Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for a Narrative Approach to Organizational Complexity

TLDR

Complexity is both a property of systems and a way of organizing our thinking about them. The article develops second‑order complexity by contrasting Bruner’s logico‑scientific and narrative modes of thinking. The authors use Bruner’s framework to critique logico‑scientific thinking about organizational complexity and propose narrative‑based alternatives. Evidence from complexity theory supports the narrative mode, and applying it to recursiveness and other features such as nonlinearity, indeterminacy, unpredictability, and emergence demonstrates its value.

Abstract

Complexity is not only a feature of the systems we study, it is also a matter of the way in which we organize our thinking about those systems. This second-order complexity invites consideration of the modes of thinking we use to theorize about complexity, and in this article we develop the idea of second-order complexity using Jerome Bruner’s contrast between logico-scientific and narrative modes of thinking. Using Bruner’s framework, we examine and critique dominant forms of thinking about organizational complexity that are rooted in the logico-scientific mode, and suggest alternatives based in the narrative mode. Our evidence for the value of doing this comes from the logic of complexity theory itself, which we claim indicates and supports the use of the narrative mode. The potential contribution of the narrative approach to developing second-order thinking about organizational complexity is demonstrated by taking a narrative approach to the matter of recursiveness. By extension, similar insights are indicated for other features that logico-scientific thinkers commonly attribute to complex systems, including, nonlinearity, indeterminacy, unpredictability and emergence.