Gerrit Broekstra (born 1 August 1941,

Alkmaar Alkmaar () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands, located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland. Alkmaar is well known fo ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

), is a Dutch scientist and professor in the field of organization behavior and systems sciences at the Erasmus Universiteit,

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, and Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands.

Biography

Broekstra was born in 1941 in Alkmaar in the Netherlands. He received an

Engineer's degree An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Asia and Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always require ...

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

in 1966 from the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

and earned his PhD in

in 1973 at the

Eindhoven University of Technology The Eindhoven University of Technology (), Abbreviation, abbr. TU/e, is a public university, public technical university in the Netherlands, situated in Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its Bachelor of Science, BS ...

in The Netherlands. From 1966-1973 he was a manager of the fast-growing Physics Department of the National Defense Organization of TNO. In 1978 he was the first engineer to be elected as a Research Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Wassenaar, the Netherlands. In 1973 he joined the business school which became later the

Rotterdam School of Management Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (or RSM) is the international business school of the Erasmus University Rotterdam located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. RSM offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes taught mostly in English, ...

of the Erasmus University, of which he was the first dean. Since the 1980s he is a professor of organization behavior and systems sciences at the Erasmus Universiteit in

, the Kellogg School of Management,

and the Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands. He also serves on the editorial boards of various international journals. Broekstra has been organisationally active in the systems movement. For eight years he was the President of the Dutch Systems Society, the 'Systeemgroep Nederland'. He was the third President of the International Federation for Systems Research in Vienna. He is on the Advisory Board of the International Institute for General Systems Studies. He was program director of the Rabobank Executive MBA and executive dean of the Nyenrode Executive Management Development Center.

Work

During his career Broekstra has focused on themes such as intelligent organizations and organizational renewal through applying concepts from chaos,

complexity Complexity characterizes the behavior of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to c ...

and

systems science Systems science, also referred to as systems research or simply systems, is a transdisciplinary field that is concerned with understanding simple and complex systems in nature and society, which leads to the advancements of formal, natural, socia ...

. He has also initiated or spearheaded various educational programs, and "

consulting A consultant (from "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice or services in an area of specialization (generally to medium or large-size corporations). Cons ...

projects for multi-nationals such as SHV, KLM, Mercedes-Benz, Cosun, Arcadis, Ten Cate, Rabobank, and more, and has a substantial record in designing and facilitating Strategic Search Conferences for both business and government".

Publications

Broekstra has written over a hundred books and articles in international journals and conference proceedings.Overview of publications 1990-1998
Nijenrode University the Netherlands. Books, a selection: * ''Systemen en Toekomstverkenning: Onder Auspiciën Van De Systeemgroep Nederland, with J. S. Knipscheer and the Dutch Systems Group, E. Stenfert Kroese, (90-207-0643-8) * 1989, ''Creating intelligent organizations''. Delft: Eburon. * 1992, ''Science, Management and Entrepreneurship'', with J. Bartel, Leiden: Stenfert Kroese Publishers. * 2009, ''Deep leadership: the secret of right action in uncertain times''. Kampen: TenHave (in Dutch). * 2014, ''Building high-performance, high-trust organizations: Decentralization 2.0''. London: PalgraveMacmillan. Articles, a selection: * 1994, 'Problems of chaotic simplicity: Weaver revisited', in: Robert Trappl (ed.) ''Cybernetics & Systems '94''. Singapore: World Scientific. * 1996, 'A complexity perspective of organizing', in: Robert Trappl (ed.) ''Cybernetics & Systems '96''. Vienna: Austr. Soc. Cybernetics Studies. * 1996, 'The triune brain metaphor: the evolution of the living organization', in: D. Grant & C. Oswick (eds.) ''Metaphor and organizations''. London: Sage Publications. * 1997, ''Organizations are Closed Systems'', in: Glanville, "Problems of Excavating Cybernetics and Systems," Special Issue of Systemica. Southsea (UK): BKS. * 1998, 'Unmanagement: Do the Emperors still have Clothes,' in: Robert Trappl, ''Cybernetics and Systems '98''. Vienna: Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies. * 1998, 'An organization is a conversation', in: D. Grant, T. Keenoy & C. Oswick (eds.), ''Discourse and organization''. London: Sage Publications. * 2002, 'A synergetics approach to disruptive innovation', ''Kybernetes, the Int. J. Systems & Cybernetics'', vol. 31, no 9/10, pp. 1249–1259. * 2005, 'Bubble, critical zone and the crash of Royal Ahold' (with

Didier Sornette Didier Sornette (born 25 June 1957 in Paris) is a French researcher studying subjects including complex systems and risk management. He is Professor on the Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks at the ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zu ...

& Wei-Xing Zhou), ''Physica A'' 346, pp. 529–560.

References

External links

Gerrit Broekstra biography
by Roland Buresund, 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Broekstra, Gerrit Dutch systems scientists 1941 births Living people Delft University of Technology alumni Academic staff of Erasmus University Rotterdam Northwestern University faculty Academic staff of Nyenrode Business University People from Alkmaar 20th-century Dutch scientists 21st-century Dutch scientists