Introduction: chaordic systems thinking for learning organizations

The European Chaos and Complexity in Organizations Network (ECCON) held its Third Annual Meeting in Guimaraes, Portugal, June 2003, at the very same spot where the First Business Excellence conference was organized. As an outcome of that meeting, this TLO special brings together six ECCON members around the theme of "Chaordic Systems Thinking" (CST), a "new science" lens based in chaos and complexity. The CST framework will be presented, as well as some preliminary explorations into how it might inform a learning organization. Apart from the CST lens, the issue contains chaos-and-complexity concepts of learning and the learning organization, a dialogical conversation about the framework and some paper presenting empirical research findings.