“The Virtuous circle of Syntropy (VCS). An interpretative chaos vs cosmos model for managing complexity”

The aim of this paper is to highlight how modern firms can minimize the complexity of the external scenario. Managerial practice focuses on the simplification of cognitive and decision-making uncertainty, but it cannot merely resort to linear and rational models. Therefore, ways of widening the range of cognitive variety in management have to be found. As a result, the ‘syntropy’ necessary to systems viability is ensured. This means a transition from environmental Chaos of ‘entropy’ to Cosmos for ‘syntropy’. In other words, through a series of phases, such as data collecting, information processing and viable decision-making, firms can map the context and transform “Chaos of scenario” in a “Cosmos of context”. In our approach, the Virtuous Circle of ‘Syntropy’ (VCS) is a useful tool to define Cosmos as a subjective context. The paper is based on the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) methodologies. The conceptual categories of VSA and NLP enable the qualifying of a model to reduce Chaos and simplify the implementation of decision procedures. The firm needs to apply these procedures not only with reference to Problem Solving, but also to Decision Making in order to achieve full contextual viability.