Reflections on mapping chaos in the business organisational landscape

Chaos seldom occurs but during the phase of chaos and for sometime after its occurrence, there is a lack of order and a scope of heavy incurred or potential losses. For most living beings, chaos makes life difficult. The occurrence of chaos is a reality but the coming of chaos is often too hazy to be viewed early. For business firms’ like living organisms’, it is important to face the chaos in first-hand and then manage the chaotic phase such that there is restoration of order at the earliest and minimisation of losses till the end. If there can be a way to structure the phenomenon of a chaotic situation, then it would help managers to comprehend chaos better for organisational success. This paper attempts to develop a set of procedure to structure chaos in terms of its sensitivity, complexity, uncertainty and scope of potential or incurred loss. Based on Indian examples, looking at chaos becomes even more exiting as India is both a developing country as well as an emerging economy (thus offering shades of developed country landscape). Managing chaos in India is very challenging and hence this paper will bring very rich insights for managers and researchers in this field.