Editor's introduction : complexity in organization studies

Why is complexity interesting in organization studies? There are many possible answers to this question. Leaders and other organizational actors are often tasked with 'managing' the complexity and uncertainty associated with getting things done in organizational life. In so doing they are expected to manage a number of contradictory 'goals', such as maintaining stability and enabling change, exerting control while fostering creativity and innovation and safeguarding identity while also encouraging diversity. The list of phenomena adding to the dynamics and complexity of organizational evolution is long. Particularly relevant in our current time, are the radically unpredictable organizing and disorganizing effects enabled by information and communication technologies. Complexity approaches in organization studies that address these issues are receiving increasing attention because they put the spotlight on how people in everyday relations in organizations both produce- and are able to cope with- uncertainty, unpredictability, paradoxes and surprising situations. In so doing, complexity becomes both a source of problems and difficulties as well as a source of creative potentiality in organizations.