Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of complexity and its management from an OM perspective, building on and extending the systematic literature review published in this journal in 2011, and provide a foundation for exploring the interactions between complexities and responses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes a subjective view of complexity, focusing on the “lived experience” of managers. It takes an updated systematic literature review, and demonstrates the comprehensiveness of a framework to classify complexities of projects. It reports the findings from 43 workshops with over 1,100 managers. Findings: First, the complexity framework is effective in aiding understanding. Second, and somewhat unexpectedly, managers were able to identify strategies to reduce the majority of complexities that they faced. Third, the workshops identified a typology of responses to residual complexities. Research limitations/implications: The framework has demonstrated its utility, and a gap in understanding emergent complexities is identified. The framework further presents the opportunity to explore the recursive nature of complexity and response. Practical implications: This paper provides a framework that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. The authors demonstrate that complexities can be reduced and provide a means to assess responses to residual complexities, including potentially matching managers to projects. Originality/value: This work extends the previous systematic review combined with extensive empirical data to generate findings that are having impact in practice, and have the potential to strengthen a relatively neglected area within OM. A research agenda is suggested to support this.

We identify the desirability of simultaneously using knowledge assets both to exploit and explore (ambidexterity) and highlight the significance of this for the project context. We use an intellectual capital perspective and theorise that managing projects draws upon human, social and organisational capital. We examine how this is used by managers, in a qualitative study in technology projects, to explain better how ambidexterity is achieved.Ambidexterity in the use of knowledge assets is shown to exist in the practices of managers but without them necessarily having a conscious strategy for it. We identify the mechanisms by which this happens and note the distinctive role of social capital. We demonstrate the integrative nature of the mechanisms, and how each mechanism can involve the deployment of either single or multiple elements of intellectual capital. In so doing we extend the existing theory to the operational level and demonstrate the utility of this approach

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of supply chain complexity and extend this with literature developed within the project domain. The authors use the lens of ambidexterity (the ability both to exploit and explore) to analyse responses to complexity, since this enables the authors to understand the application of known solutions in conjunction with innovative ones to resolve difficulties. This research also seeks to investigate how managers respond to supply chain complexities that can either be operationally deleterious or strategically beneficial.Design/methodology/approach: The authors develop a descriptive framework based on the project management (PM) literature to understand response options to complexity, and then use interviews with supply chain managers in six organisations to examine the utility of this framework in practice. The authors ask the research question “How do managers in supply chains respond to complexities”?Findings: The case study data show first that managers faced with structural, socio-political, or emergent supply chain complexities use a wide range of responses. Second, over a third of the instances of complexity coded were actually accommodated, rather than reduced, by the study firms, suggesting that adapting to supply chain complexity in certain instances may be strategically appropriate. Third, the lens of ambidexterity allows a more explicit assessment of whether existing PM solutions can be considered or if novel methods are required to address supply chain complexities.Practical implications: The descriptive framework can aid managers in conceptualising and addressing supply chain complexity. Through exploiting current knowledge, managers can lessen the impact of complexity while exploring other innovative approaches to solve new problems and challenges that evolve from complexity growth driven by business strategy.Originality/value: This study addresses a gap in the literature through the development of a framework which provides a structure on ways to address supply chain complexity. The authors evaluate an existing project complexity concept and demonstrate that it is both applicable and valuable in non-project, ongoing operations. The authors then extend it using the lens of ambidexterity, and develop a framework that can support practitioners in analysing and addressing both strategically necessary supply complexities, together with unwanted, negative complexities within the organisation and across the supply chain.

Research on ambidexterity has been focused primarily at the organisational level. There is little in the literature detailing ambidexterity in more complex forms of organising. While much is written on the ‘what’ of ambidexterity – its enactment has been shown to be beneficial – there is a gap in our understanding of the underlying mechanisms, architectures and dynamics by which organisations can achieve both exploration and exploitation. In this article, we use the lens of intellectual capital to extend current architectural theory. A case study of a project management office in an IT/IS multinational provides the context in which to qualitatively unpack the underpinning intellectual capital architecture, illustrating the interwoven application of human, social and organisational capital in a complicated organisational setting. We reveal the co-existence and mutual interdependence of multiple intellectual capital and process elements, further explaining the ‘how’ of this increasingly important area of study.