Higher-Order System

Simon Wardley, “Open source as weapon”, Bits or Pieces (2015) Benson, A. R. (2023). “What are higher-order networks?” SIAM Review, 65(2), 251-272.

In Wardley Mapping, a higher-order system is an emergent structure or value-creating capability enabled by the commoditization and ubiquity of underlying components in the value chain. When lower-level components become cheap and ubiquitous, they allow entirely new systems to emerge on top of them. Identifying and anticipating these higher-order systems is central to strategic advantage and navigating cycles of change in business ecosystems.

In system science and network theory, the term describes systems where behavior arises from interactions involving three or more elements simultaneously, or from nested subsystems forming higher levels of organization. Such systems require frameworks like hypergraphs to model collective phenomena and emergent behaviors not reducible to pairwise interactions.