Abstract
In the management and social sciences literature, chaos theory has been used primarily as a metaphor to understand organizational phenomena. Using metaphors to understand organizations is a novel idea that has gained much acceptance, thanks to the pioneering work of Morgan (1986). However, chaos theory's value as a metaphor has been overused and offers little that cannot already be explained using existing theories and frameworks. Because chaos theory is a mathematical theory, we believe its mathematical principles offer the greatest application to the management literature. In this paper, we offer the use of phase space, a tool of chaos theory, as a way to analyze firm performance.
Recommended Citation
Crandall, William "Rick"; Crandall, Richard E.; and Parnell, John A.
(2013)
"What Next for Chaos Theory? From Metaphor to Phase Space,"
The Coastal Business Journal: Vol. 12:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/cbj/vol12/iss1/4
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