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Complex Thinking and Computing Organization Facing Contingent Problems

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Abstract

Facing the reflexive modernity, social wealth production is systematically correlated with the production of social and technical problems. Due to the complexity paradigm and contingent approach, public organizations are conflicting with a “one best way” slant. Indeed, they are understood as computing ones and so they can adapt to a changing environment. The purpose of this paper is to understand how public managers deal with contingent problem solving and so to characterize computing organization. Through a qualitative methodology, this paper sheds light on an integrative model of computing organization able to solve contingent problems, with five dimensions.

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Notes

  1. In this case, local public organizations are understood as decentralized organizations and their groups as municipalities, departments, metropolises and regions.

  2. The term capability doesn’t refer to dynamic capabilities research. The dynamic capabilities’ goal is to understand how firms can sustain a competitive advantage through the analysis of different domains of strategy process and content (Helfat and Peteraf 2009). In this research, the goal is to understand how manager deal with contingent problem solving, neither sustaining a competitive advantage, nor in a strategic way.

  3. This case study was carried out during an internship (from January to March 2017) for the master’s degree.

  4. This person is a public manager who makes territorial management, which encompasses all the managerial processes used to implement and adapt the strategy of a local public organization (Hernandez 2018).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the sixth Conference “Philosophy(s) of Management”, organized in June, the 4th and 5th 2018 at the Institute of Public Management and Territorial Governance. We thank our colleagues from the Society of Philosophy and Management Sciences, who provides insight that assisted this research paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Management and Territorial Governance, Aix-Marseille University, 21 rue Gaston de Saporta, 13 100, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Laura Carmouze

  2. Morgan Academy, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales, UK

    Alan Sandry

  3. Abertawe, UK

    Alan Sandry

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  1. Laura Carmouze
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  2. Alan Sandry
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Correspondence to Laura Carmouze.

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Laura CARMOUZE (author A) declares she has no conflict of interest and Alan SANDRY (author B) declares he has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants (i.e. semi-structured interviews) were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Carmouze, L., Sandry, A. Complex Thinking and Computing Organization Facing Contingent Problems. Public Organiz Rev 20, 401–419 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-019-00449-1

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