In an era marked by unprecedented challenges – from climate change to digital transformation – the need for innovative and effective solutions has never been more urgent. Recent events, such as the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have vividly demonstrated the complexity of modern organizations and the environments they navigate. This workshop seeks groundbreaking research that addresses these complexities, offering new models, methods, and tools for a rapidly evolving world.

Complexity is a mandatory approach to properly address research questions in economic, financial, managerial, organizational, and innovation systems. These systems are Complex Adaptive Systems characterized by non-linear relations among their constitutive elements, heterogeneity, self-reflexivity, emergent properties, self-organization, expectations, and dynamic continuous adaptation.

In addition, the diffusion of new technologies for massive data collection offers the opportunity to measure and evaluate complex system dynamics through data-driven methodologies. New tools can be used to collect large amounts of rich, high-quality, and reliable data, in almost real time. They provide automatic and more objective measurements of individual, team, and firm behaviors, supporting scholars in analyzing complex systems.

This workshop will focus on recent advances in theory and models regarding how organizations (firms, networks, industries) deal with the current competitive challenges using a complexity theory approach. Ranging from single firms to networks of industries, the workshop will explore their innovation dynamics and sustainable structures and processes using agent-based simulation and will provide managerial insights useful for navigating their increasing complexity.

The papers presented in this workshop should discuss new methods, applications, or theoretical approaches. In particular:

• the drivers of complexity in management systems, value chains (and business ecosystems), and organizational structures; 
• the relationship between complexity and new technologies, fostering digital transformation,  green-energy transition, and innovative and unconventional policies and regulation measures to support also social sustainable innovation processes; 
• approaches and tools adopted by companies to self-organize and adapt to the complexity of their external environment;
• the impact of digital transformation and technology transfer on innovation systems
• the impact of new technologies for sustainable transition

We welcome research that leverages the power of big data to offer new insights. Specifically, we are keen to delve deeper into how the intersection of text mining and social networks still calls for a robust exploration of theoretical, empirical, and methodological foundations despite their maturity and rapid evolution.