HOLY ANGEL UNIVERSITY

College of Engineering and Architecture

Department of Industrial Engineering

SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
Complex Adaptive Systems Theory and Firm Product
Innovativeness
A Journal Critique

Submitted by:
Enriquez, Trixia Mae
IE-501

Submitted to:
Prof. Melani Cabrera

January 15, 2015

CITATION
Provide a full citation of the article author(s), title of article, and name of journal volume and
pages.

Akgun, A., Keskin H., & Bryne, J. (2014). Complex Adaptive Systems Theory and Firm Product
Innovativeness. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management. Pages 21-42.

TOPIC
Briefly describe the topic of the journal article. Identify the major/minor objectives of the article
as well. Identify and define the important concepts focused on by the author. Are the definitions
clear, in your opinion?

The topic of the journal article is about conditions of Complex Adaptive Systems such as
context and emergence influencing the firm product innovativeness. Based on the article,
Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) Theory, the agents in the system are all the components of
that system and these agents interact and connect with each other in unpredictable and unplanned
ways. But from these interactions, regularities emerge and start to form a pattern which feeds
back on the system and informs the interactions of the agents. A period of change occurs in all
the parts of the system until a new balance is established.

The major objective of the article was to show the relevance of Complex Adaptive
Systems theory in the New Product Development (NPD) which have rarely been addressed for
the product innovativeness of the firm. On the other hand, the minor objective was to examine

the role of Complex Adaptive Systems. Akgun et al. (2014) also investigated the influence of
emergence and context of CAS in innovation of products. They also defined emergence as a
process involving coordinated actions and interdependency.

Some of the important concepts focused by the author are emergence and CAS contexts.
The authors of the article explained emergence as a process whereby coherent structures and
properties arise on the global level out of the local interactions of the agents. It involves
coordinated actions which represent the collective creativity, reflexivity, and synchrony of people
or departments during product development processes and activities, and interdependency, which
refers to the extent to which people interact collectively to accomplish shared goals or tasks.
CAS contexts influence emergence. There are different contexts of CAS such as Networks of
Interaction, Conflicting Constraints, Dynamic Feedback, Dynamic Rules-of-Action, Patterns of
Tension and Changing Environmental Demand.

In my opinion, the definitions are clear and the authors of the article showed the
relevance of different concepts in the main topic of the article. The introduction in the article also
made the purpose of the article clear.

THEORY/RESEARCH METHODS
Is the author being guided by a particular theoretical perspective? If so, what is it and how does
he use this theory to understand the problem? Does the author collect data? If so, what method

does he use (survey, field of observation). Use of existing sources experiment, and is it crosssectional (different dimensions or components) or longitudinal (related to time) in design? How
clearly does the author indicate above?

The author is being guided by the theory that Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) has to
do with firm product innovativeness that includes emergence and CAS context which also
influences product innovativeness. According to the authors of the article, this theory provides a
framework for explaining the emergence of system-level order arising from the interactions of
the systems interdependent agents like people, department, ideas, information and resources.
Thus, this theory focuses on the interplay between a system and its environment. The authors use
this theory to investigate how emergence influences product innovativeness and examined the
role of different CAS contexts in 235 firms.

First, they generated 500 eligible firms characterized by frequent product/service

innovation and exploitation of new technologies in production/service but only 310 firms agreed
to participate and only 259 completed the questionnaires and 24 firms responded to only one
survey resulting in 235 firms. They use cross-sectional data source in the design of their
experiment. They collected these data by observing many subjects, in the case of this article; they
use firms at the same point of time. These data are gathered and experimented without regard to
differences in time. The data are gathered with different respondents from firms or participating
industries from finance, service, manufacturing, chemistry, metal, electronics and others that
include senior employees, engineers, managers, technical leaders and owners of the firm. In
testing their hypothesis, the authors performed a Structural Equation Modeling analysis. The

author collected data through survey or questionnaire from different eligible firms using
stratified random sampling. They adapted the questions from Wang and Ahmed to assess firm
product innovativeness. And to evaluate environmental turbulence, they adapted questions from
Jaworski and Kohli. The authors clearly indicated the details of their research methods and their
instrumentation to complete their study.

MAIN IDEAS
Summarize the articles content. In doing so, what is the authors main argument? What are the
supporting arguments? Are the ideas clearly presented?

One of the factors in the success of any firm or company is innovation. And as new and
more importantly successful innovations come to market, older innovations are replaced. The
companies that bring the innovation in industry and market are gaining a temporary dominance
in the market place and thus erode the previous dominance of other products or services. Firms
must continuously introduce new inventions to the global marketplace in order to realize success
of the company. As such, great emphasis placed on innovation in the corporate environment.
Understanding the system of innovation and its principles are imperative to the success and
longevity of the innovating entity as this article discussed further about CAS and its theories.
This article addressed the issues by adapting and using he CAS model. This model implicitly
proposes the mediator role of emergence factors between CAS context and new outcomes such
as innovation. The authors leverage the views in an organizational level and apply the model in
the product innovation context. The authors developed hypothesis about emergence and CAS

context. Testing these hypotheses, they use a multi-item scales adopted or developed from prior
studies for the measurement of the variables and coming up with the findings and conclusion
about the relevance of CAS in product innovation management.

The main argument in the article is that system of innovation is a Complex Adaptive
System and as such its principles may be fully realized only through modeling the system in its
entirety. The concept and study of CAS originates in the life and physical sciences and has been
discussed significantly by the social sciences in areas such as strategic organizational design,
supply chain management and innovation management. One of the main arguments is that
emergence helps organizations to leverage their product innovativeness by improving their
learning and new knowledge development initiatives. Emergence is positively related to firm
product innovativeness which elevates the understanding of the niche of emergence in the NPD
context. To support this argument, the authors talk over about previous studies that implicitly
showed how the concept of emergence is applied to NPD such as the materialization of different
process configurations and the importance of collaborative product development efforts. The
authors also made supporting arguments by concluding that when people function together, and
work with some degree of synchrony, firms develop better and successful products. CAS context
involving networks of interaction, conflicting constraints, patterns of tension, dynamic rules of
action and feedback, and changing variables plays in emergence and firm product
innovativeness. This is supported by the following arguments: networks of interactions enhance
the interdependence among individuals and group; when each function improves the
effectiveness of its product development process by improving its own contribution, the
products success can be achieved by undeveloped independent relationships that is conflicting

constraints; feedback culture reduces interdependency; and finally, injected pressure by

management does not have a direct influence on coordinated actions and interdependency. This
is because injected pressure affects emergence via networks of interaction due to significant
covariance among them.

The ideas are clearly presented and important terms have been clearly defined. The
introduction provides the basis for the article. It discussed about a statement of the problem, a
rationale for the study, and the research questions.

CONCLUSION
What conclusions does the author make?

The authors of the article made a conclusion that the Complex Adaptive System Theory is
relevant on a level of abstraction and are mainly used in the physical and life sciences rather than
the social sciences like product innovation management. They also conclude that based on their
research, CAS context and emergence is important in the development of successful new
products. Results from testing the role context and emergence related variables in firm product
innovativeness showed significant associations with coordinated actions and interdependency,
firm product innovativeness, and context variables. The research has implications for managers
that CAS and emergence is important for the development of successful new products. The
interconnectedness of elements knowledge, skills, and outlooks must be understood.
Management should also play a major role in NPD. Management should support and create a
network of linkages across which information flows y encouraging the personnel throughout the

organization. They should also encourage the development of mindset in the organization to
enhance product innovativeness, the occurrence of coordinated action, and interdependency
among people and functional units. And finally, management should balance the needs and goals
of different department and ensure the people in the organization that they understand their own
importance to the organization as well as the importance of their product innovation efforts.
Overall, it supports the notion that a CAS framework of NPD has descriptive value in terms of
studying, classifying, and defining the attributes and relationships that govern adaptive behavior
and outcomes in NPD processes.

REFLECTION
In your opinion, do the data support the conclusions being made by the author? In your
opinion, are the results thought provoking? In your opinion, what could be done to improve the
research? What was the most important thing you can learn in reading and critiquing this
article?

Based on the results, they have found that: emergence variables positively influence firm
product innovativeness; different context variables have positive, negative, and nonlinear
impacts on different emergence-related variables; and emergence variables partially mediate the
relationship between the CAS context and firm product innovativeness. But there are no
sufficient data supporting these findings. The data are hard to understand especially for the
readers that will encounter the topic for the first time. The findings identified in the introduction
are not clearly discussed in some parts of the article and the data they have shown are not
reflected to the conclusion. But the authors evaluated the reliability and validity of the variables

using confirmatory factor analysis that is used to test whether measures of a construct are
consistent with the authors understanding of the nature of that construct or factor. As such, the
objective of confirmatory factor analysis is to test whether the data fit a hypothesized
measurement model.

Overall, the article has good points and the authors discussed the abstract in a clear and
concise paragraph that describes the purpose of the article. The abstract also provides few key
findings and practical implications in the study made. However, the findings are not shown or
presented in data and elaborated in some parts of the article. But the authors did emphasize the
conclusions on the discussion and implications. In my opinion, the article can be improved by
providing ample and valid evidence for the study made. All data should be related to the
findings and conclusions made by the authors. In the conclusion, it should make it easier for
readers to follow their thinking and enable them to understand the core content without reading
the entire article. Because their conclusion is brief that it doesnt present the summary in line
with the previous sections including results, significance of the research and implications of CAS
context and emergence which are important in understanding the content of the article.

In reading and critiquing this article, I was able to gain more knowledge about different
theories and concepts discussed in the article. This also gives me technique and learning about
analyzing, interpreting and evaluating the solution and the problem discussed in the article. In
critiquing an article, you are not just summarizing it but you also study the article as well. I was
able to identify the important concepts and theories. I also learned that Complex Adaptive
Systems are complicated systems with the ability to develop new system configurations and

corresponding levels of order or disorder. This also provide a perspective for theorizing and
modeling systems based on the supposition that it is not possible to understand properly overall
system behaviors by simply breaking the system down into constituent parts and then
aggregating any observations to develop convenient and linear rules. CAS context and
emergence also have implications important for the development of successful new products.
With CAS Theory, you should not only understand the diverse knowledge, skills, and outlooks
required, but also the interconnectedness of elements.