Search results for " Systems thinking"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Systems thinking and its contribution to understanding future designer thinking
2017
Design is changing in a radical way. The object of design is transforming from tangible objects into services and furthermore, into systems. Increasingly, new insights arise from the interfaces between diverse disciplines – such as art, science and technology – which through various discourses and paradigms have been specialized and driven apart. This discussion paper pinpoints the so-called systems thinkers, hybrid-people, whose methods and habits of work are constituted by the reconciliation of different disciplines. The article aims to bring more understanding to the kind of thinking that is needed in the complex and dynamic environment in which we create and use design today. This discu…
Complexity and Action: Reflections on Decision Making and Cybernetics.
2013
This paper highlights some theoretical and epistemological reflections about the relevance of action for managerial studies. These reflections show how the cybernetic paradigm of complexity management can be used for better decision making that unites knowledge and action in a comprising, dynamic, and evolving approach. Cybernetics can help to overcome the fear of decision making in the face of uncertainty in complex scenarios, and can be an effective tool for improving the viability and competitiveness of firms in the twenty-first century.
Sunny Island. An Interactive Learning Environment to Promote Systems Thinking Education for Primary School Students
2017
To make the process of learning easier for students, schoolteachers are increasingly using Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs) in classrooms. The paper presents a system dynamics-based ILE called Sunny Island. The ILE has been designed to promote Systems Thinking (ST) education for primary school students. Through a funny fantasy tale - described in detail in a book that accompanies the ILE - students have the opportunity to discover and become familiar with the basic principles of ST, such as feedback, positive and negative causal influences, limits to growth, short and long term effects, counterintuitive behaviors, causes of policy resistances and dynamic complexity. The proposed ILE…
Information systems and strategy design
1999
Abstract Strategic thinking forms a wide-ranking, complex area of thought. It also seems to be an extremely interesting and important field in both management practice and literature. Recently, the areas that the different functions (like accounting, marketing, production and information systems) of firm and strategic thinking have in common have been lively discussed. In this paper, the applicability of information systems thinking to strategic thinking is outlined. For that purpose, three modes of strategy-making are explicated: strategy-making as management process, as game-playing and as leadership. In each of these three modes, the strategy design phase and especially the essentials of…
SYSTEMS THEORY OF SYSTEMS THINKING: GENERAL AND PARTICULAR WITHIN MODERN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION
2016
Following the concept of human as spiritual alive body, human thinking is spiritual activity of our brain – brainwork. Today we accept that thinking means processing of information what is important for management of human body life. Studying organization of human brainwork, people have discovered that all our thoughts and thinking activities are interconnected and form definite hierarchic structures. Humans reflect world as a set or network of diverse phenomena by building corresponding theories or models of observed phenomena. In other words, all phenomena in human world of thoughts are reflected as SYSTEMS, which are organizational units of Systems Thinking. Every system contains their i…
Integrative thinking is the key: An evaluation of current research into the development of adult thinking
2011
Post-formal relativistic-dialectical thinking has been widely claimed to be a new developmental stage of intellectual development. Other theoretical models come very close to post-formal thinking, with overlapping features such as the study of wisdom and epistemic understanding, as well as models of expertise, critical thinking, and scepticism. No coherent theory exists in the fields of post-formal and relativistic-dialectical thinking, though scholars have claimed that there is some similarity between the models. While empirical evidence of interconnectedness between them exists, a major difficulty lies in the theoretical definition of concepts. We critically assess the definitions of rel…