A Systemic Inquiry into the AIDS Epidemic in the Western Cape of South Africa through Interactive Management

2019

IJMPB

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the delay factors in South African electrical distribution projects and demonstrate the interlaced relationship between the identified project delay factors. Design/methodology/approach This research employs interactive management (IM) methodology to construct a model achieving the research purpose. The IM methodology is anchored in the soft systems thinking. Its inquiry process mainly comprises four phases: idea generation, idea clarification, idea structuring and interpretation of the structured ideas. The IM methodology allows the relevant stakeholders to collaboratively develop a digraph displaying the interrelationship among the system elements. Findings The participants of the IM session structured a systemic model showing that a loop comprising three factors is the driver leading to the delays in the electrical distribution projects. The three delay factors in the loop are “poor communication”, “poor planning” and “project scheduling not properly done”. Originality/value The findings show that a loop comprising three delay factors is the driver leading to the project delays. This result is different from the outputs of the commonly used approaches. The three identified root causes serve as the starting point for eradicating delays in the electrical distribution projects.

Section: Interactive Management Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Interactive Management Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A systemic inquiry into the delay factors in South African electrical distribution projects

Ntshangase

2019

IJMPB

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“…From a systemic point of view, there are other relationships existing between system elements, different from 'more important', that can promote the elicitation of true CSFs. In this paper, 'systemic' means that knowledge is subjective while embracing the invariant features in systems, such as asymmetry, nonlinearity, and feedback loops (Flood 2010;Tuan 2018). Furthermore, systemic thinking embraces democracy, learning, and upholding participatory design (Tuan 2018;Tuan and Shaw 2016).…”

Section: A Systemic Approach To Exploring Csfsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The systemic approaches embrace subjective knowledge and participatory learning. Furthermore, in a systemic world, manifold nonlinear and asymmetric relationships could exist between system elements (Flood 2010;Tuan 2018;Tuan and Shaw 2016). Instead of probing into the relationship of 'more important', the proposed methodology argues for scrutinizing the relationship of 'helping to achieve', which is also amenable to transitive inference (Warfield and Cárdenas 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Other Side of Success Factors—A Systemic Methodology for Exploring Critical Success Factors

2021

Syst Pract Action Res

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This paper puts forward a systemic methodology to explore Critical Success Factors (CSFs). The common idea about ranking CSFs is to explore the relationship of 'more important', i.e. directly assessing whether success factor A is more important than factor B. This idea is prominent in the prevailing approaches, e.g. the qualitative inquiry, quantitative analysis, and multi-criteria decision making. Exploring CSFs from a different lens, this paper argues for systemic approaches, reckoning that manifold interrelationships could exist between system elements. Considering the manifold interrelationships, the proposed methodology contends that two opposite interrelationships could exist between CSFs-'helping to achieve' and 'inhibiting to achieve'. The first step of assessing CSFs is to construct a digraph in a participatory way, showing the transitive 'helping to achieve' relationship between CSFs and obtain the 'helping to achieve' score for each element. The second step is to examine the inhibiting relationship through a pairwise comparison to obtain the 'inhibiting to achieve' score for each element. The third step is to combine the 'helping to achieve score' with 'inhibiting to achieve' score to obtain the net score for each success factor. This output aims to provide the relevant stakeholders with a more comprehensive spectrum in assessing CSFs to develop their organizations well.

“…For example, Nthunya et al [17] used IM to explore the major factors causing basic education problems in Lesotho. Tuan [18] applied IM to explore the aggravating relationship between the factors leading to the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The earlier version of IM, i.e.…”

Section: Identifying Csfs Through Interactive Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Critical Success Factors through Interactive Management

2020

MATEC Web Conf.

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Since its inception, the Critical Success Factor (CSF) concept has been increasingly adopted by industries to achieve business goals. However, the conventional approaches used for identifying critical success factors are underpinned by the mechanism paradigm. The mechanism paradigm doesn't take the interlaced relationships between system elements into account. Neither does it promote interaction between the relevant stakeholders. This paper proposes a systemic approach called Interactive Management (IM) to complement conventional ideas in determining the critical success factors. The Interactive Management process embraces the relevant stakeholders to collectively identify the critical success factors through four phases: generating critical success factors, clarifying the generated critical success factors, structuring a systemic digraph showing the interlaced relationships between the critical success factors, and identifying the real critical success factors in the systemic digraph. An example is provided to demonstrate how the Interactive Management methodology can be used to identify the real critical success factors.