ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on international business development is written from the position that firms are able to determine their policies and organization from a position o f sovereignty: they might decide what they wish to do and then go and do it. Although interaction with the environment might have an impact upon their activities, this possibility is often underplayed. However, we have witnessed, especially in the light o f the recent Asian economic melt-down is that chaos and complexity can rapidly be introduced into the system or world o f any corporate player. This necessitates that new paradigms and structures should emerge from the chaos and, in some cases, crystallize. Catastrophe and chaos theories are sometimes confused. Chaos theory tells us that simple laws can have complicated, even unpredictable consequences, whereas simple causes can produce complex effects. Complexity theory tells us the opposite: that complex causes can bring about simple effects (Cohen and Stewart 1994, p.2). This raises some key questions. For example, can the study o f the East and Southeast Asian business environments both before and after the crisis be further illuminated by considering them against a framework that embodies some principles derived from chaos and complexity theory?