Patterns in the social world, including economics, geopolitics, computers and telecommunications, to name a few, have been changing ever more rapidly in recent years. Each of these terms derives from coping with change. Add to this the fact that information technology has greatly enhanced the ability of a corporation to decentralize its authority and thereby distribute its operations nationally, and globally. Reorganization at the organizational level in some ways mirrors similar global social processes of realignment now so prevalent. The fluidity of the global marketplace is reminiscent of the edge of chaos conditions.
Niches disappear and new opportunities open constantly.
The entire global system of social and economic networks is refining, and redefining. Traditional values are in conflict with unfamiliar adaptations at the levels of nations, societies, organizations, families, and perhaps somehow in our individual psyches. Our focus here is at the organizational level, but all levels interconnect and affect the others. They make up a significant portion of the environment in which the organization must survive. At each level as the values and norms collide, there is instability in cultures, mythologies, and superstitions.