The Implementation of Resilience Engineering to Enhance Organizational Innovation in a Complex Environment

A resilience engineering approach provides the space for innovation implementation and the focus on organizational and management innovation through complex adaptive systems in a complex environment.

Abstract

Becoming globally competitive has requires specific skills in developing economies as these environments arefar more complex. Business as a complex system requires acknowledgement that we cannot controlorganizations to the degree that a mechanistic perspective will. Moreover, as the system’s environment changes,so does the behaviour of its agents. Thus, the behaviour of the system as a whole can change. Linear strategiesand decision making techniques become irrelevant with a shift to patterns and relationships between entities.Developing economies, especially, are more prone to the implementation of non-linear solutions because of thenature of the variables, the changes and interplays between the variables, the significant human focus and theconsequent organic nature of the competitiveness. These variables introduce an unavoidable element ofunpredictability/randomness into any management decisions. Complexity allows for pattern recognition whichrequires focusing on competencies, activities, technologies or resources signaling patterns that will impact oninnovation, especially with respect to organizational, management and technological forms. Technology asknowledge is an intrinsic part of the pattern recognition the implementation of the above forms of innovation.This paper discusses the role of non linear management theories in a complex environment with regards to theseinnovations. In this sense, a resilience engineering approach provides the space for innovation implementationand the focus on organizational and management innovation through complex adaptive systems. The literatureabounds with research on product and process innovation but less is said about organizational, management ortechnological innovation and their implementation.