Managing Complexity: Insights, Concepts, Applications [Hardcover]

The essays and lectures collected in this book center around knowledge transfer from the complex-system sciences to applications in business, industry and society, as viewed from a  broad perspective. The contributions aim to raise awareness across the spectrum to meet the increasing need to integrate lessons from complexity research into everyday planning, decision making, logistics or optimization procedures and forecasting. The writing has been largely kept non-technical.

Each chapter in Managing Complexity focuses on analyzing real-world complex systems and transferring knowledge from the complex-systems sciences to applications in business, industry and society. The interdisciplinary contributions range from markets and production through logistics, traffic control, and critical infrastructures, up to network design, information systems, social conflicts and building consensus. They serve to raise readers' awareness concerning the often counter-intuitive behavior of complex systems and to help them integrate insights gained in complexity research into everyday planning, decision making, strategic optimization, and policy.

Intended for a broad readership, the contributions have been kept largely non-technical and address a general, scientifically literate audience involved in corporate, academic, and public institutions.

Managing Complexity: An Introduction.- Managing Complexity: An Introduction.- Markets and Business.- Market Segmentation: The Network Approach.- Managing Autonomy and Control in Economic Systems.- Complexity and the Enterprise: The Illusion of Control.- Logistics and Production.- Benefits and Drawbacks of Simple Models for Complex Production Systems.- Logistics Networks: Coping with Nonlinearity and Complexity.- Repeated Auction Games and Learning Dynamics in Electronic Logistics Marketplaces: Complexity, Bounded Rationality, and Regulation through Information.- Traffic.- Dl“7