Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs: Applications of Nonlinear Dynamics To Work, Organizations, and Social Evolution

Whether talking about steering a wheelbarrow over rugged terrain or plotting the course of international relations, human performance systems involve change. Sometimes changes are subtle or evolutionary, sometimes they are catastrophic or revolutionary, and sometimes the changes are from periods of relative calm to periods of vibrant oscillations to periods of chaos. As a general rule, more complex systems are likely to produce more complex forms of change.

Although social scientists have...