Environmental Paradigms,Biodiversity Conservation,and Critical Systems Thinking

In 1994 Gerald Midgley addressed the issue of the boundary implications of two different paradigms of thought about the environment, namely, humanis and the ecological perspective The distinction that he makes is important because it draws attention to the value implications of an uncritical acceptance of boundaries around human interests that serves to marginalize the environment. It is argued here, however, that Midgley does not go far enough. Just as an uncritical acceptance of humanis marginalizes the environment, so an uncritical acceptance of the environmental perspectiv runs the risk of prioritizing some elements of the environment over others, e.g., the interests of individual animals over species or over ecosystems. This paper seeks to correct this limitation in Midgleys account by developing a more sophisticated framework of environmental paradigms: a framework that can be used to clarify the values of stakeholders in critical systems interventions involving the management of biodiversity.     

“Think Like an Ecosystem”—Embedding a Living System Paradigm Into Participatory Planning

The European Union Water Framework Directive offers an unparalleled opportunity for improving river basin management and moving towards a sustainable future. It is widely accepted that the concept of sustainable development itself can be understood in fairly simple terms, but that implementation, making the concept practically operable, is difficult to achieve in practice. There is a need to animate this process, making it more engaging and comprehensible for participants. This research examined the emerging role of active stakeholder participation in planning for sustainability. The DesignWays planning process, developed by the author, was tested in the context of waterside regeneration in the Mersey Basin Campaign. The overall aim of this research was to explore the use of a systems thinking paradigm to inform participatory ecological design. It has demonstrated that a process consistent with a living systems paradigm can contribute to the development of more integrated, ecologically sound plans.     

Fostering Design Culture Through Cultivating the User-Designers' Design Thinking and Systems Thinking

In this paper, the essence of design thinking and systems thinking is reviewed, analyzed, and synthesized. Although there are many valuable schools of systems thinking, I focus on both Banathy's and Senge's since there are design spirit embedded in their systems thinking. I attempt to grasp the spirit of Banathy's systems models and the essence of Senge's systems thinking, incorporating them into my design inquiry. I propose adopting an enlightened, transformative design approach in order to enhance the revolution of the public's inner and outer systems through collaborative design engagement. It is expected that by utilizing the transformative design approach, the public or user–designers could gain the necessary skills to envision their own learning, assume responsibility for designing their own learning environments, and systematically reflect upon their habitual thinking and actions. Ultimately, the user-designers would be able to transform their model-driven or theory-driven approaches to systems application into a cultural approach to the cultivation of systems thinking and design thinking. Indeed, design thinking, as well as contemporary systems thinking are two powerful wings to make us fly in the capacious learning world of the 21st century.     

From Teaching to Learning: Technological Potential and Sustainable, Supported Open Learning

The central theme of this paper is the current interest in most educational institutions in moving from teaching to learning as their main system model and the implications which technology media have for unravelling the debate and influencing the resulting practice (for example see Active Learning: Using the Internet for Teaching, Number 2, July, 1995), Our chosen strategy for dealing with the central theme is to consider how we use language, metaphor and models to describe systems for teaching and learning and what is the role of technology in these systems. In particular we describe how the Open University is moving from an analysis of individual technologies to a synthesis of the educational ideas into a sustainable system that conforms to the University's policy of supported open learning. This includes focusing on open and equal access to courses, considerable attention to staff development and training (specifically in core teaching areas such as face to face tuition, correspondence tuition, student support, telephone and other media supported communication) as well as the necessity and value of reflection on practice (e.g. see Baker, Tomlinson et al,, 1996). In this first section, taking as our starting point the traditional linear view of educational structures, we build upon the notion of the learning system and describe this as an approach with a somewhat long and surprising history originating in the Socratic method. An eductive, cyclic learning model is introduced, and the historical impact of technology on this model is briefly reviewed in a global context by addressing the specific issue of access from the developing countries. Following from this, in sections two and three two types of teaching are described, under the labels of conventional and distance. It is argued that each has strengths and tendencies towards the eductive learning system introduced in section one. However, it is also argued that each has flaws which provide problems for the development of a learning system which can be sustained at distance. An analysis based upon metaphor is applied. In section four, it is then argued that in the conventional model there is a system with excellent learning potential but with an organisational structure which often does not encourage it whereas in the distance model there is the potential organisation for providing feedback but often little effective use made of it. That lack of use includes the new technologies which are now being focused on by the Open University, both in terms of the INSTILL initiative (Integrate New Systems and Technologies Into Lifelong Learning) and the Technology Strategy for Academic Advantage (Laurillard, Christmas et al., 1996). These technologies are argued, in section five, to be capable of being tactically effective in stimulating and supporting the strategic aim of learning. Technology mediation is discussed both in terms of course-based teaching and in terms of research opportunities. In section six a range of problem/opportunity areas of immediate concern for the extension of this technologically mediated system to the developing countries are discussed, while policy implications for the extension of supported open learning are drawn out in section seven. These include policies toward co-learning, access to learning, quality standards and the authorship of educational material.     

Researching-Acting-Reflecting on Public Health Services in Venezuela. I. A Conceptual Framework

This is the first of a duology of articles reporting on an action research project about public health services in Venezuela. This first paper presents a summary of a conceptual framework from which a process of intervention was launched. The second paper, which follows immediately in this special issue, presents a narrative of the intervention process and a final discussion about it. The conceptual framework is constituted by two types of interpretive models of the role of the state concerning health services. On the one hand, four logical interpretive models are summarized. They correspond to four theories about the socioeconomic mission of the state in a modern society. Different thematic interpretations concerning the role of the state in health services are derived from such general missions. On the other hand, two different and, to a certain degree, opposed historical interpretive models about the present Venezuelan socioeconomic-political situation and their corresponding power structures are outlined. The four logical interpretive models are discussed in the light of the two historical models in terms of desirable and feasible courses of political action.     

“Becoming Different”: Accessing University From a Low Socioeconomic Community—Barriers and Motivators

Access to tertiary education by individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds has been extremely low historically, despite policies to address this inequity. Twenty eight people from a low socio-economic community with almost the lowest rates of access to university in Australia were interviewed to identify the barriers they had encountered and the factors that had enabled them to access and complete a university qualification. Barriers reported occur both within the community, and external to, or on the boundary of the community. Internal barriers included lack of information about the existence of university or its value for individuals, cultural beliefs about acceptable aspirations, a lack of role models within the community, and a lack of the opportunity to compare the impact of a university education on lifestyle, opportunities and options. Motivators identified are categorised as nature of work; interest, role models/comparisons competition/proving, and encouragement.     

The scene for Interpretive Systemology

In this introductory paper to the special issue ofSystems Practice devoted to Interpretive Systemology, some of the conditions under which this trend in systems thinking has come to life are briefly depicted. For that purpose a wider and a narrower scene are presented. The wider scene presents the general questions and problems that are to be tackled by Interpretive Systemology, within a wide international perspective of systems thinking and practice. The narrower scene, which is related to more particular conditions, shows how some circumstances connected to the socalled Third World or underdeveloped countries have helped to trigger the launching of Interpretive Systemology. Finally, a brief outline of the research program for Interpretive Systemology is introduced.     

Some Common Ground That Can Provide a Basis for Collaboration Between Action Researchers and Scientists: A Philosophical Case That Works in Practice

By analysing 22 case studies of good research, both action research and agricultural science, I believe I have found some criteria of good research that is common to all of them. These criteria match the philosophical pragmatists argument that the best a researcher can do is to provide a warranted assertion from a methodology which is fit for the specific research purpose and is internally consistent. They also include Popper's requirement that a methodology needs to seek disconfirming evidence and Habermas's requirement that subjective data is important in all research. These criteria have provided me with a basis for collaboration with my scientific colleagues and can provide a basis for collaboration between other researchers, whatever their methodology.     

Researching-Acting-Reflecting on Public Health Services in Venezuela. II. Community Action and Critique

This paper, the second in a duology reporting on an action research project about public health services in Venezuela, presents a narrative of an intervention process launched on the basis of the conceptual framework presented in the first paper of the duology. Thereafter, a deeper reflection on such process, its meaning and its historical possibilities is presented. In this way a cycle of research-action-research is completed.     

The roots of reductionism: A counter-ontoepistemology for a systems approach

Both an ontoepistemology for reductionist modern science (counter-ontoepistemology) and an ontology for interpretive Systemology have been outlined in the two preceding papers in this special issue ofSystems Practice. In the present article, the notion of truth is interpreted in terms of both the ontoepistemology of reductionism and the ontology of interpretive systemology. Both interpretations are discussed. Such a discussion represents the objective of this paper, that is, to outline the epistemological face of the ontoepistemology of interpretive systemology. In order to design that epistemological face, the relation between ontology and epistemology must be clarified. Such a relation is seen from the standpoint already provided by the ontology. After the discussion on the notion of truth, the general shape of a systemic-interpretive inquiring process is outlined.     

Participatory Action Research and the Development of Critical Creativity: A “Natural” Combination?

This paper focuses on the research strategy that I employed during doctoral studies. An overarching framework of Action Research (AR) was used in the development of a complementary approach to creative studies. At the time of the studies AR seemed to be a natural choice and I did not overly concern myself with exploring as to why that was the case. However, I recognize the value of contemplating the appropriateness of research strategy and, in this paper, now reflect on some of the parallel strands implicit in AR and in critical creativity that I now realize served to enrich the overall research process.     

A Maturing of Systems Thinking? Evidence from Three Perspectives

This paper reviews trends in systems theory/thinking from the 1970s to the early 2000s. It proposes a maturation of the field based on certain conceptual and methodological advances that have sought to liberate systems thinking from earlier strictures. An edited dialogue among three prominent systems thinkers from different systems schools—Merrelyn Emery, Bob Flood, and Eric Wolstenholme—provides evidence. Similarities and differences are identified, complementarities among the schools are derived and analyzed, and trajectories for future research are indicated.     

Critical systems thinking: Edgar Morin and the French school of thought

In response to the call that systems practitioners need to produce a second epistemological break corresponding to a shift of interest from systems science to systems rationality, it is submitted that the preparation for this break has already been carried out. It is shown that systems rationality is firmly established and central to the French school of thought in systemics and that the philosophical groundwork has been extensively laid out by Edgar Morin. A very limited exposé of Morin's work is presented in support of this claim.     

Cybernetics and Participation: From Theory to Practice

A combination of recent cybernetic discourse provides guidelines for reconsidering our way of thinking about the relationship between government and the governed. With reference to contemporary understanding of natural biological systems and complexity, it is possible to reformulate a language that has tended to be dominated by notions of competition and survival of the fittest. Instead we can perhaps move toward reconsidering social systems in terms of a more dynamic and equitable understanding of the fit and structural dance of different systems, and postulate that the motor for progress is the coexistence of difference rather than might over right. This paper synthesizes the somewhat different insights of Stafford Beer and the Santiago School of Cognition, and reports on a real-world initiative that sought to instantiate governance as a phenomenon constituted by the governed. Technological developments of the knowledge age are proposed as supporting such democratic initiatives.     

Rhetorics and Realities in Public Service Organizations: Systemic Practice and Organizational Learning as Critically Reflexive Action Research (CRAR)

This article sets out to develop an argument and theory-in-practice related to organizational learning and systemic practice as critically reflexive action research (CRAR). It explores principles and concepts associated with CRAR, in the context of different emphases in understandings of and approaches to managing or working with change. The notion of epistemologies of practice is developed, as the basis for introducing on-site and off-site CRAR as interweaving cycles of managerial and organizational learning. A multilayered illustration of an improvisational CRAR environment, using principles of dialectical enquiry and critical learning theater, is offered. A diagrammatic analysis provides the framework for describing and reflecting critically on key CRAR processes. This is expanded with a consideration of possibilities for documentation that can assist with the validation of quality in CRAR processes and outcomes. This has relevance in the context of postpositivist action research at postgraduate levels or within project-based CRAR partnerships. This leads to a further discussion of principles and concepts, in the context of other literature and pressures on public services.     

Application of (dialectical) systems thinking to understand managerial problems in Yugoslavia today

Soon after its reestablishment in 1945, Yugoslavia saw no other official solution for its management and government modernization but self-management. This was underestimated by many influential people, so the Tayloristic model of the thinking and the working subsystems was not dissolved. It stresses specialization and reinforces one-sidedness. It also divides people into those who command and those who obey, leaving little room for wholism and creativity. New solutions are needed, and we see them in the transition toward the managerial style we all think, we all work, based on creative cooperation of the Many in constant search for change by innovation. This can also be a new partial system of self-management: the doers' innovation of the daily work processes.     

Testament to conversations on critical systems thinking between two systems practitioners

This is a testament to conversations held in Berne and Fribourg, Switzerland, in late 1988. The main theme that we present concerns seeking to find an adequate epistemology for systems practice, to find a truly critical approach, by shifting our interests from systems science to systems rationality (i.e., by reaching out toward a systems epistemological ideal) and by dealing with sociological phenomena such as the effects of material conditions and false consciousness and inequalities associated with these. Social rationalities relating to positivism, interpretivism, and critique are considered. Limitations and legitimacies of these rationalities in social contexts are made explicit in these discussions.Conversations were held in Berne and Fribourg, Switzerland, between 30 November and 5 December 1988.     

Man–Machine Systems: People and Technology in OR

This paper provides an exploration of how different understandings of man–machine systems have accompanied developments in Operational Research. In particular, the paper will challenge the notion that we are in a position of mastery with respect to technology. Both Hard OR and Soft OR are criticized for a failure to examine adequately the relationship between people and technology. Toward the end of the paper a new way of understanding this relationship will be proposed in terms of technologies of the self or what Michel Foucault called ethics.     

A Systemic View of Transformational Leadership

A systemic view of transformational leadership is developed. Initially the terms administration, management, and leadership are distinguished. Leadership as an aesthetic function is then discussed. Growth, visions, and strategy continue discussions. It is then argued why leadership cannot be taught. Ways of viewing the world as systems that underpins transformational leadership are then set out. The paper concludes with a discussion of systemic transformation.