THE SYSTEMS MOVEMENT AND THE “FAILURE” OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCE

Abstract

Natural science, characterized by its reductionism, provides a uniquely powerful framework for studying the world and its problems; but it is defeated by extreme complexity; hence systems thinking emerges as complementary to reductionist natural science. The systems movement is variegated in its concerns, but may be grasped as a whole if four distinctions are made. A “map” of the movement is presented that can be used to understand the failure of management science to cope with the specificity of managers' problems. By examining the purpose of modeling in different areas of the map we see that textbook management science has lost contact with its problems by aping positivist natural science. Management problems require a methodology based on learning rather than optimizing.