Fast-paced, turbulent and chaotic environments create tensions that force organizations to adapt and coevolve in unpredictable ways in order to survive. Organizations, as complex adaptive systems (CAS), represent dissipative structures that must experience change in a rapid continuous or less frequent and more radical punctuated equilibrium manner to dissipate the tensions generated from the environment. Balancing of these tensions enables an organization to become poised at the edge of chaos, far from equilibrium, where optimal emergence takes place that enables a new order necessary for survival. Those organizations better able to balance these adaptive tensions can remain poised at the edge of chaos for longer periods of time and experience greater levels of innovation through emergence that leads to new order and long-term survival.

The teleology of all complex adaptive systems is survival and drives them towards adaptation and coevolution in the short-term and survival in the long. Therefore, organizations must better understand the role of adaptive tensions and the process whereby they can balance these tensions to ensure survival. To do so, we must first understand: What are adaptive tensions? Where do they come from? What causes these tensions to emerge? How do they operate? How are they balanced? What role does leadership play in creating and balancing these tensions? Are there good tensions and bad tensions? Should organizations be structured to create tensions? If so, then how and what type? And, does balancing them enable a complex adaptive system to remain poised at the edge of chaos and enjoy optimal emergence?

I define tensions as an energy force initiated by cues and caused by perceptions of uncertainty that compels a system to explore innovative alternatives and take prudent risks. To understand these tensions we must understand the different types of uncertainty that the system creates, as well as the role of absorptive capacity in exploring and developing innovation alternatives to address the uncertainty and how systems take risk to balance these tensions.

We believe that the origin of tension arises from uncertainty relating to the appropriate mix of stability and variability in various organizational processes that result in changes necessary for survival. The pulling and stretching been stability and variability can be found among nearly all organizational constructs, as outlined below:

Change: incremental vs radical

Learning: individual vs organizational

Leadership: great man vs distributed

Culture: integrated vs fragmented

Strategy: central planning vs peripheral strategizing

Structure: hierarchical vs loosely coupled

Sensemaking: retrospective vs prospective

Risk: minimize vs optimize

Sytems: closed vs open

Value: efficiency vs effectiveness

These tensions resulting from stretching between stability versus variability disrupts the equilibrium within a system and forces changes necessary to meet the demands of requisite variety for survival. This disequilibrium creates an imbalance among the three elements of emergence (heterogeneity, choice and interdependence) within a CAS and between a CAS and its environment. The tensions between these two elements are as follows: homogeneity vs heterogeneity, independence vs interdependence, compulsions vs choice. Structuration provides the process for rebalancing to achieve a structure to enable balancing of these emergent properties. Emergent, shared and formal leadership processes support structuration and enable emergence that balances these adaptive tensions.

The purpose of my dissertation is to provide a better understanding of the source, role, need and effect of adaptive tensions within a complex adaptive system. The intended context for the research is within an open innovation structure for creating and developing new technologies. My research questions are: How do tensions impact emergence that leads to innovation and adaptation within organization? How do organizations take prudent risks to balance these tensions and maintain an optimal level of tension so that they adapt and coevolve rather than collapse or explode?