A computational simulation shows how firms adapt and progress in co-evolutionary pockets. Organizational strategy, environment and structure interlock in recurring patterns called configurations. Combinations of design decisions form a fitness landscape, which can be analyzed via Stuart Kauffman's NK model. The 'dynamo' system dynamics simulation package is used to model the chaotic behavior of a Lotka-Volterra model of interacting populations of organizations. Nonlinearity, feedback loops and sensitive independence on initial conditions results.
Organizational ecology provides a way to apply chaos theory to the study of social systems.