The Role of Complex Systems in Public-Private Service Networks

The complex systems field provides powerful instruments and concepts for understanding evolution and developments. Public Private Service Networks (PPSN) are increasingly advocated as beneficial for the delivery of public services. Yet how these networks evolve and adopt new policies is ill-understood. In this paper the characteristics of PPSN and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) are compared and it is suggested that PPSN can be viewed as a particular type of CAS. We argue that CAS research methods and tools and agent based simulation of PPSN can help to increase our understanding of the evolutionary nature of PPSN.

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