chaos

1. Gen Mgt

a situation of unpredictability and rapid change. Chaos theory emerged in the 1970s as a mathematical concept that defied the theory of cause and effect to assert that behavior is essentially random. Such writers as Tom Peters, who wrote Thriving on Chaos in 1987, have applied the theory to management, arguing that attempts to plan and control management processes are fundamentally doomed to failure and that, instead, managers should embrace change and flexibility in order to cope with an environment that is altering at an everincreasing rate.

2. Stats

a situation in which a deterministic model displays behavior that appears to be random