Fifty Years of Systems Thinking for Management | Problems of Governance. 2011. № Том 2. Выпуск 4.

Fifty Years of Systems Thinking for Management

The point of this paper is to provide an account of the history of systemsthinking applied to management, over the last fifty years, that isinsightful and useful to those interested in the theory and practice ofoperational research (OR). In seeking to fulfill this purpose, it employsBouldings well known hierarchy of complexity to think through thereasons for the emergence of different strands of applied systems thinkingand to detail their strengths. In theoretical terms, operational researcherswill find a number of the key issues that have engaged theirfield (e.g., hard versus soft approaches) mirrored in debates that havetaken place between systems thinkers. They may discover new theoreticalavenues to follow to advance their discipline. OR practitionersmay also be surprised by the nature and scope of the systems applicationsdescribed and conclude that systems approaches should be addedto their own intervention strategies. At the least, the paper is designedto reinvigorate discussion around the relationship between OR and systemsthinking that has occasionally surfaced over the last half centurybut has never been satisfactorily concluded.

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Authors

Name	Organization	E-mail
Jackson M.C.	University of Hull, UK	M.C.Jackson@hull.ac.uk

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