TITLE: Complex Adaptive Systems and Their Application to Problems of Organization and Policy

SPEAKER: Prof. Michael Dwight Cohen

DATE : Sep 1,2009,10:30-12:00 AM

LOCATION: Boardroom 202, Peking University Hall

INSTITUTE: The School of Information, University of Michigan

SPEAKER INTRODUCTION:

Prof. Cohen, the Bachelor of History of the Stanford University and the PH.D of the UC, has ever been a postdoctor at the Stanford University. From 1995, he has been working as chairman of ICOS at the U-M . At present, he is William D. Hamilton Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems at the U-M, and serves as a professor in the School of Information, the Department of Political Science, and the Ford School of Public Policy.

Prof. Cohen is a creative researcher in diverse fields. In Organization Studies, he, with James G. March and Johan P.Olser, brought forward the Garbage Can Model. He is also a co-author of Leadership and Ambiguity: The America College Presidency. a influential book in the field of Studies in Higher Education. Just in this book , he suggests that universities are a kind of organized anarchy, which has already been considered a classic theory.

In recent years, Prof. Cohen’s research has focused on constructing a consistent theory of organizational actors. This study does not base on the rational model but the adaptation theory.