Balancing in organizations: applying complex adaptive systems´ patterns to organizational architecture

Important characteristics of an organisation, such as the balance between standardisation and innovation, or between top down governance and bottom up freedom of initiative, cannot be maintained by explicit directives, but have to be maintained by means of balancing. The optimum level for such characteristics is dynamic and situation dependent. This level can only be determined as a dynamic equilibrium of counteracting forces (balancing). Complex adaptive systems theory studies this kind of dynamic equilibrium states. The characteristics that need balancing are often of vital importance to an organisation and should be taken into account in organizational architecting. Architecture is a very common instrument nowadays in many organisations. Yet current architecture methods spend no attention to balancing problems, with only very few exceptions. This work argues that balancing should be addressed in organizational architectures and indicates how this can be done, using complex adaptive systems as a theoretical framework.