed to synthesize the results. Using the findings from these analyses and adopting the <i>Goal Question Metric</i>, we propose a <i>method for complexity management</i>. This method serves to provide key insights and decision support in the form of extensive guidelines for addressing complexity. Thus, our findings can assist organizations in their complexity management initiatives.https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/12/10/423organizational complexitytechnological complexitytextual complexitymorphological boxgoal question metric |
| spellingShingle | Aleksandra Revina Ünal Aksu Vera G. Meister Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview Information organizational complexity technological complexity textual complexity morphological box goal question metric |
| title | Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview |
| title_full | Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview |
| title_fullStr | Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview |
| title_full_unstemmed | Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview |
| title_short | Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview |
| title_sort | method to address complexity in organizations based on a comprehensive overview |
| topic | organizational complexity technological complexity textual complexity morphological box goal question metric |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/12/10/423 |
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