Does anyone know any criticism of systems theory and approaches, and point me to supporting references? I have a draft paper on an assessment of road safety strategies, based on systems criteria. But one of the reviewers raised an interesting question; “The conclusions, while good, could be expanded by describing the limitations and complexities of systems work.”
Could you let me know if you can suggest any literature that could inform this question.
Thanks for any help.
Regards, Brett
wow, interesting question. My first suggestion would be to look at Hari Tsoukas' critique of critical systems thinking. He refers to a paper of Mike Jackson in systems practice (now called systemic practice and action research). As far as I remember people criticise a so called lack of rigour leading to fall into theoretical and methodological incommensurability. Perhaps because of this, John Mingers has developed a view of systems thinking based on critical realism. Gerald Midgley has criticised the work of Jackson by arguing that methodological pluralism in frameworks like Total Systems Intervention or TSI needs to be more dynamic and flexible, following the complexities of a situation. He also raised the issue of how ethical issues related to seeking improvements are to be dealt with, suggesting that improvement needs to be locally rather than normatively defined by stakeholders. Complexity theorists would follow this apparent lack of flexibility to argue that it is complexity, not systems thinking, which could then provide for such flexibility. However they could also be criticised by establishing some 'normative' principles as to how complex social systems or situations are to 'behave'. I guess this would be my answer. Good luck with your paper!
In my opinion, the systems themselves do not interact. The elements of the systems do it by the element of authority/ availability/ responsibility. Where we have a conglomerate that is ran by a system of authority/ availability/ responsibility, than any element of the system could carry influence to the authority/ availability/ responsibility element interacting in behalf of conglomerate.
So, by the end of the day, the exchange between elements (individuals), systems (organisations) and conglomerates (states, multinationals, alliances...) is reduced to the relation between individuals and their influence networks (whereby the belonging system/ conglomerate carries a share of influence, not necessarily stronger than others)
Dear José-Rodrigo, Annamaria, Amin,
Thank you to you all for your contributions.
Regards, Brett
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Engineering
- Modeling