Schools of Systems Thinking - Development Trends in Systems Methodology

Critical Systems of Learning and Innovation Competence for Addressing Complexity in Transformations to Agricultural Sustainability

“…But scholars and practitioners are often overwhelmed by various schools of systems thinking in general (see Olsson 2005), and agricultural systems thinking in particular (see Hambly-Odame 2009a, 2010;Klerkx et al 2012). There are three main schools of systems thinking that are relevant to advance agricultural resource management research, policy, and practice: 1) research into the systemic world, 2) systems research into the messy world, and 3) critical systems research into the unjust world.…”

Systems theory: myth or mainstream?

“…That is, the citations in one publication lead to finding a few more to study, and so on. Gradually, an image of the most important strands of systems theory for management began to form, and what is presented below is a synthesis of findings from a large number of publications, of which the most important in no particular order are Olsson [23], Flood [15], Eriksson [25], Lane and Jackson [26], Umpleby and Dent [27], Ackoff [20], Jackson [28], Jackson and Keys [29], Ingelstam [30] and Jackson [31]. 1 It should be noted that the 'schools' and selection of associated scholars presented below are the present author's interpretation of what is deemed the most influential, based on assertions thereof provided in the overviews on which this synthesis is built.…”

“…Flood [15], for instance, points out that Senge's version of systems thinking is rooted in System Dynamics, a 'harder' view of systems that originates with Forrester's early works [16,17] Olsson [23] identifies largely the same 'schools', but does not mention Senge and The Fifth Discipline, nor does it contain any references to Interactive planning. There are, however, references to Ackoff as one of the most influential scholars within Operations Research (OR) along with Churchman, whom Flood points out as a central scholar of the Critical Systems Approach.…”

“…Departing from the outlines presented by Flood [15] and Olsson [23], a semi-structured literature review focused on finding more such reviews of the field of systems theory was conducted. One guiding rule was to identify such theoretical areas that has been, or is, influential to the wider area of 'management'.…”

Using Contextual Constructs Model to Frame Doctoral Research Methodology

“…As emergent inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary fields such as cybernetics and digital ecosystems (Fiorina, 2006) and significant new developments in the epistemological framing of systems theory Olsson, 2004) begin to filter through to IS/IT related disciplines, the CCM offers a systems-driven and contextual approach to developing research methodology and design. The process of considering both the research objects (constructs) and their relationships (context) makes the CCM ideal for investigating Complexity (Waldrop, 1992); Living Systems (Miller, 1978;Miller & Miller, 1995) and Complex Systems (Bunge, 1979); as well as Complex Adaptive Systems (Holland, 1992) Artificial Intelligence (Loosemore, 2007), and multidimensional phenomena.…”