conceptualizing context and intervention as a system in implementation science: learning from complexity theory; comment on “stakeholder perspectives of attributes and features of context relevant to knowledge translation in health settings: a multi-country analysis”

In implementation science, implementation has been widely theorized and assessed. context, on the other hand, usually played a minor role in the field and was usually conceptualized in a rather positivist way. despite some promising efforts, there is a strong need to continue building theory on context and operationalizing the concept in implementation practice. i argue for the benefit of integrating complexity theory into our understanding of context in order to further our thinking about context and intervention as a system. this should be reflected by the way in which we build theory as well as apply this theory by employing methods that adequately account for complexity in systems.