ABSTRACT
In this chapter it is proposed to analyse relatedness and transversality from the perspective of the complexity sciences rather than from the more usual rationalist perspective of either ‘individualist’ explanations of change (e.g. Popper, Hayek) or only systems or ‘structures’ perspectives (e.g. structuration) that privilege these macro-entities while still allowing for ‘global controller’ roles in innovation. As we have seen, in the complexity sciences such ‘controllers’ are excluded in favour of complex adaptive system effects. One of these, of particular interest for students of regional development, is the phenomenon of ‘strange attractors’. However, while eschewing the above, it remains the intent of this chapter and the book more generally to identify the space in which the innovative or creative collective or individual actor resides. This is done in the second part of this chapter by reference to varieties of ‘design’ capability and practitioner. Such actors are not in any sense ‘global controllers’ but rather creative or innovative actors making their contribution to reduce the destructive effects of the dissipative structures of entropy, as proposed in the second law of thermodynamics.
