The enterprise complexity model: An extension of the viable system model for emerging organizational forms

Abstract An enterprise complexity model (ECM) is offered as a methodological tool for the actors of an enterprise to overcome complex environmental problems. The heuristic for this purpose is the viable system model, which guides an enterprise's self‐organization towards policies creating, regulating and producing sustainable development goals. Self‐organization is grounded in correcting imbalanced interactions between an enterprise's actors and their environmental agents, to increase their requisite variety to achieve sustainability, that is, to overcome environmental problems. The interactions between actors and agents are facilitated by current and emergent digital technologies, which support the structuring of collaborative networks. Reflexive interactions between the enterprise's actors and agents in the problematic environment help their branching into all kinds of innovative organizational forms. The Viplan methodology is used to achieve this branching, which accounts for the enterprise's complexity with the support of the Viplan method. Respect for the environment and quality of interactions are values driving this ecology of enterprises towards a deeper and wider appreciation of the issues besetting future generations.