Some authors claim that attempts to apply complexity science to organization can only be successful if loyalty is paid to original meanings: only when students of organization accept complexity science as indivisible and operationalize complexity concepts rigorously can faddism be forestalled. In this article it is argued that loose application of complexity theory is not only inevitable, but that meaningful use of complexity theory in the field of organization and management actually depends on flexible application and translation of complexity concepts. The example of the ‘career’ of the anthropological concept of culture in the field of organization is used to support the argument that fitting complexity concepts into their new habitat does not leave them meaningless, but is instead the conditio sine qua non of successful application.