Open research questions in Complex Systems and Decision Making
297 gap statements mined from Complex Systems and Decision Making papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,017 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.
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What the literature leaves open
It highlights the need for a multimethod systems design to understand the complex interactions. The paper notes that prior studies have not fully addressed the dynamic complexity of the higher education system.
Dynamic Complexity and Institutional Decision-Making in UK Higher Education: A Multimethod Systemic Assessment · 2026 · DOIMany EdD programs do not prepare students for leadership roles that span individual schools, districts, and state-level systems. The study identifies a gap in integrating systems thinking across coursework, assessments, and program milestones. The analysis highlights the need for intentional program design to support students in developing a broader, system-level perspective.
The lack of framing to understand how compounding threats are parameterized and governed. The limitations of existing risk models in predicting disaster risk areas.
A Resilience-Augmented Approach to Compound Threats and Risk Governance: A Systems Perspective on Navigating Complex Crises · 2025 · DOIThe implementation of improvement science in education is a long-term process that requires a paradigm shift. Districts need a knowledge management plan to sustain the work and diffuse knowledge districtwide. The lack of a strong data infrastructure or plan for distributing the learning can lead to missed opportunities to learn from improvement work.
Framework for Implementing Improvement Science in a School District to Support Institutionalized Improvement · 2024 · DOIHowever, researches on the causal laws of CSS remain scarce, leading to the lack of foundations for analyzing such systems.
The cause-and-effect relationships and cascading effects of these risks remain underexplored, a problem further compounded by the novelty of metaverse applications and the lack of historical data to inform effective risk assessment.
Integrating cascading effects into risk assessment of metaverse implementation in the built environment · 2025 · DOIPopulation physical activity promotion (PPAP) is one of the most effective noncommunicable disease prevention strategies, yet coordination is lacking around the world.
Follow the Arrows: Using a Co-Created Causal Loop Diagram to Explore Leverage Points to Strengthen Population Physical Activity Promotion in British Columbia, Canada · 2024 · DOIThis classification is not intended to replace other PSM, but to expand the methodological repertoire in contexts where language is insufficient or politically blocked. Evidence gap and tension with traditional academic paradigms The available evidence on SOC largely comes from professional reports and case studies; longitudinal, comparative, and systematic evaluation designs remain scarce.
Systemic Organizational Constellations (SOC) as a Soft Methodology for Complexity Reduction and Change: Epistemological and Theoretical Foundations · 2026 · DOIWhen stagnation, overload, or fragile coordination processes remain insufficiently recognised, innovation efforts risk becoming counterproductive by reinforcing symbolic adoption, cynicism, or organisational fragmentation rather than strengthening learning capacity within primary processes.
“Are we ready to innovate?” Diagnosing organisational conditions for educational innovation: A systems perspective on adaptive capacity in Higher Education · 2026 · DOIThe lack of a structural framework for understanding civilizational stability under rapid technological change.
Acceleration-Capacity Gap Model (ACGM): A Structural Framework for Civilizational Stability in the AI Era · 2026 · DOIExisting ontologies do not provide a high enough resolution account of system trajectory. There is a need for a framework that can help understand how systems form, stabilise, drift, adapt, and sometimes collapse under constraint over time.
Traditional strategic frameworks are insufficient for addressing contemporary challenges. There is a need for a more adaptive and interconnected approach to corporate strategy.
The Evolution of Corporate Strategy: Integrating Systems Thinking into Modern Business Leadership · 2026 · DOICurrent maturity models for KI-Einführung have limitations, such as not considering governance as a separate dimension. There is a lack of a structured framework for diagnosing and planning agent-based transformation.
Autonomie braucht Governance: Ein mehrdimensionales Reifegradkonstrukt für die agentische Transformation von Geschäftsmodellen · 2026 · DOIThe current design paradigm may be insufficient for complex socio-technical systems. There is a need for a framework that integrates systems science and design theory.
Toward design for complexity: an integrated framework for iterative co-evolution across complex socio-technical systems · 2026 · DOIThere is a lack of research on how to address the failure of organisational development initiatives in situations where management is incompetent or hostile. The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of how to extend systems practice to situations in which organisational culture has become paralysed by pretence.
Scientific Self-Management: A Critical Systems Response to Organisational Development Failure · 2026 · DOIFuture research could explore the application of Importance Performance Analysis and system dynamics simulation to other industries or locations. Future research could investigate the impact of improving return guarantees, product design, and promotions on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Feasibility of Value Propositions Based on Importance Performance Analysis and Risk Using Simulation: Evidence From SMEs · 2026 · DOIThe study highlights the need for a strategic framework to enhance customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs, and attain sustainable growth.
Feasibility of Value Propositions Based on Importance Performance Analysis and Risk Using Simulation: Evidence From SMEs · 2026 · DOINo study in this set jointly models how multiple dimensions of user state—simultaneously tracking evolving knowledge level, interaction history, emotional or cognitive load, and explicit preferences—should be integrated into a single adaptive mechanism; existing work treats these as separate variables rather than an interdependent state vector.
The paper argues that the distinction is often implicit or unstated in the adoption of complexity ideas.
These approaches do not explain why behaviour emerges in the first place.
A Unified Structural Theory of Behaviour Under Constraint: Architecture, Agency, and Non‑Inevitable Futures · 2026 · DOINone of these papers provide a model-agnostic framework or toolkit for measuring when and how an adaptive system should recalibrate its user model in response to detected drift in user state; existing work assumes static or slowly-changing user profiles but does not operationalize detection and response to sudden shifts in needs, knowledge, or preferences.
The sample was disproportionately led by white improvers - The study was qualitative and exploratory - The sample size was limited to 17…
Framework for Implementing Improvement Science in a School District to Support Institutionalized Improvement · 2024 · DOIFurther development of the Relational Dynamics framework. Application of the framework to various domains, including complexity, organisations, governance, AI, language, culture, education, natural and social sciences, and beyond.
The complexity of temporal dynamics in educational systems - The need to balance stability and adaptability in temporal governance - The challenge of measuring and operationalizing temporal…
Toward a Theory of Temporal Governance in Education: How Institutional Time Structures Shape Organizational Decision-Making and Educational Outcomes · 2026 · DOIFuture empirical research can use the proposed framework to investigate the relationships between institutional time structures, temporal governance, decision-making processes, and educational outcomes - Future studies can explore the application of temporal governance in different educational…
Toward a Theory of Temporal Governance in Education: How Institutional Time Structures Shape Organizational Decision-Making and Educational Outcomes · 2026 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Complex Systems and Decision Making
- Theory Building From Cases: Opportunities And Challenges · Academy of Management Journal · 2007 · 12,308 citations
- Dilemmas in a general theory of planning · Policy Sciences · 1973 · 11,214 citations
- Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems · Administrative Science Quarterly · 1976 · 5,005 citations
- A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice · Administrative Science Quarterly · 1972 · 4,638 citations
- Toward a Model of Organizations as Interpretation Systems · Academy of Management Review · 1984 · 4,296 citations
- Business Model Design: An Activity System Perspective · Long Range Planning · 2009 · 2,184 citations
- Ecosystem as Structure · Journal of Management · 2016 · 2,067 citations
- Information Processing as an Integrating Concept in Organizational Design. · Academy of Management Review · 1978 · 1,956 citations
- Management control systems design within its organizational context: findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future · Accounting Organizations and Society · 2003 · 1,854 citations
- Organization Design: An Information Processing View · INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics · 1974 · 1,670 citations
Most recent work
- Can governance remain effective when its environment changes faster than its controls? · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- Adaptive governance in collective risk social dilemmas · Communications Physics · 2026
- A catalogue of Do's and Don'ts in the modeling of environmental systems · Environmental Modelling & Software · 2026
- Diagnosing pharmaceutical regulatory agencies: A metacybernetic framework for innovation and governance · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · 2026
- No systems transformation without systems literacy: Insights from CGIAR · Agricultural Systems · 2026
- Using Expert Elicitation and Systems Mapping to Support Social Innovation in the (Blue) Food System: The Case of the UK's Plymouth Fish Finger · Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics · 2026
- The architecture of impact: Defining what it takes to publish in organizational dynamics · Organizational Dynamics · 2026
- Tiered Evolution and Sustainable Governance of High-Quality Development in Megacities: A System Dynamics Simulation of Chinese Cases · Urban Science · 2026
- Participatory systems mapping: a review of population health research practice · Health Research Policy and Systems · 2026
- Governance Logistics: Definition and Scope of a Practice Discipline · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
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