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"This book interprets insights from the complexity sciences to explore seven types of complexity better to understand the predictable unpredictability of social life. Drawing on the natural and social sciences, it describes how complexity models are helpful, but insufficient for our understanding of complex reality. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book develops a complex theory of action more consistent with our experience that our plans inevitably lead to unexpected outcomes, explains why we are both individuals and thoroughly social, and gives an account of why, no matter how clear out message, we may still be misunderstood. The book investigates what forms of knowledge are most helpful for thinking about complex experience, reflects on the way we exercise authority (leadership), and thinks through the ethical implications of trying to co-operate in a complex world. Taking complexity seriously poses a radical challenge to more orthodox theories of managing and leading, based as they are on assumptions of predictability, control and universality. The author argues that management is an improvisational practice which takes place in groups in a particular context at a particular time. Managers can influence, but never control an uncontrollable world. To become more skilful in complex group dynamics involves taking into account multiple points of view, and acknowledging not knowing, ambivalence and doubt. This book will be of interest to researchers, professionals, academics and students in the fields of business and management, especially those interested in how taking complexity seriously can influence the functioning of businesses and organisations and how they manage and lead"--

"The reality of everyday organizational life is that it is filled with uncertainty, contradictions and paradoxes, yet managers are expected to bring about the impossible: to transform themselves and their colleagues, to design different cultures, to choose the values for their organization, to be innovative, to control conflict and to have inspiring visions. Whilst managers will have had lots of experiences of being in charge, they may not always be in control. So how might we frame a much more realistic account of what's possible for managers to achieve? Many managers are implicitly aware of their messy reality, but they rarely spend much time reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing. Drawing on insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and pragmatic philosophy, Chris Mowles directly engages with some principal contradictions of organizational life concerning innovation, culture change, conflict and leadership. Mowles argues that if managers began by understanding organizational life as inherently uncertain, and interactions between people as complex and often paradoxical, they would start paying more attention to different things. Managing in Uncertainty will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners looking at management and organizational studies from a critical perspective"--

"This book argues that paradox, ambiguity and uncertainty in organizational life are the norm rather than the exception for leaders and managers. Many managers are implicitly aware of this, but they rarely spend much time reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing when they are coping with their messy reality. Drawing on insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and pragmatic philosophy, Chris Mowles directly engages with some principal contradictions of organizational life concerning innovation, culture change, conflict and leadership. Managing in Uncertainty will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners looking at management and organizational studies from a critical perspective"--

In Rethinking Management, Chris Mowles argues that management courses may cause as many crises as they alleviate. Taking examples of managing and leading in contemporary organisations, his book treats uncertainty as central to the task of leading and managing and explores the limits of current management theories. It provides alternatives to grids and frameworks and encourages management professionals and educators to recognise judgement, improvisation and experience are vital to good management and leadership.

This article offers a critical review of the way in which some scholars have taken up the complexity sciences in evaluation scholarship. I argue that there is a tendency either to over-claim or under-claim their importance because scholars are not always careful about which of the manifestations of the complexity sciences they are appealing to, nor do they demonstrate how they understand them in social terms. The effect is to render 'complexity' just another volitional tool in the evaluator's toolbox subsumed under the dominant understanding of evaluation, as a logical, rational activity based on systems thinking and design. As an alternative I argue for a radical interpretation of the complexity sciences, which understands human interaction as always complex and emergent. The interweaving of intentions in human activity will always bring about outcomes that no one has intended including in the activity of evaluation itself.

AbstractIn this article I argue that the means and ends of development are constitutive of each other. If means appear to have become separated from the espoused ends of international nongovernment organisations (INGOs), then it may be because other ends, the corporate aspirations of INGOs often expressed in grand strategies and plans, have come to dominate. However, in recognising that in development management particular methods that privilege the abstract and instrumental have come to dominate, this does not close off all possibility of critical reflection, discussion and negotiation, through the exercise of practical judgement or phronesis. Wholesale schemes for doing good, no matter how idealised and abstract, must be functionalised in particular contexts with particular people and can still be negotiated, affording the potential for the emergence of greater mutual recognition between those engaged in development. This negotiation and exploration of difference is often uncomfortable as each of the parties, and their power relationships, is made more visible to the other, but, this article argues, it is a prerequisite for continuously appraising our ethical engagement with others and for keeping means and ends in view. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractDevelopment management as a practice borrows extensively and uncritically from management theories developed in the private sector, which are based on ideas of predictability and control, and systemic 'whole' change. In contemporary management discourse, we are always rushing towards an idealised tomorrow. This article sets out an alternative theory of management, which the author calls post‐foundational management, drawing on concepts of emergence. This privileges the local and the contextual, and argues that generalised plans and strategies are always taken up in particular contexts with particular actors engaged in political contestation about how to go on together. The future, then, is always provisional, even if idealised and will arise from the interweaving of many intentions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractThis article argues that there is a growing convergence between development INGOs and private sector organisations in the way that values are taken up as an instrument of management. Rather than promoting the exploration of difference, managers encourage employees to set aside their concerns and have faith in the organisational mission. In this way they exercise control without appearing to do so, and avoid dealing with the day to day difficulty of undertaking the work. Instead managers feel obliged to promise transformation, because of the increased marketisation and professionalisation of development. The article offers an alternative understanding of values as a profoundly social phenomenon requiring reflection and negotiation through and with others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.