 CASOS Publication
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"Organizational Adaptation in Volatile Environments" (PDF file) Author: Kathleen M. Carley Abstract Theories of organizational adaptation address the value of exploration, flexibility, and change. However, exploration, flexibility and change are not without cost. Thus, theories of adaptation also address the need to balance these forces for change against the costs of change and the benefits of exploiting current expertise. Arguments for change assume that organizational adaptation is the result of balance at a single level (strategic or operational) or of a single type of learning (individual or group). In contrast, what it will suggest is that this balance is not at a single level but is the result of maneuvering within an ecology of learning in which change is occurring at many levels - individual, organizational, and environmental. Thus, adaptation is not so much a mater of balance as it is of finding the right evolutionary path and of trading change in one dimension for stability in another. | ||