Understanding Organizational Performance in Dynamic Environments: an Integrative Framework of Activity-System Maps and the NK Model

There is a great need for business education to promote an understanding of how organi-zations as complex systems, composed of sets of interdependent activities, perform in dynamic or turbulent environments. However, there is a lack of appropriate tools with which to teach such dynamic and complex interdependencies by addressing the main challenges simultaneously-enhancing analytical, systems, and design thinking as well as avoiding cognitive overload. To address these challenges, we develop a framework that integrates the concept of activity-system maps and the NK model. We use two companies-IKEA and MUJI-to demonstrate the utility of the framework and illustrate the effects of environmental change on organizational performance and the patterns of resilience in organizations. Our integrative framework and demonstration offer visible experiment-based insights for teaching about complex organizations in business education.