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.     

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.     

“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.     

Churchman's “process of unfolding”—Its significance for policy analysis and evaluation

Churchman's process of unfolding is one of his lesser known concepts, yet it is essential for understanding his dialectical systems approach. This paper gives a brief introduction to the concept and presents a simple framework for applying it to policy analysis and program evaluation.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The Engagement Approach to Real-World Problem Solving: Toward a Coherent Soft-Systems-Based Theoretical Platform for Real-World Problem Solving

This paper presents an approach to understanding problem solving and innovation from the perspective of engagement. The approach is derived primarily from two research projects undertaken over the last 5 years. The first one into the apparent Comparison Parado in Soft Systems Methodology, and the second an 18-month research program into the social reality implied by Soft Systems Methodology. Engagement is argued to be the innovation of a framework of ideas within a social context. In this sense engagement is an extension of the nature in which humans take ideas and place them inside a social context and use this as a platform to make sense of their environment and take action in such surroundings with an eye to understanding, learning, meaning, adaptation, innovation, and interpretation of such situations. Therefore, this paper presents a conjectured model of Engagement that is argued to be useful in helping to manage social complexity and real-world problem-solving activity. The paper positions engagement as a purely theoretical approach with multidisciplinary applications for whoever would like to use it.     

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.     

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.     

Systems and organizations: Distal and proximal thinking

The paper introduces the contributions to this special issue ofSystems Practice on Systems and Organizations: New Directions in terms ofdistal andproximal thinking. Distal thinking refers to ready-made concepts, to the finished effects and outcomes of thought and action; proximal thinking, to process and event, to the continuous and unfinished. The papers presented here deal with various aspects of the distal/proximal distinction in social systems and organizations, and especially draw out the implications of recent work in information technology, sociology of technology, accounting theory, and organization studies for a proximal conception of systems and organizations.     

Why There's Nothing Wrong With Systems Thinking a Little Chaos Won't Fix? A Critique of Modern Systems Theory and the Practice of Organizational Change It Informs

We find ourselves at the dawning of a new millennium, uneasy denizens of a world of growing flux. The models of reality on which we rely in our continuing effort to master the turbulent and hypercompetitive marketplace are failing us. Even the much touted 20th-century innovation referred to by Peter Senge in his 1990 bestseller of the same name as the fifth discipline, that is, systems thinking, turns out to be less than adequate to the task. Therein lies the central purpose of this paper: to demonstrate why there's nothing wrong with systems thinking that a little chaos can't remedy. My intent is twofold: first, to expose the problematic partialness of this paradigm, given its tendency to direct one's focus to not to the whole system, but to its exterior half, and, second, to introduce the reader to Chaos, the powerful cosmology now emerging from 20th-century science, as a science of whole wholes—one that enables the practitioner of management and systems sciences to comprehend the system's externality, its subtle within, and most importantly, the crucial relationship between them.     

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.     

Self-Reflection and Vulnerability in Action Research: Bringing Forth New Worlds in Our Learning

This paper looks at experiences in using action research in a self-reflective fashion. It addresses some of the problems which the action researcher has in coping with ourselves in our research. Mendes (1996) quotes Maturana: Everything is fundamental in our being alive and therefore, if we want to explain human experience we need to understand how being alive together generates our existence.² Although I would add that the social view of existence can be complemented by the view that our personal existence comes forth from a deeper domain, this statement is my starting point. Working from a anecdote which demonstrates the critical importance of individual perception in labeling any issue as a mess, I discuss the importance of self-reflection in the research process and the importance to us as researchers in recognizing our own vulnerability in the research context. Finally, I describe some positive outcomes or prizes of recognizing our vulnerability in research processes and using this vulnerability as a spur to improving our research.     

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.     

Methodological foundations of systems methodologies

In social systems science generally, and in management science particularly, recent developments in the variety of types of specific problem-solving methodologies (under the rubric of hard and soft systems approaches) have given an impetus to a line of inquiry, as well as debate on the nature of those methodologies. On the one hand, there has been the view that what we are witnessing is a form of Kuhnian crisis. On the other hand, a complementarist view of developments has been argued and a contingency approach proposed. But one thing has been common among the competing views: a belief that the prospects for further advances in the design and application of those methodologies, and in resolving the current controversies, lie in serious attempts to reconsider and clarify the underlying metatheoretical assumptions and concerns. This paper is an attempt to contribute to such an endeavor. A brief exposition of three methodological foundations (namely, empiricism, hermeneutics, and critique) is made, not only with the purpose of highlighting the nature as well as the limits of their epistemological and ethical claims, but also as a basis for illuminating both the nature of contemporary work on systems inquiry, design, and problem solving and the ongoing debate on what constitutes appropriate criteria for choice of specific methodologies.     

What Do Teachers Do? A Qualitative Analysis of the Role of the Teacher

The role of the teacher in the classroom can be seen to constitute a sociological problem. The objective of this article is to understand teaching life and to discover how teachers construct meaning of their role in the classroom. There is a scarcity of literature pertaining to the role of the teacher. The only available literature is particularly of a positivistic nature which advances number crunching. None of the research is done from the point of view of the teachers. To understand what teachers are doing in the classroom, it was necessary to undertake an investigation from the perspective of the teachers themselves. This was done within a qualitative methodological framework.     

Innovators and contrapreneurs: Crucial alliances that connect and separate organizational change processes

This paper focuses on the coupling among alliances, relationships, management, and activities, when major strategic changes are carried out in an old organization. The paper also points out hownew alliances andchanged relationships seem to be developing in a Norwegian company. As a conclusion, we point out six elements which, according to our research, have to be present to minimize the implementation of reversible processes in organizations where organizational change processes have been implemented so that continued change can go on in the company.