Recent years have seen a
decline in the institutional presence of systems thinking in
the UK, with the disappearance of many departments and
centres of systems thinking. The importance of systems
thinking has though increased, but with research and
practical applications having a topic focus and being
nominally located within many different disciplines.
The diverse areas in
which systems thinking underpins research is in keeping with
the meta-level nature of systems ideas, and the
inter-disciplinary nature of the origins of the systems
movement by the biologist Bertalanffy, economist Boulding,
physiologist Gerard and mathematician Rapoport. The loss of
an institutional presence has however contributed to the
lessening of public awareness of systems ideas (other than
in a casual, incoherent use of the language) and to the
differences between different schools of the systems
movement being emphasised more than the similarities. There
are indeed many variants of systems thinking currently being
successfully employed, including such Systems Dynamics
(based on Forrester 1961), Soft Systems Methodology
(Checkland 1981, 1990),Total Systems Intervention (Flood &
Jackson 1991), Soft OR methods (eg Eden 1989), Cybernetics
and the Viable Systems Model (Espejo & Harnden,1989) and
underlying work in software engineering and information
systems development (Lewis 1984). These do have differing
emphases and methods, and employ different research
approaches (from mathematical proof through to action
research). But all make use of core concepts of system
theory such as notions of emergence, hierarchy, control and
communication.The challenge is therefore, we believe, not as
stated in the EPSRC Call “…to re-energise the area of
systems theory” but rather to enable better
communication between existing, already energetic
uses of systems thinking.
To do this we suggest
there needs to be a practical focus for theoretical
discussions. The effects of the convergence of information
and communications technologies provides a highly
appropriate such focus and a timely opportunity for systems
thinking to be applied to great practical benefit. The
widespread changes, due to the internet, consumer access and
mobile computing, are already radically affecting notions of
the organisation and invalidating many of the models through
which organisational activity has traditionally been
understood. In seeking to make sense of the changing
environment managers of all kinds have at their disposal
only isolated management models (eg the '5-forces' model,
the value chain of Porter 1979,1980,1985) that, useful as
they may be, are ungrounded in underlying theory.
But the very nature of
developments such as electronically mediated open
marketplaces, e-commerce and supply-chain linking, and
non-commercial interactions in health and other public
services is one of a complex organisation of separate
parties in a shared activity. Questions of what is the
boundary of virtual organisation, how we may conceptualise
the purposes and form of such phenomena and the requirements
for their management are questions which systems thinking
should be well placed to answer. How such planned
innovations may be understood and designed,
the questions of interfaces and required monitoring and control activity are essentially the same
questions which systems thinking has addressed in respect to
large scale systems for many years.
This is then a broad area
to which systems thinking is extremely appropriate as the
basis for coherent discussion of a large number of issues.
Whilst it is the proposed network that will explore and
prioritise the topics to be examined the following are
indicative of those where systems thinking would appear to
have a useful role.
-
The development of
electronic marketplaces
-
Co-operative facilitation
of SME activity
-
Trust relationships in
e-mediated interactions
-
Technological transfer,
inclusion and disenfranchisement
-
The modelling and
representation of inter-organisational activity
-
The virtual organisation
-
Policy management of
network communications
