A critique of hierarchy theory

In our zeal to apply models successfully, failures of the model are often overlooked. A model may be used for quite some time before its success is questioned or before the model fails to be applied successfully. Since hierarchy theory has been deemed successful in the systems field, it is necessary and appropriate to critique the development and application of hierarchy theory using the framework presented inCreative Problem Solving (Flood and Jackson, 1992). That framework proposes a critique that uses the four areas of theory, utility, ideology, and methodology in reviewing a systems theory. It is important to examine hierarchy theory through the analytical filter of critical systems thinking if we are genuinely to understand what hierarchy theory has to offer systems thinking in the exploration of complex situations.     

Emancipation and truth in critical systems methodologies

This paper deals with the need for stakeholders to participate actively in organizations, so that systems methodologies can be applied in a critical fashion with the objective of arousing the emancipatory interest. It discusses the meaning of emancipation in the labor movement tradition and the emergence of the apathy of working people toward it. Critical Systems Thinking is obliged to face this apathy in its attempt to motivate the emancipatory interest.     

The origins and nature of critical systems thinking

Critical systems thinking is a relative newcomer in the systems tradition of thought. Nevertheless, it has already made a number of significant contributions to the field and is now developing more quickly than any other part of systems thinking. The paper charts the origins and nature of this evolving, critical systems, body of work. The author's own impressions of its development are first set out. This helps establish that critical systems thinking has come to rest upon five commitments which define its essential character. These commitments are then used to classify the published literature associated with critical systems thinking. The result is a review of the origins and nature of critical systems thinking up to 1990.     

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.     

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.     

Critical systems heuristics: Application of an emancipatory approach for police strategy toward the carrying of offensive weapons

Critical systems heuristics (CSH) is explored in this article. It is an emancipatory approach to problem solving. Its philosophy and principles are presented. Methodological guidelines and an application for police strategy toward the carrying of offensive weapons are given. A critique of the philosophy, principles and methodology is provided. Room is left for the reader to extend our analysis. The aim of the article is to initiate the use of CSH and to encourage people to help to develop this and other emancipatory approaches.     

Intervention and the management process: An action-based research study

This paper develops the argument that all attempts at tackling ill-structured problems may be conceptualized as a process of Intervention into the contextual management processes of a situation. An appreciative theory of managing is developed and an operational framework, the conversations model, is presented as an aid to the management of Intervention. An action-based research methodology is used to investigate the practice of intervention, and a case study described in which the approach was used in relation to problems arising in a computer-based accounting information system.     

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.     

Toward Critical Intervention in Small and Medium—Sized Enterprises: A Case Study

The mainstream systems literature has so far paid little systematic attention to the small business arena, despite this being potentially a very significant sector for the systems community, given its importance in the UK economy. Small, growing enterprises experience particular managerial problems. This paper provides an example of the practical benefits of a systems approach in a small company experiencing growth. It examines the process of an intervention which took place over a 2-year period in a small manufacturing company as part of the UK government's Teaching Company Scheme. An attempt to extend critical systems thinking into the small company environment is discussed, identifying the challenges and opportunities presented by the setting to researchers. The paper draws on Habermas' theory of communicative action to explore the extent to which the intervention was inclusive and critically reflective. Strategies adopted to support inclusive practice are explored and general lessons are drawn out.     

The Oblivion of Churchman's Plea for a Systems Approach to World Problems. I. The Inseparability of Systems Thinking and World Issues in the Modern Epoch

Systemic Practice and Action Research - The presentation of a Systems Approach made by Churchman in 1968 starts from a close link between a systems approach and tackling world problems. The link is...     

Transforming Self and Society: A Critical Appreciation Model

This paper sets out to uncover some relationships between reflection, discourse and action. By challenging and synthesizing some polemical arguments concerning the creation, maintenance, and transformation of self and society, a model of self-society dynamics that operates through reflection, discourse, and action is developed. The model of self-society dynamics brings together aspects of self-reflection and ideology-critique (explored in the paper), which it is suggested are required for any intervention (transformative action) to be grounded in locally meaningful ways. By creating a dialog community in which self- and group assumptions can be subjected to validation through discourse, it is proposed that a dynamic balance between individual needs and broader societal aims may be achieved. If individuals can be open to such discourse (i.e., they can become critically self-reflective), then it is argued that possibilities for achieving sustainable change will be significantly enhanced.     

Making learning critical: Identity, emotion, and power in processes of management development

In recent years, a substantial volume of broadly critical knowledge of management and organization has been established, but comparatively little attention has been given to the question of how the insights of such knowledge might be communicated or applied pedagogically. The temptation or danger, arguably, is for critical knowledge to be substituted for the content of “traditional management education,” with minimal regard for its contribution to processes of personal, social, and organizational development. The chief purpose of this paper is to put some flesh on the claim that critical theory can make an important contribution to the principles and practice of management education. After summarizing some key differences between “traditional management education” and action learning (concerning learning and personal experience), these differences are illustrated by reference to a case study, which in turn, provides a basis for highlighting the relevance of critical thinking for addressing problems and issues thrown up through action learning for managers.     

Unfolding a Theory of Systemic Intervention

This paper interrogates four perspectives (structuralist community psychology, deconstruction, interpretive systemology, and critical systems thinking) to inform the unfolding of a theory of systemic intervention. A vision of epistemology is provided which clarifies the relationships among knowledge, power, will and intervention, and a normative framework for systemic intervention is then presented. Finally, the theory unfolded in this paper is deconstructed to reveal a second theory, yet to be explored, of systemic life projects. This provides an exciting agenda for future research.     

“Underneath the iceberg” — Challenges to the process of operational research (OR)/systems from alternative practice

Conventional OR/systems practice, it is argued in this paper, is based upon assumptions which make it unsuitable for guiding interventions in nontraditional organizations. Any methodology or method rests upon a social theory,upon craft knowledge, and upon a theory of how change can and should be brought about. Conventional OR/systems is not explicit about any of these matters. Reflecting on why conventional methods often fail to work with nontraditional organizations, however, enables us to get beneath the iceberg and unearth what is being taken for granted. It is then obvious that the nature of many organizations in the social economy requires a different type of practice. Soft OR/systems is a response to the failings of the traditional approach, but goes only some way toward meeting the criticisms.     

A Framework of Value-Focused Systems Thinking

Values and value judgments should be tackled explicitly and directly in theory and practice. To do so, systems intervention as a communication process has to be designed in pursuit of the systemic and critical cause. This paper proposes a framework of value-focused systems thinking. The interdependence of values and techniques, and the theory of communicative competence, are briefly discussed as philosophical underpinnings. A methodology is outlined consisting of a reconstruction, judgment, and action cycle revolving around communication design.     

Tracking the development of the Emery-Trist systems paradigm (ETSP)

This paper is written to accomplish two objectives: first, to introduce the Emery-Trist systems paradigm to the critical systems thinking, a largely neglected and under-utilized paradigm; second using a critical systems thinking framework, to provide a rational justification in an attempt to track the developments in the ETSP so that an extended heuristic map is offered to the scholars interested in the Emery-Trist systems paradigm. Four tracks within ETSP are identified and analyzed to produce a liberation theme that has not previously been articulated. The liberation theme imminent in all four tracks of the paradigm development denotes the value and the promise of the ETSP to the critical systems thinking community as well as to other systems thinkers.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 34th meeting of the International Society for Systems Science, Portland, Oregon, in July 1990.