Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 1-13. © 2018 Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences Advanced Modeling Methods for Studying Individual Differences and Dynamics in Organizations: Introduction to the Special Issue Andrea Ceschi, 1 Riccardo Sartori, University of Verona, Italy, and Stephen J. Guastello, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI A new scientific paradigm has been evolving for some time now and gradually acquiring more consensus in such fields as strategic management and organizational studies. It is typified by the concept of an organization as a com- plex adaptive system (Anderson, 1999; Dooley, 1997). In an early contribution to the field, Herbert Simon (1962) defined a complex system as being made up of a large number of interacting parts that produce hierarchical structures that are not readily decomposed into its contributing parts (Rosser & Rosser, 2015). Follow- ing this definition, it becomes possible to apply the label complex system to most of the organizations we know with the human aspects that characterize them. For example, business organizations, which are composed of such factors as em- ployees, instruments, tools and devices, and processes such as decision-making (Arrow, McGrath, & Berdahl, 2000; Ceschi, Demerouti, Sartori, & Weller, 2017; Sartori & Ceschi, 2011; Weller, Ceschi, & Randolph, 2015), undoubtedly represent complex systems (Sterman, 2000). The factors and processes self-organ- ize into a coherent and coordinated work system, or at least they should do so. Importantly, systems also adapt. They assemble a structure to meet certain needs, one of which is to reduce the amount of energy required to carry out their functions, and to do so they reduce their internal level of complexity needed to respond to environmental demands. This is the minimum entropy principle that can be observed in physiological and individual cognitive processes also (Guastello et al., 2014; Hong, 2010). The systems have the means (sensors) for maintaining environmental awareness, making sense of incoming information, which might have a complex nature in its own right (Baber & McMaster, 2016; Weick, 2005), and formulating and taking action. Furthermore, the internal processes can reorganize to meet with new demands. To do so, the organization must maintain a sufficient level of internal complexity to make the required range of adaptive responses to the environment. This combination of reducing entropy and maintaining complexity results in an optimal level of complexity, which can be observed at the system levels of biology, individual psychology, teams, and organizations (Navarro & Rueff-Lopes, 2015; Schuldberg, 2015). 1 Correspondence concerning should be addressed to Andrea Ceschi, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Lungadige Porta Vittoria 41, 37129 Verona, Italy. E-mail: andrea.ceschi@univr.it 1