In fact, each level in a hierarchical system is composed of a potentially heterarchical group which contains its constituent elements.
[2] As Carole L. Crumley has summarised, "[h]e examined alternative cognitive structure(s), the collective organization of which he termed heterarchy.
This understanding revolutionized the neural study of the brain and solved major problems in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer design.
[4] In an attempt to operationalize heterarchies, Schoenherr and Dopko[5] use the concept of reward systems and Relational models theory.
Relational models are defined by distinct expectations for exchanges between individuals in terms of authority ranking, equality matching, communality, and market pricing.
Examples of heterarchical conceptualizations include the Gilles Deleuze/Félix Guattari conceptions of deterritorialization, rhizome, and body without organs.
In an organizational context the value of heterarchy derives from the way in which it permits the legitimate valuation of multiple skills, types of knowledge or working styles without privileging one over the other.
[citation needed] Anthropologist Dmitri Bondarenko follows Carole Crumley in her definition of heterarchy as "the relation of elements to one another when they are unranked or when they possess the potential for being ranked in a number of different ways" and argues that it is therefore not strictly the opposite of hierarchy, but is rather the opposite of homoarchy,[7] itself definable as "the relation of elements to one another when they possess the potential for being ranked in one way only".
In a systemic perspective, Gilbert Probst, Jean-Yves Mercier and others describe heterarchy as the flexibility of the formal relationships inside an organization.