ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the fundamental nature of the problem to which Network Enabled Capability and sociotechnical systems theory is a response. It explores the fundamental concept of complexity through three overlapping themes. First, the attribute view, which leads to a multi-dimensional problem space through which human factors, as an academic field, appears to be travelling. Second, the complex theoretic view, in which metrics and measures exist to complement established human-factors methods and diagnose at least certain aspects of complexity; and finally, the complex systems research view. Multiplicity, dynamism, uncertainty, difficulty, importance; these five factors represent one of two ways that the term complexity is used in the literature. The second way that complexity is expressed in the literature, aside from an attribute, is to ascribe to it a 'quantitative measure, a single number that characterises a system, thus capturing the notion that some systems are more or less complex than others'.
