This camp is aimed at current PhD students in Strategy, Organisational Behaviour, Organisational Theory, Entrepreneurship, and related fields, from the 2nd year onward, who are developing or refining their dissertation research. The programme offers a focused space for theory building, conceptual clarity, and positioning research within the broader strategy and organisation literature.

How can Complex Adaptive Systems thinking help strengthen your research in strategic management?

Course Objectives: This doctoral-level course, hosted by INSEAD, introduces a unifying perspective on organisations as complex adaptive systems (CAS) and on strategic management as the challenge of designing and steering the behaviour of such systems. It brings together key strands of management research, including organisational learning, organisational design, and dynamic capabilities, into a coherent theoretical framework, drawing on the complementary perspectives of two leading theorists in the field.

This is an excellent opportunity to engage in focused intellectual exchange and reflection, supporting you in developing or clarifying research questions, refining research agendas, and positioning your work within the broader strategy and organisation literature.

View Course Syllabus

Dates: May 11th (kick-off), 18th, 21st, 26th, June 1st, 18th and 19th (finale)

Duration of classes: 3 hours

Time: 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm CEST (set to afternoons CEST, to allow EMEA, East Coast, USA and Asia attendees to participate in the live remote/online sessions)

Who should attend: Designed for current PhD students in Strategy, Organisational Behaviour, Organisational Theory, Entrepreneurship, and related fields who are developing or refining their dissertation research.

What you will gain: Develop a strong conceptual understanding of complex adaptive systems and their relevance to strategic management. Gain analytical frameworks to inform theory building and empirical research. Engage in advanced academic discussion with leading faculty and an international cohort of doctoral peers. Strengthen research agenda within a rigorous academic environment.

Key Topics covered:

Why Complex Adaptive Systems?

• What is a Complex Adaptive System (CAS)
• Organisations as CAS within which both learning (including search) and selection unfold across levels
• Strategic management under limits to authority and foresight Individual adaptation processes- the basics

Individual adaptation processes- the basics

• Learning by doing and its synonyms (e.g. learning from experience, experiential learning, reinforcement learning)
• Search as problem solving with interdependence in actions
• Exploration as “doing the non-obvious” vs “doing what’s very different”; Exploration triggered by aspiration failures

Individual adaptation- advanced topics

• Mental models
• Generalization
• Offline search and simulation

Multi-actor systems: parallel adaptation

• Forms of vicarious learning (e.g. inspiration, imitation, belief sharing)
• Adaptation in networks: Sewell Wright and the power of quasi-clustering
• A role for hierarchy: Adaptation through selection over nested parallel systems (Divide and compete)

Multi-actor systems: coupled adaptation

• Coupling as interdependence between actors
• Limits of A/B testing and RCTs
• Credit assignment problems
• Another role for hierarchy: Asymmetric influence & asymmetric adaptation rates

Adaptation as Resilience

• Buffering and slack
• Efficiency vs Resilience
• Nesting vs asymmetry as mechanisms for resilience of hierarchy
• The resilience of generalists

Application Deadline: Applications should be submitted by Sunday, 15 March 2026, at the end of the day, Fontainebleau. (Note: admissions will be on a rolling basis.) The application fee must be paid as soon as possible for those who submit by the application deadline to secure their spots.