"One of the most respected attempts to measure complexity was made ten years ago by John Tyler Bonner, a biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey. Count the number of different types of cell in the organism, he suggested. In principle, this gives a sense of the number of specialised functions an organism can perform, and that is a clue to complexity. Although it leaves out behaviour, the approach also has the virtue of considering the whole organism, not just one part." (Roger Lewin, New Scientist, 05 Feb 1994)
This idea makes me think that diversity could be used as a key indicator of structural change in a market system. How many different private and public actors are there in a market system at different points of our interventions? Moreover, diversity presents fractal properties: one could look at diversity within the system, the value chains within the system, the types of actors within the value chains, and variations within a given type of actor.
However, the diversity indicator may not be useful all over the system. Biologists like Dan McShea, a palaeontologist at the University of Michigan, warn us that "this global increase in complexity is not expressed consistently in all lineages of animals." (idem)
I agree with McShea's caution: lack of changes in diversity may not mean that the system is not moving towards a more connected, efficient, productive state; we may be looking at a point in the system that finds it hard to react with increased diversity to our interventions.
One such group I can think of is the one composed of the actors who govern the market system (using Gary Gereffi's ideas), such as the roasters in a coffee market system. These actors have very few incentives to change in the face of our interventions or of incremental changes in other parts of the system that do not threaten their dominant position.
However, it is unlikely that we will look at only one place when we are implementing the intervention. We normally perceive changes in different parts; for example: a community of farmers, a group of service providers and even government agencies.
As facilitators of complex systems we must keep an eye on how diversity changes in different parts of the system and we must try to find causal links between our efforts and these changes.
This idea makes me think that diversity could be used as a key indicator of structural change in a market system. How many different private and public actors are there in a market system at different points of our interventions? Moreover, diversity presents fractal properties: one could look at diversity within the system, the value chains within the system, the types of actors within the value chains, and variations within a given type of actor.
However, the diversity indicator may not be useful all over the system. Biologists like Dan McShea, a palaeontologist at the University of Michigan, warn us that "this global increase in complexity is not expressed consistently in all lineages of animals." (idem)
I agree with McShea's caution: lack of changes in diversity may not mean that the system is not moving towards a more connected, efficient, productive state; we may be looking at a point in the system that finds it hard to react with increased diversity to our interventions.
One such group I can think of is the one composed of the actors who govern the market system (using Gary Gereffi's ideas), such as the roasters in a coffee market system. These actors have very few incentives to change in the face of our interventions or of incremental changes in other parts of the system that do not threaten their dominant position.
However, it is unlikely that we will look at only one place when we are implementing the intervention. We normally perceive changes in different parts; for example: a community of farmers, a group of service providers and even government agencies.
As facilitators of complex systems we must keep an eye on how diversity changes in different parts of the system and we must try to find causal links between our efforts and these changes.
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