NEXUS: A Synergistic Human-Service Ecosystems Approach

This paper presents a novel approach to organizational effectiveness that challenges the static hierarchies predominant in traditional institutional frameworks. Human-Service Ecosystems (HSEs) represent individuals and the technologies they use to achieve goals within an organization. However, in situations involving complex dynamics, such as emergency response, organizations are often ineffective at achieving these goals. This ineffectiveness has been attributed, among other things, to the organization´s underlying structure, as static hierarchies are ill-suited to addressing the dynamics of an unfolding situation, and to individuals´ cognitive limitations. By improving human-machine effectiveness, while simultaneously improving the interaction between individuals, operationally-networked organizations can synergistically emerge through dynamic social structures supported by dynamic information systems. This paper proposes a new approach, NEXUS, which leads to the design of such an information system (based on the concept of HSE), capable of supporting both the dynamics necessary to match situational complexity, and the formal and informal social structures present within organizations.