Why study the complexity sciences in the social sciences?

Over the past two decades, several new perspectives have emerged in the phy sical and natural sciences and are collectively referred to as the complexi ty sciences. Insights from these emerging perspectives have implications th at merit consideration for developments and extensions of existing work at the metatheoretical, theoretical, and methodological levels in organization theory. The purpose of this manuscript is to: (a) provide an overview of t he complexity sciences, (b) provide a justification and rationale for their inclusion into the social sciences, and (c) review the current organizatio nal literature which utilizes and applies concepts from the complexity scie nces to organizational phenomena.