Dealing With Tensions in Increasingly Digitalized and Intelligent Complex Systems

Abstract

In this article, we explore how organizations deal with the many entangled tensions involved in the engineering and management of increasingly digitalized and intelligent complex systems. By applying a quantum perspective on tensions, and an understanding of tensions based on their salience, a framework is developed for observing, acting, and reacting on a large set of entangled tensions, as a continuum of tensions. The well-documented case of Boeing 737 MAX is used to explore the extensive set of entangled tensions involved in the development of complex systems and the possibilities to act on these tensions. The analysis shows that an actionability perspective on the dialectic tensions potentially offers a deep insight into the challenges that organizations are facing when engineering complex systems. Two major aspects emerge as crucial for addressing complex systems: First, actionable salience as the ability of an organization to identify and select important tensions in several perspectives, and second, actionable resolution as the ability to address and resolve a set of salient, often complex, and entangled tensions that have been identified. Opportunities for further research are identified in relation to the management of increasingly digitalized complex systems and the emergence of complex intelligent systems.