Looking for complication: four approaches to management education

This article argues for the adoption of complicated approaches by management educators. The argument rests on the position that if uncertainty and ambiguity are inherent to management, particularly in view of the profound changes that have occurred during recent years in the competitive environments of organizations, there is the need to develop complex managers, that is, managers more skilled in dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity. Four approaches (hypertext, dialectics, linkages, and metaphors) are presented to illustrate complementary ways of operationalizing the logic of complication in a management education context. These approaches have the potential for increasing the awareness and alertness of management students to the challenges with which they will probably be confronted in the emerging competitive landscapes.