This book reframes theoretical, methodological and practical approaches to public administration by drawing on complexity theory concepts. It aims to provide alternative perspectives on the theory, research and practice of public administration, avoiding assumptions of traditional theory-building. The contributors explain both how ongoing non-linear interactions result in macro patterns becoming established in a complexity-informed world view, and the implications of these dynamics. Complexity theory explains the way in which many repeated non-linear interactions among elements within a whole can result in processes and patterns emerging without design or direction, thus necessitating a reconsideration of the predictability and controllability of many aspects of public administration. As well as illustrating how complexity theory informs new research methods for studying this field, the book also shines a light on the different practices required of public administrators to cope with the complexity encountered in the public policy and public management fields. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Public Management Review journal.

Complexity theory has become popular in the natural and social sciences over the last few decades as a result of the advancements in our understanding of the complexities in natural and social phenomena. Concepts and methods of complexity theory have been applied by scholars of public affairs in North America and Europe, but a comprehensive framework for these applications is lacking. A Complexity Theory for Public Policy proposes a conceptual synthesis and sets a foundation for future developments and applications. In this book, Göktuğ Morçöl convincingly makes the case that complexity theory can help us understand better the self-organizational, emergent, and co-evolutionary characteristics of complex policy systems. In doing so, he discuss the epistemological implications of complexity theory and the methods complexity researchers use, and those methods they could use. As the complexity studies spread more around the world in the coming decades, the contents of this book will become appealing to larger audiences, particularly to scholars and graduate students in public affairs. The unique combination of synthesis and explanation of concepts and methods found in this book will serve as reference frames for future works.

Advances in public management sciences have long indicated the empirical finding that the normal state of public management systems is complex and that its dynamics are non-linear. Complex systems are subject to system pressures, system shocks, chance events, path-dependency and self-organisation. Arguing that complexity is an ever-present characteristic of our developed societies and governance systems that should be accepted, understood and adopted into management strategies, the original essays collected in this book aim to increase our understanding of complex governance processes and to propose new strategies for how public managers can deal with complexity in order to achieve high-quality research. The authors collected here use theoretical frameworks grounded in empirical research to analyze and explain how non-linear dynamics, self-organisation of many agents and the co-evolution of processes combine to generate the evolution of governance processes, especially for public urban and metropolitan investments. Managing Complex Governance Systems: Dynamics, Self-Organization and Coevolution in Public Investments offers readers an increased understanding of the main objective of public management in complexity--namely complex process system--and a strategy for accepting and dealing with complexity based on the idea of dual thinking and dual action strategies satisfying the desires of controlling processes and the need to adjust to changes simultaneously.

This book is a major advancement in the area of complexity and corporate governance. By bringing together a range of leading experts in the fields of complexity and corporate governance, this book manages to knowledgeably wed the emerging field of complex systems thinking with the more established area of corporate governance. It brings a range of new and exciting concepts, such as emergence, co-evolution and selforganisation, and integrates them into an overarching and holistic understanding of corporate governance that is a clear benefit to corporate actors and stakeholders. The book is a major resource for both academic and practitioner audiences.

This book provides a clear, concise and readable introduction to complexity thinking, its application to the social sciences and public policy, and the relevance of its tools to politics, health, the international realm, development, planning and terrorism.

The application of complexity theory to management and the social sciences has been a key development in theory and practice over the last decade. This approach questions the possibility of finding universal methods of practice, and proposes a pragmatic and humanistic management style that evolves out of a reflective method. The focus is on practitioners observing patterns of similarity and being adaptable in decision-making. Bringing complexity theory into management reveals the importance of organizational culture and effective communication because people, their values and their objectives are at the heart of this method. Information technology provides a framework for complex communication and knowledge use, but it cannot replace highly developed professional negotiations and cooperation. This book argues that the complexity of the public service world limits the usefulness of classical and rational scientific management approaches such as New Public Management. Excessive marketization threatens a collaborative approach and overly rigid approaches to performance management and strategic management can be dysfunctional. Managing Complexity in the Public Services 2nd Edition advances a method of management practice that copes with the stark realities of the complex and unpredictable public policy world. It develops pragmatic management practices from action research that will be valuable to both academics and practitioners. The result is a new value-based practice for the post-crisis public service world.

'Over recent years Complexity Science has revealed to us new limits to our possible knowledge and control in social, cultural and economic systems. Instead of supposing that past statistics and patterns will give us predictable outcomes for possible actions, we now know the world is, and will always be, creative and surprising. Continuous structural evolution within such systems may change the mechanisms, descriptors, problems and opportunities, often negating policy aims. We therefore need to redevelop our thinking about interventions, policies and policy making, moving perhaps to a humbler, more 'learning' approach. In this Handbook, leading thinkers in multiple domains set out these new ideas and allow us to understand how these new ideas are changing policymaking and policies in this new era.' - Peter M Allen, Cranfield University, UK