Abstract
To bring some order to the complications created by complexity, let’s divide this issue into two broad, somewhat arbitrary, categories:
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1.
‘Internal’ complexity, created by the sheer size and the large number of products and services provided by large, global corporations, and
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2.
‘External’ complexity, due to the fact that we live in an increasingly interrelated, complicated world. Typically, we have little influence or control over these external factors.
Chaos is the law of nature, order is the dream of man
(Literary quote heard on the radio)
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References
Circumstances triggering the publication of this report are discussed in some detail by A. D. Chandler, Jr, in The Visible Hand. The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: The Balknap Press of Harvard University Press, fifth printing, 1980), pp. 96–7.
A. D. Chandler, Jr, Strategy and Structure. Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise, (Cambridge: MIT Press, eleventh printing 1980).
R. P. Rumelt, Strategy, Structure and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974) pp. v–vi.
Michael Porter, ‘From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy’, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1987, pp. 43–59.
Alfred P. Sloan, Jr, My Years With General Motors, edited by John McDonald with Catharine Stevens (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1972) p. 505.
Maryann Keller, Rude Awakening: The Rise, Fall, and Struggle for Recovery of General Motors, (New York: William Morrow, 1989) p. 217.
R. Stobaugh and D. Yergin, editors, Energy Future, Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (New York: Random House, 1980) pp. 26–7.
George S. Yip, Barriers to Entry. A Corporate Strategy Perspective (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1982) p. 21.
The World Bank, World Development Report 1991 (Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 6.
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© 1993 Emilio Cvitkovic
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Cvitkovic, E. (1993). Complexity. In: Competition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12857-0_8
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