Managing in Uncertainty

Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management and Director of the internationally renowned Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Previously he worked as a senior manager in the public and voluntary sectors and was finance director of his own marketing company.

• 1.Why are uncertainty, ambiguity and paradox important for managers? 2.Taking paradox seriously 3.The paradox of involvement and detachment and the importance of practical judgement 4.Attempts to change organizational culture – the paradox of the local and the global 5.On the predictable unpredictability of organisational life: change and innovation 6.The paradox of co-operation and competition: conflict and the necessary politics of organizational life 7.Ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox in the natural sciences – creative entanglement between the knower and the known 8.Uncertainty, contradiction and paradox - so what can managers do?

‘This book provides a significant development of understanding organizational life from a complexity perspective. It takes the uncertainty of organizational life seriously; exploring reflexivity and making sense of one’s experience in a manner that clarifies the paradoxes of organizational life. I am sure it will appeal to all thinking managers and to academic researchers.’ - Ralph Stacey, Professor, Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, UK‘A deep theoretical and practical exploration of how to integrate complexity and ambiguity in managing and organizing. This book represents a much welcomed inquiry of a paradigm-shifting journey into embracing complexity and paradox in organizational life.’ – Alain Guiette, University of Antwerp, Belgium‘For those tired of prescriptions and protocols as substitutes for thinking and practical judgement in the face of uncertainty, this book offers managers a refreshing and satisfying read full of thought provoking examples and discussion.’ - Dr Patricia Shaw Fellow, Schumacher College, Devon and Visiting Professor, Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, UK