Total systems intervention: A practitioner's critique

An earlier paper in this journal described an intervention in North Yorkshire Police using the TSI meta-methodology. This Research Note draws upon the experience gained from that intervention to provide a critique of TSI. The critique is informed by Flood and Jackson's foundational work but is intended to be pitched more at the practical, rather than the theoretical, level.     

Total systems intervention: A practical face to critical systems thinking

This is the first exposition of a new methodology (or perhaps meta-methodology) for systems practice known as Total Systems Intervention (TSI). Designed to overcome the weaknesses of hard, cybernetic, and soft systems approaches and build on their strengths, TSI represents a practical face of critical systems thinking. It advocates combining three building blocks-systems metaphors, system of systems methodologies, and individual systems methodologies—in an interactive manner which is deemed to be particularly powerful and fruitful. In this paper the philosophy, principles, and phases of the TSI methodology are set out and two very different examples of its use are provided.     

Systems thinking,systems practice,and practical philosophy: A program of research

IfSystems Practice is to serve the cause of socially rational decision making, its understanding of systems approach must open itself up to the communicative dimension of rational practice uncovered by contemporary practical philosophy. This programmatic paper argues that building the bridge between the two traditions of systems thinking and practical philosophy is a key challenge to be faced by the systems community. A three-level framework of rational systems practice is suggested as a point of departure for a program of research.     

Total systems intervention and human inquiry: The search for a common ground

Total Systems Intervention (TSI) is an approach to intervening in problem situations which has much to offer where complex interacting issues need to be addressed by the complementary use of intervention methodologies. That such an approach has much in common with Action Research (AR) has been recognized, with much recent effort being devoted to the relationship between AR and Critical Systems Thinking (CST), the theoretical endeavor underpinning TSI. This paper further develops this line of debate and relates AR or Human Inquiry (HI) more directly to TSI, using an information systems intervention to enhance the study. The outcome is a demonstration of how TSI implicitly uses techniques informed from the field of Action Research, and how a more thorough synthesis of HI with TSI might serve to improve the overall intervention process.     

企业战略研究的系统方法论

首先通过分析系统的最重要但常常被忽视的特征来深入理解系统概念,给出在实践中把握系统概念的具有可操作性的途径; 通过知识论域体系、系统方法论的系统以及全面系统干预元方法论,进一步理解系统方法论的概念以及在实践中应用系统方法论的途径. 然后基于对系统和系统方法论概念的上述理解和企业战略研究的诸多学派,提出了一个企业战略研究的系统方法论,并详细介绍了 一个案例,在案例中还对定位学派的具体的研究方法论做了拓展.最后指出企业战略研究的系统方法论是选择众多企业战略研究方法 论的元方法论,可用于各种问题情境下的企业战略研究,而且其应用系统思考的途径还可以推广应用于企业管理的其它领域.     

The road to emancipation is through organizational development: A critical evaluation of total systems intervention

Total Systems Intervention (TSI) has been claimed to be the practical face of critical systems thinking. This article reviews the central principles of TSI, describes its theoretical base, and outlines its logic. It is argued that, far from being the way forward for management science, as its supporters claim, TSI is beset by logical and conceptual problems which render its use problematic. More specifically, TSI appears to confuse logical types; its use of metaphors tends to be circular and unnecessary; and its avowed complementarism is insufficiently thought out. It is also argued that TSI is only contingently linked to critical systems thinking and that the latter's assumptions are not followed through in practice. TSI, in the final analysis, appears to be relying on commonsense, eclectically drawing on other problem-solving methods, but in itself unable to present a distinctively new, theoretically sound, and methodologically consistent approach.     

Knowing as intervention: Reflections on the application of systems ideas

The relation between theory and practice is explored in this paper with respect to an examination of various systems approaches. It is argued that the moment of knowing already contains practical implications in that comprehensiongears practice in certain directions. Practice/application can fulfill the demands of theory through the operation of a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. The way in which theoretical conceptions of systems researchers may constrain practice is explored with reference to the work of Beer, Checkland and Scholes, and Ulrich. In the course of this exploration, alternative views of the way in which viable systems diagnosis, soft systems methodology, and critical systems heuristics may be utilised, are offered.     

Developing total systems intervention (TSI): The critical review mode

Total systems intervention (TSI) is a meta-methodology which interprets and brings into action a range of problem solving methodologies, viewing problem solving as a process of intervention where practitioners can learn about and manage complex interacting issues. When first presented, TSI was the framework that evolved from one of many possible operationalisations of critical systems thinking. From these beginnings, TSI (as one practical implementation of the principles of CST) now continues its development into a methodology for use by problem solvers in all situations, not just the organisational-enterprise setting. This paper presents a detailed operationalisation of the critical review mode, the framework of which may also be of use in the operationalisation of the other modes in TSI.     

Social media research: A review

Social media is fundamentally changing the way people communicate,consume and collaborate.It provides companies a new platform to interact with their customers.In academia,there is a surge in research efforts on understanding its effects.This paper aims to provide a review of current status of social media research.We discuss the specific domains in which the impacts of social media have been examined.A brief review of applicable research methodologies and approaches is also provided.     

Implementing total quality management through total systems intervention: A creative approach to problem solving in diagnostic biotechnology (Pte) Ltd.

This paper documents the implementation of Total Quality Management employing a creative approach to problem solving called Total Systems Intervention.     

An evolutionary systems approach to policy intervention for achieving ecologically sustainable societies

This paper describes an approach to policy intervention aimed at achieving sustainable relations between humans and their ecosystems. Following the Introduction, Section 2 defines an ecologically sustainable and economically healthy society, and advances the premise that the achievement of sustainable societies is impossible without the reorientation of social values. Sections 3 and 4 summarize the main principles of the theory of dissipative structures and add an ecosystem basis to this paradigm to develop a conceptual model for the purpose of evaluating alternative forms of intervention to influence the evolution of a society along a sustainable and healthy path. Section 5 outlines a methodology for assessing, evaluating, and tracking the system's transition from its current state to one that is within the acceptable definition of sustainable functioning. The final section proposes application of this approach to policy development problems in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.     

防空导弹武器系统可信度建模

防空导弹武器系统效能通常采用ADC(availability,dependability,capability)模型来评定。随着装备的发展和对抗复杂性的提升,系统可信度的建模和分析计算越发关键。通过分析装备本身的功能组成结构,分析系统所有可能的状态及状态转移概率,来建立可信度的求解模型。并用算例进一步验证了模型,证明了模型的适用性。     

On suicidal rabbits: A relativity of systems

This festschrift paper, written in honour of Russell Ackoff, hinges on three of his characteristic approaches: the use of fables, his acceptance of messes as distinct from well-formulated problems, and his concept of idealized planning. Current thoughts of the author, dealing respectively with recursive logic, the implementation of change, and the theory of democratic organization, are attached to these hinges and among them, express his own theme as to a relativity of systems.