Complexity and the Phenomenological Structure of 'Surprise'

Abstract

Surprising, unexpected events happen all the time which can be thought of and addressed in a variety of ways. On one hand, can be something that is not desired, something suppressed or controlled for. Or, it can be something that is embraced, sought out or encouraged. Conceptually speaking, conceiving in this fashion is not uncommon. Still, there seems to be an important piece missing from the many discourses on surprise. This paper offers some a possible framework to understand the experience of in relation to a more complexified framing of the lived-experience. Specifically, by drawing upon principles from the complexity sciences, this paper considers the lived human experience of as an emergent phenomenon that arises from a complex system. Introduction The phenomenon of is typically understood to be a special event that happens to people where the surprising event may be thought of as a good or a bad experience. Moreover, for many people who manage or direct the actions of others in an organization (like many workplaces), surprises are seen to be unwelcome moments that sometimes evoke a feeling of discomfort, prompting the need to know more, plan better, or design better systems to avoid the possibility of any unexpected surprises (McDaniel et al., 2003; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). Certainly, it is possible to attend to many different kinds of organizations to find examples of how human expectation and certainty, as well as, and surprise, affect and shape our knowledge and actions within those organizations (Stacey, 1992). It is not, however, the aim of this paper to explore organizational contexts for an understanding of surprise. Rather, it is the idea that and are particular kinds of experience. In the complexity science literature, however, the experience of is not, by and large, something that is discussed, but is taken up in slightly different ways - often, for instance, psychologized, framed by the notions of bounded rationality and a lack of information (Simon, 1991). Nevertheless, it is the aim of this paper to suggest some connections that can be made between the experience of and a complexity science interpretation of surprise. As such, in this paper, I outline a view of surprise and unexpectedness framed by the philosophical branch of phenomenology, further interpreted through the lens of complexity and some of its attendant principles. In doing so, this paper seeks to illuminate the notion of by tending to the common ground of complexity and lived-experience. Phenomenological Research: Finding A Methodological Middle Ground Phenomenological research might appear to be antithetical to the work of science. After all, whereas matters of methods and technique, which are quite antithetical to the spirit of phenomenological research, are not fitting in any purely prescriptive sense (van Manen, 1990), science requires some attention to methods of study and tools and techniques: scientific can create a certain illusion of control and knowability, but then difficulties and tensions can arise. For example, as Barritt (1983: 4) and her colleagues write, techniques of collecting information are more important than what the collection is all about-that is, the thing one is trying to understand. There is too much talk about things which matter very little-numbers, methods, contexts stripped of their meaning in the name of research-and too little about the important events-the real stuff of life.... To suggest, however, that science is the same as methodological in the derogatory sense of the word reductionism, is short-sighted. In fact, any sort of methodology - the scientific method, for example - in a prescriptive sense, as when one follows a recipe, is bound to fail to capture in any real sense the messiness of doing research, particularly research about livedexperience. …