Landscape Models of Complex Change

This chapter reviews recent advances in the NK modeling literature conceptualizing organizational change and innovation as a search over a complex landscape. It discusses both strengths and limitations of this perspective and delineates potential for future research directions. The key argument is that the NK model in its traditional form may be exhausting its theoretical insights that it can provide to the field. However, substantial modifications and extensions of the NK model or new classes of landscape models may provide fresh perspectives. Specifically, we consider the modeling efforts that endogenize the landscape construction as the next frontier in this literature. We also discuss several recent studies that incorporate various extensions of the NK model and allow for agent-driven changes to the landscape