Systems Research and Behavioral Science articles from January 2003

Systems Research and Behavioral Science archives from January 2003

Editorial.
January 1, 2003... We start this new volume with a groundbreaking set of research papers. In the first research paper of this issue, by Fei Gao, Meng Li and Yoshiteru Nakamori, the ideas of Critical Systems Thinking (CST) and Total Systems Intervention (TSI)...

Critical systems thinking as a way to manage knowledge. (Research Paper).
January 1, 2003... In the modern world organizations are faced with innumerable and multifaceted issues which cannot be captured in the minds of a few experts and solved with the aid of some super-method. It would be equally wrong to revert to a trial and error...

A proposed taxonomy of management systems. (Research Paper).
January 1, 2003... INTRODUCTION The topic of management systems has received scant attention in management literature, resulting in the complete absence of any taxonomy beyond mere functional classifications. Although several important contributions to...

The measurement of environmental performance: an application of Ashby's law. (Research Paper).
January 1, 2003... INTRODUCTION There is general agreement that the natural environment is of fundamental strategic importance to business. Consequently, one would expect to find clear evidence that the natural environment is being handled by business...

Self-reflective synergetics. (Research Paper).
January 1, 2003... UNIVERSALITY OF SYNERGETICS: WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN? Following H. Haken, I call the modern theory of self-organization of complex systems `synergetics' (Haken, 1977). This trend of scientific research is now under rapid development in...

Measuring the effect of highly cited papers in OR/systems journals: a survey of articles citing the work of Checkland and Jackson. (Notes and Insights).
January 1, 2003... The UK OR/systems community has been actively promoting the development and the use of management science methodologies (MSM) over the last decades. A number of systems thinkers have been influential in promoting them. To understand this...

Stafford Beer. (Obituary).
January 1, 2003... We are sad to have to report the death of Stafford Beer, one of the most remarkable figures which British operational research (OR) has produced. He died in Toronto on August 23 at the age of 75 after a considerable period of ill-health. He was...

Heinz von Foerster. (Obituary).
January 1, 2003... With the death, on October 2nd at his home in Pescadero, California, of Heinz von Foerster, cybernetics has lost its last direct link to its Heroic Age. Although the token for the start of cybernetics is usually given as Norbert Wiener's...