Dr Jean Boulton
Profile
- Visiting Fellow, Cranfield School of Management
- Director, Claremont Management Consultants Ltd.
- Fellow of the Institute of Physics
- Visiting fellow, Bristol Business School
Research interests
The core theme to my research interests is how to deal with a complex, interconnected, often fast-changing and uncertain world.
I am just completing, with colleagues from Cranfield, for the Oxford University Press, ‘Embracing Complexity’ which will explain complexity theory and its relation to evolutionary perspectives and look at its application for management, strategy, policy and economics.
My current interests are in considering how a complexity perspective affects both the design and evaluation of projects and programmes and how research methodologies can explicitly be situated within a complexity ontology – a view of the world as systemic, emergent, contingent and path-dependent.
Teaching
- Visiting Lecturer for Masters in Sustainability and Responsibility (Ashridge Business School)
- Visiting Lecturer for Masters in Economics for Transition (Schumacher College)
Postgraduate
Publications
Book/s
Boulton, J., Allen, P. and Bowman, C., 2012. Forthcoming. Embracing Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Book Sections
Allen, P. and Boulton, J., 2011. Complexity and limits to knowledge: the importance of uncertainty. In: Allen, P., Maguire, S. and McKelvey, B., eds. The SAGE Handbook of Complexity and Management. London: Sage, pp. 164-181.
Boulton, J. and Allen, P., 2008. Chance and necessity, diversity and belief. In: Proceedings of the UK Systems Society. .
Boulton, J. and Allen, P., 2007. Complexity and strategy. In: Jenkins, M., Ambrosini, V. and Collier, N., eds. Advanced Strategic Management: A Multi-Perspective Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Allen, P., Boulton, J., Baldwin, J. and Strathern, M., 2005. The implications of complexity for business process and strategy. In: Richardson, K., ed. Managing Organizational Complexity: Philosophy, Theory and Application. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, pp. 397-418.
Articles
Boulton, J., 2010. Complexity and the social sciences. Institute of Physics Nonlinear and Complex Physics Group Newsletter, 2, pp. 2-4.
Boulton, J., 2010. Complexity theory and implications for policy development. Emergence: Complexity and Organisation, 12 (2), pp. 31-40.
Veblen, T. and Boulton, J., 2010. Why is economics not an evolutionary science? Emergence: Complexity and Organisation, 12 (2), pp. 41-69.
Thesis
Boulton, J., 2012. The Complexity Turn: Narrative, Science and Utility. Thesis (Master of Philosophy (MPhil)). University of Bath.
