Autopoiesis in organization theory and practice Autopoiesis in Organization Theory and Practice considers the potential of autopoiesis theory to provide a new unifying framework for the study of organizations as systems and of organizational phenomena as emergent phenomena. The papers in this volume integrate open systems theory with the pioneering work of Maturana and Varela (1980 1992) on autopoiesis in biological systems. Viewing organizations as living systems opens a powerful new perspective for describing explaining and even predicting organizational phenomena across the full spectrum of organizations and environments from stable