4th World Conference on Business, Management, and Economics
Year: 2025
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Micro-changes as Macro-Catalysts: Non-linear Dynamics of Leadership Behaviour, Cultural Emergence, and System Outcomes in Adaptive Organisations
Ee Ai Lim, Rashad Yazdanifard
ABSTRACT:
Highlighting the non-linear dynamics of complex adaptive systems (CAS) by Plsek and Greenhalgh, this research investigates how micro-changes in leader behaviour, for example, nuanced communication shifts, catalyse significant, often unexpected, organizational cultural transformations (Schein) over time (H5:Even minor changes in leaders’ behaviours, such as slight adjustments in communications, decision-making, or feedback, have led to significant and unexpected shifts in our organisational culture over the past eight months). Its longitudinal track , 24 months, the co-evolution of transformational leadership (Bass and Avolio, Multiple Leadership Questionnaire, Transformational leadership will show a statistically significant positive trend over the 24 months, reflecting adaptive changes) and emergent cultural attributes (Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument, H2:Organisational culture will exhibit significant positive changes in its adaptive and emergent qualities over time), testing their significant association (H3: Improvements in leadership behaviours are significantly associated with positive shifts in organizational culture) and their combined impact on employee satisfaction and operational effectiveness (H4:Enhanced adaptive leadership and emergent cultural attributes are significantly correlated with improvements in non-financial outcomes) Utilising Bloom’s Taxonomy to design nuanced surveys and probing interviews, the study uniquely focuses on identifying critical thresholds and feedback loops where minor leadership inputs generate disproportionately large cultural and performance outputs, offering a granular view of emergence in human organisations.
Keywords: emergent culture; micro-behaviours; nonlinear dynamics; organisational emergence; threshold effects