Revisiting the complex adaptive systems paradigm: Leading perspectives for researching operations and supply chain management issues

• Author: Felix Reed‐Tsochas,Anand Nair
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1022
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019

INTRODUCTION

Revisiting the complex adaptive systems paradigm: Leading

perspectives for researching operations and supply chain

management issues

Anand Nair

1

| Felix Reed-Tsochas

2

1

Department of Supply Chain Management,

Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan

State University, East Lansing, Michigan

2

Saïd Business School, University of

Oxford, Oxford

Correspondence

Anand Nair, Department of Supply Chain

Management, Eli Broad College of

Business, Michigan State University, East

Lansing, MI 48824.

Email: nair@broad.msu.edu

Handling Editor: Tyson Browning

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual model for a renewed consideration of the complex

adaptive systems (CAS) perspective in operations and supply chain management

research. A literature review identifies the approaches taken in published research to

examine issues such as complexity, adaptation, and emergent behavior. We present a

revised conceptual framework that offers directions for embracing key tenets from

CAS research so as to gain deeper insights into pertinent issues within the field. We

introduce the articles that are part of this special issue and highlight how these articles

relate to the conceptual framework proposed in the paper. We also propose some meth-

odological directions that can help in undertaking rigorous investigations of some

important aspects that have theoretical and managerial significance.

KEYWORDS

adaptation, co-evolution, complex adaptive systems, complexity, emergent behavior, nonlinear

dynamics

1|INTRODUCTION

In much of the research focusing on operations and supply

chain management (OSCM) issues, we consider the simplis-

tic conceptions of organizational and interorganizational

structures, linear relationships between practices and perfor-

mance, and ignore the adaptive nature of strategies and pro-

cesses. OSCM, however, involves adapting to changes in

the complex global networks of organizations. Because

organizations adapt and can exist in a complex environment

with myriad relationships and interactions (Miller & Page,

2007), it is a natural step to situate OSCM issues within a

complex adaptive systems (CAS) paradigm (Choi, Dooley, &

Rungtusanatham, 2001; Nair, Narasimhan, & Choi, 2009;

Pathak, Day, Nair, Sawaya, & Kristal, 2007). A CAS per-

spective makes it possible to incorporate increasing realism

and empirical data into research models, making it more

likely that these models can be understood in a practical

business setting (Anderson, 1999). This increase in realism

has been demonstrated across diverse application areas

(VanWinkle, Van Winkle, Rose, & Chambers, 1993; Grimm,

1999; Grimm et al., 2005; A xtell, 2003; Epstein & Axt ell,

1996), as well as the use of complex empirical data from busi-

ness organizations (Boal & Schultz, 2007; Nilsson & Darley,

2006; Saavedra, Reed-Tsochas, & Uzzi, 2008; Saavedra,

Reed-Tsochas, & Uzzi, 2009).

As an example, in a paper published in Nature, Saavedra

et al. (2009) built on stochastic models of interactions

between species in an ecological setting and proposed a

model that reproduces the overall bipartite structure of coop-

erative interactions between partnering species (i.e., plants

and animals). The stochastic model uses simple specializa-

tion and interaction rules and successfully replicates the

degree distribution,

1

nestedness,

2

and modularity

3

of not

only pollination data sets in ecology but also of

The authors are grateful for the insightful comments from the co-Editors-in-

Chief and an anonymous reviewer in improving the paper.

DOI: 10.1002/joom.1022

80 © 2019 Association for Supply Chain Management, Inc. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joom J Oper Manag. 2019;65:80–92.