ABSTRACT
It is not uncommon for organizational theories to speak of “the environment” as if it were a formless fountain of stimuli. Most academic approaches to organizational behavior tend to dismiss economics as somebody else’s topic and problem. In contrast, an NDS theory of organizational behavior recognizes that some of the dynamical events that take place in “the environment” fall into both the domains of economic theory and the enlightened understanding of organizational behavior. True, it is impossible to condense all nonlinear economics into one chapter. Rather, it is necessary to focus on a few topics that are proximally related to organizational life, and save the rest for other authors such as Leydesdorff and van den Besselaar (1994), Puu (1993, 2000b), Rosser (1991, 1999, 2000a), and Zhang (1996). The chapter begins with the concept of the simple price equilibrium and the
classical economic system that goeswith it. The limitations of classical economics, such as the assumption of perfect competition, are well-known today, although classical and neoclassical thinking persists. The chapter then continues with some nonlinear economic themes that are, on the one hand, important to organizational life, and on the other hand, nonclassical in their content. They are the nonlinear market theory, theories of unemployment and inflation, information economics, and natural resource economics.
