STREAM 4
Social Innovation and Complexity

Intersections with Complexity 

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Complexity science, and complexity lenses more broadly, have been a part of social innovation and social enterprise research for several decades, and this fertile set of lenses are likely to increase in their centrality as social innovation scholarship continues its engagement with identified complex societal challenges. The climate crisis, extreme inequality, (de)colonialism, pandemics and more problems we face today present challenges that seem to resist conventional planning approaches to societal problem-solving (Hassan, 2014; Leach et al 2010; Rittel and Webber, 1973). Yet in considering social innovation pedagogy, practice and indeed research, the complexity lens’ importance needs to be more fully articulated, brought into the light and appreciated as both central to our related disciplines under the social innovation umbrella and potentially transformative to our practices, institutions, and wider systems. 

But, as we often say, complexity is not just an intense form of complicated (French et al, 2022).  A complexity lens builds on at least a century of theoretical work, including general systems theory (von Bertalanffy, 1972), system dynamics, cybernetics (Midgley, 2006), complex adaptive systems (Folke, 2016; Leach et al 2010), systems analysis (Meadows, 2008), and other schools of thought. Increasingly the field, like many other academic arenas, grapples with critical issues of power and colonialism, and calls for epistemological pluralism, to name a few (Leach et al, 2010; Escobar, 2018). 

Here, we understand a complexity lens, for its breadth of foundation and application, as characterized by exploring “the unprecedented, the unpredictable, and the non-deductible” (French et al, 2022). This calls for recognizing key principles such as emergence, self-organization, non-linearity, feedback, path dependency, with adaptive agents responding to multiple forms of uncertainty. A complexity lens notices the framing of problems that display features of complexity (Rittel and Webber, 1973; Stacey, 1995), as well as the nature of systems and processes (Meadows, 2008). 

As we look back at complexity’s place in social innovation discourses, research, teaching, and accepted practices, and look forward to the needs that social innovation is asked to address, we find ourselves asking, ‘How have we encountered complexity, and how has it challenged our ways of thinking, doing, and training?’

In this call for papers and panels, we invite those who are or have employed a complexity lens in their research, teaching and/or practice to share their own encounters and learnings—their experiences, insights, opportunities and obstacles for meaningful, destabilizing or transformative change (including on the internal dimension). 

As such, we welcome research papers, field reports, case studies, reflective self-analysis, and other formats that fully embrace the complexity lenses as described above and address one of the following topics:

1. Designing an effective complexity-informed research approach to social innovation-related questions, including new conceptual approaches, data collection and analytical strategies;

2. Pedagogical implications, demands and/or examples of employing a complexity-informed approach to social innovation education (e.g., lesson plans, modules, courses, co/extra-curricular activities, degree programs, certificates from pre-k to adult ed.)

3. Climate change and its implications at many levels; adapting to life in the Anthropocene

4. Complexity’s role(s) in organizational change, including driving social innovation and social change, within and without

5. Dealing with real world complexity as a working social innovator/entrepreneur, including obstacles, surprises, opportunities, and unanswered questions

6. Bridging the gap between junior and senior scholars with complexity-informed discourses and ways of being/knowing, regardless of disciplines.

With this call, we seek to call in researchers from across the communities under the social innovation umbrella in a process of sharing, storytelling and mutual learning.  As such, we strongly welcome teams to propose panels of their work related to (for example): employing a complexity-informed worldview in your work; and/or problematizing and extending complexity applications for transformative and inclusive social innovation(s).

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REFERENCES

Escobar, Arturo. 2018. Designs for the Pluriverse. Duke Univ. Press.

Folke, Carl (2016). Resilience (Republished). Ecology and Society, 21(4).

French, Max, McGowan, Katharine, Rhodes, Mary Lee. and Zivkovic, Shardon, 2022. Guest editorial: Complexity as a model for social innovation and social entrepreneurship: is there order in the chaos?. Social Enterprise Journal. 18(2), pp. 237-251. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-05-2022-140

Hassan, Zaid. 2014. The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving Our Most Complex Challenges. Berret-Koehler.

Leach, Melissa, Ian Scoones, Andy Stirling. 2010. Dynamic sustainabilities: Technology< Environment, Social Justice STEPS Centre, Sussex, UK.

Meadows, Donella, 2008. Thinking in Systems.  Chelsea Green Publishing

Midgley, Gerald. 2006. Systems thinking for evaluation. Systems concepts in evaluation: An expert anthology. EdgePress.

Rittel, Horst and Melvin Webber, 1973. “Dilemmas in a theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences.

Stacey, Ralph, 1995. The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes. Strategic management journal, 16(6), pp.477-495.

Von Bertalanffy, L. (1972). The history and status of general systems theory. Academy of management journal, 15(4), 407-426.