The Problem of Prediction and Control in Theoretical Diversity and the Promise of the Complexity Sciences

Abstract

Discovering the temporal limits to predictability is a prime area for research into a perspective of social organization as a complex adaptive system with emergent properties. However, to the extent that these insights on predictability and control apply to social systems, both the objectivist and subjectivist positions can be considered the true state of affairs. The purpose of this manuscript is to (a) examine the present state of theoretical diversity in organization theory, particularly, the notion of paradigm incommensurability, and (b) how the problem of prediction and control may be dealt with by the emerging complexity sciences.