Dealing with a Differentiated Whole: The Philosophy of the WSR Approach

This paper seeks to explore a philosophical ground for the formulation and practice of an Oriental systems methodology, the wuli–shili–renli approach (WSR). Drawing insights from ancient Chinese thought, WSR contends that, in sociotechnical systems design/management, we should investigate and follow wuli, shili, and renli, which constitute a differentiable, dynamic whole. Wuli, shili, and renli condition and determine the fate of our projects, meaning different methods are needed to deal with each differentiable aspect. It also points out that, to deal with wuli, shili, and renli properly, we need to engage in encounters with the "dark side" of Confucianism and with the contemporary tendency of scientism.     

Science as Systemic Intervention: Some Implications of Systems Thinking and Complexity for the Philosophy of Science

This paper sidesteps the usual starting points for debate about complexity and the philosophy of science, which tend to assume that science is primarily about observation. Instead, the starting point is intervention, defined as purposeful action by an agent to create change. While some authors suggest that intervention and observation are opposites, it is argued here that observation (as undertaken in science) should be viewed as just one type of intervention. We should therefore welcome scientific techniques of observation into a pluralistic set of intervention methods, alongside methods for exploring values, reflecting on subjective understandings, planning future activities, etc. However, there is a need to explicitly counter a possible pernicious interpretation of this argument: intervention could (erroneously) be viewed as flawlessly preplanned change based on accurate predictions of the consequences of action. This is the mechanistic worldview that systems thinking and complexity science seek to challenge. Therefore, having redefined scientific observation as intervention, the paper revisits insights from systems thinking and complexity to propose a methodology of systemic intervention. Some brief reflections are then provided on the wider social implications of this methodology.     

Social Systems Design as a Vehicle Towards Local Public e-Services for and by Citizens

The need for increased user participation and involvement in the process of designing and developing public e-Services has been emphasized in recent years. User involvement is critical to success in the development and implementation of public e-Services, and many visions and efforts are focused on citizen participation in the design and development process. In this article, concepts of Social Systems Design are analysed in the context of local public e-Services in order to improve potential to meet the requirements for user participation and involvement. Results show that the ideas of Social Systems Design, where applicable, can contribute to user-centred development of local public e-Services, and can form a foundation for the development of methods that utilize user participation and involvement. However, further research requires empirical studies.     

The Third Track of the Open-Systems-Thinking School: An Application of Domain Theory to New Zealand Ports

The Open-Systems Thinking (OST) school identified with Emery and Trist is situated as an important but underutilized approach in systems thinking. The main features of OST are described, including four "tracks" along which OST has developed. The third track, which focuses on interorganizational domains, is considered in detail. It is then applied to a case concerning the complex social dynamics of and in port domains in New Zealand. This exercise enables us to illuminate some lacunae in previous representations of the port domain research, to assess OST's third track regarding its relevance for systemic practice, and to help to bring OST to the table with other systems approaches that are all vying for the attention of researchers, practicing managers, students, and consultants.     

从系统工程研讨集约型增长与可持续发展

集约型增长与可持续发展是系统的典范主题。本文阐述了集约型增长方式的四大特征,可持续发展的层次性,系统集成的协和度,临界点理论以及相应的系统方法论等。     

Organization Change in a University Hospital: A Six Year Evaluation Report of the HORIZONS Project

Many health care organizations are currently engaged in changing the design of their health care services delivery system. The issues of cost containment, quality, and access are prominent. This paper reports on the impact of the implementation of a new organization design at one university hospital. The organization change effort (named HORIZONS) was a five year project funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. In a changing health care environment, the project was undertaken with three goals in mind: (1) to maintain and enhance quality of patient care; (2) to improve the quality of working life; and (3) to accomplish this in a budget neutral manner. Initiated as a program to strengthen hospital nursing, the project became a patient-focused redesign effort encompassing both clinical and administrative affairs. The core ideas of the project approach included systems thinking, interactive planning and idealized design. This evaluation reports on the project's progress after six years.     

Systems Language for e-Democracy: Personal Resource Systems Management (PRSM), a Model and Action Research

In ancient Athens, the Agora was a place for collective decision making about personal and community issues. New Agoras, most recently Internet-enabled ones, now propose to enliven participatory democracy and establish systems by which our institutions can serve us and we can govern ourselves (B. H. Banathy, Guided Evolution of Society: A Systems View, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press, New York, 2000). Effective participation in such activity will require a language and consciousness not currently in evidence, and learning beyond current parameters. In this article, high school students from Stephanie Williams' Child Development classes at McDowell High School, Millcreek Township School District, demonstrate use of a new paradigm. This model of Personal Resource Systems Management provides systems language for Agora discourse enabling effective participatory democracy.     

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.     

Appreciating Systems: Critical Reflections on the Changing Nature of Systems as a Discipline in a Systems-Learning Society

The paper reports a reflective inquiry into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of systems-related courses developed and presented up to 1995 by the former Systems Department in the Open University, UK. The SWOT analysis is considered in the context of the "systems movement" in its broadest sense. Based on the OU experiences the institutional challenges of systems-as-discipline and interdiscipline are explored. Three strategies for the future are suggested: (i) the potential of Systems Departments to demonstrate rigorous and coherent interdisciplinarity; (ii) for systemists to work harder to bridge the divide between their espoused theory and theory in use, particularly in their own institutional settings and (iii) the need for a rigorous pedagogy for "systems practice."     

Revitalizing the Public Sphere: The Current System of Discourse and the Need for the Participative Design of Social Action

Public discourse in Western democracies, particularly in the United States, is far from the Habermasian ideal of citizens engaging in a rational discussion of public affairs. Rather than providing an arena for informed deliberation, the growing expertise of the media, lobbyists, and politicians has sub-optimized the current system of discourse to focus on emotional manipulation and the creation of polarized interests, each competing with each other for dominance. Avoiding a potentially disastrous outcome from this unbalancing of public discourse requires a revitalization of the public sphere and a return of the citizen voice in public decision making. To that end, systems thinkers have a tremendous opportunity and can play an important role. This article will explore the current challenges facing public discourse and outline that potential role.     

基于系统动力学的港城耦合系统模型构建及仿真——以连云港为例

港城互动关系具有系统动力学耦合特征, 本文根据系统动力学原理和方法, 从港城系统特征、系统模型边界和系统要素因果关系出发, 建立港城耦合系统的SD模型, 解剖港城耦合系统多重反馈机理和各系统相互作用过程. 将模型用到江苏省连云港的港城耦合系统中, 并借助Vensim软件完成结构和量纲的一致性检验, 确定模型具有可靠性后, 选择投资贡献度、三产增加系数、 资源转化系数及资源利用系数等参数作为控制变量进行模型仿真. 结果表明, 连云港完成十二五发展规划目标, 实现港城可持续发展, 需要加大第三产业投入, 适度控制码头岸线资源利用率, 同时增加港口投资, 提升港口能力建设, 以适应战略地位提升的连云港港城发展需要.     

Multi-Modal Systems Thinking and a Self-Study of Teaching Reform: Realizing the Ethical Mode of Being

I describe multi-modal systems thinking in the context of my qualitative investigation of the influence of open discourse on technicism in a University Business Computing Course. I discontinued the research on realizing, through a reflective self study, influenced by my reading of the multi-modal thinking of the Amsterdam School, that I had acted unethically. I thus changed my research and my teaching practice. I note that this approach has recently been incorporated into systems thinking in the work of J. R. D. de Raadt, whose university informatics teaching reform, informed by the "way of the prophet," resonates with my reforms.     

Refocusing Systems Analysis of Organizations Through a Semiotic Lens: Interpretive Framework and Method

Recent advances in systems theory have significantly raised its utility for supporting problem-structuring activity in organizations. However, this approach has been inadequately developed for representing and evaluating the nature and outcomes of organizational functioning. Toward that end this paper introduces a new method, called interpretive systems analysis, which incorporates ideas from semiotic theory. Using this method, the complex web of agents, actions, means, and circumstances in organizational functioning may be analytically discriminated into multiple courses of action that are emphasized on dimensions of legitimacy, motivation, and power. An integrative appraisal of key elements and factors shaping organizational performance may then be achieved through the formulation of “systems of significance,” formed of oppositional and associative relations. Organizations can thus be illuminated in terms of principle inconsistencies and tensions shaping their operations. The application and utility of this method is illustrated through a case study of customer service operations.     

Use of Systems Methodologies in the UK and Spain: A Sample Survey

The emergence and the use of the so-called Management Sciences Methodologies has been one of the major recent developments in the field of Management Practice. The issues of the cultural dimensions of a particular country and its relevance in managerial practices have attracted substantial attention over recent years. This paper attempts to compare the usage of management sciences methods from the Hard and Soft spectrum in two countries that have quite distinctive managerial and cultural traditions: the UK and Spain. It reports on the results of a mail questionnaire administered to MBA graduates working in management consultancy in both countries.     

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.     

The business team standard: A means of improving the effectiveness of individual businesses in a multibusiness corporation

The paper describes a project carried out within a major chemicals corporation to improve the performance of the individual businesses. This was to be done by clarifying some of the organisational uncertainties in its structure and improving the way that specialists form coalitions to address market challenges together. The approach used was based on “systems thinking”, which is an intellectual framework of knowledge that attempts to view organisations as wholes and which studies the processes of change in any part in the context of the whole organisation. Some of the important concepts of systems thinking are explored as they might be applied within a business organisation. Specifically the tool used was the Viable System Model of Stafford Beer, which the authors interpreted and developed into a set of statements (“a Standard”) which describe best practice in such organisations. Managers have used this to explore possible gaps in their organisations and, with this understanding, find ways to improve performance.     

从系统观看重庆统筹城乡教育发展

重庆统筹城乡教育发展对促进统筹城乡综合发展有重要意义。本文利用乌杰系统辩证学中的系统观和系统分析法,对重庆统筹城乡教育发展中的问题进行了系统深入的分析,提出了合理化建议和意见。     

Attributional Bias as a Source of Conflict Between Users and Analysts in an Information Systems Development Context—Hypotheses Development

One potential obstacle to effective information systems development involves the conflict between users and developers. It has been argued that information systems development personnel have different perceptions of what constitutes systems effectiveness than do users. System objectives are accomplished from the developer's viewpoint when a system has technical validity. System objectives are accomplished from the user's viewpoint when the system has organizational validity. Differences in the assessment of information systems project success are accentuated when users perceive the project as a failure. Attribution theory, a social psychology theory, is employed here to explain the source and outcome of such conflict. Also discussed are alternative ways of resolving those differences.     

混合系统建模、分析与综合:研究进展与展望

包含离散事件和连续时间两种特征的混合系统的研究受到关注 .对混合系统研究成果按照其更强调连续动态抑或离散动态的复杂性 ,从两条不同的研究路线阐述了在混合系统建模、分析与综合领域的研究进展 ,指出了其中的难点问题 ,并对今后的研究作了展望.     

Repositing Thinking for Future Social Systems Design: In Tribute to Bela H. Banathy and His Inspiration of the Fuschl Conversations

Contemporary systems activity can be divided into that stressing feasible and practical short-term measures, and that which is more ideal-aware, focussed on mid-longer term futures, and typically involving on-going community or social systems design. The paper highlights the key differences in approach, but then invites closer collaboration in the cause of the possible contribution that systems thinking could make for a longer term future, with Y3K (Year 3000) as a metaphor for this. This analysis, which derives from work undertaken at Asilomar 1995 and Fuschl conversations in 2000 and 2002, finds that contemporary social system design, which is driven by western culture and is action-oriented, needs adaptation before it could contribute to greater future global harmony. A truly comprehensive systems design process must accommodate a wide range of possible parameters in terms of culture, and appreciation of time and progress. An emerging paradigm as basis for thinking and engaging in social systems design work of the future is offered, which also has relevance to general systems practice.