Fields of Coherence

There are inherent limits within which business actors (or anyone else) can function adequately if cognition and action are to be coherent.  It is difficult to make sense, for example, of episodes of experience that press upon us as too ‘immanent’ – like a photograph held too close to one’s eyes; or scenes that are moving too quickly – like a television picture on fast-forward. Similarly, there are inherent boundaries within which our efforts must operate if action is to be coherent – sufficiently aligned with the causal realities of the environment that a viable degree of efficacy is reasonably anticipated.  

Conditions in complex environments can disrupt understanding and effective action because they encroach, to greater and lesser extents, the critical boundaries of actionable coherence. One important challenge for firms in complex environments is to redress this dynamic. Among other things, this requires a conceptual framework by which the relations between business actor and environment can be adjusted flexibly.