ARAB OPEN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF BUSINESS STUDIES
T205A – SYSTEMS’ THINKING THEORY & PRACTICE
2013/2014 SUMMER SEMESTER
T205 A -TMA- Summer 2013 – 2014
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Please read these instructions carefully, and contact your tutor if you require any further
clarifications. You should submit your completed assignment to your tutor to arrive no
later than the cut-off Date (August09, 2014).
Please use standard A4 size paper for submitting the hard copy of your TMA. Your name,
personal identifier, course and assignment numbers must appear at the top of each sheet.
A soft copy of your TMA must be uploaded to the university moodle within the indicated
cut-off date. The hard & soft copies must be identical. Please leave wide margins and
space at the end of each sheet for tutor comments. It is better to use double spacing so that
you can easily handwrite corrections to your drafts and tutors have space to include their
feedback on the script. Start each question in the assignment on a new page. Any
extended text should ideally be word-processed, but, diagrams and accompanying notes
may be hand drawn and hand written and on an A4 paper.
Completing and sending your assignments
When you have completed your TMA, you must fill in the assignment form (PT3), taking
care to fill all information correctly including your personal identifier, course code,
section & tutor, and assignment numbers. Each TMA and its PT3 form should be
uploaded on the AOU branch moodle within the cut-off date. Late submissions require
approval from the branch course coordinator and will be subject to grade deductions. All
assignments are treated in strict confidence.
If you feel that you are unable to meet the cut-off date of the TMA because of unusual
circumstances, please contact your tutor as soon as possible to discuss a possible
extension to the cut-off date.
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1
Plagiarism
The Arab Open University Definitions of cheating and plagiarism
According to the Arab Open University By-laws,
“the following acts represent cases of cheating and plagiarism:
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Verbatim copying of printed material and submitting them as part of TMAs
without proper academic acknowledgement and documentation.
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Verbatim copying of material from the Internet, including tables and graphics.
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Copying other students’ notes or reports.
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Using paid or unpaid material prepared for the student by individuals or firms.
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Utilization of, or proceeding to utilize, contraband materials or devices in
examinations.”
Penalty on plagiarism
The following is the standard plagiarism penalty applied across branches as per Article 11
of the university by-laws:
1) Awarding of zero for a TMA wherein more than 20% of the content is plagiarized.
2) Documentation of warning in student record.
3) Failure in the course to dismissal from the University.
All University programmes are required to apply penalties that are consistent with the
University by laws.
Examples of Plagiarism
Copying from a single or multiple sources, this is where the student uses one or more of
the following as the basis for the whole, or a good part, of the assignment:
1. Published or unpublished books, articles or reports
2. The Internet
3. The media (e.g.TV programmes, radio programmes or newspaper articles)
4. An essay from an essay bank
5. A piece of work previously submitted by another student
6. Copying from a text which is about to be submitted for the same assignment
2
Introduction
This TMA has one question with three sub sections. You should answer them all. The
questions in this assignment are all about different aspects of the process of exploring a
complex situation: drawing different kinds of maps of it, recognizing how complex it is,
identifying the different perspectives it can be viewed from, and stepping back to reflect
on this whole process of exploration to see the strength and weakness of the approach you
have adopted, and how you might do it better.
Question 1 (100% marks)
Read through the attached article “Mental Models, Moral Imagination and System
(a)
Thinking in the Age of Globalization” (Werhane, 2008). As you read through the
article create one spray diagram to summarize the different ideas respecting the
conventions, and techniques. It is advised that students submit hand drawn
diagrams as opposed to computer generated ones. Photocopies of diagrams should
not be accepted. (15 marks)
(b)
Based on what you learned in T205A (T552/Diagramming), and on the content of
the article, and taking “Employees’ Welfare” as your system of interest draw a
System Map diagram which shows all the potential components/subsystems of
such a system of interest. (15 marks)
(c)
Global corporations are embedded in complex adaptive systems; in order to
understand their actions we need to analyze them from a Multiple Perspective
Method (Werhane, 2008). Based on what you learned in T205A and on the
content of the article, discuss how applying the systems approach can help in
improving our understanding of organizational actions and performance. (2200 to
2400 words) (70 marks) (Please see guidance below)
General Mark’s deductions of 20% as follows

PT3 Form (failure to use the PT3 completely filled) (deduct up to 5% marks)
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TMA Presentation and Structure, and word count
(untidy, work way below or
above the word count, no display of word count) (deduct up to 5% marks)
3

Referencing and in-text citation (poor referencing and in-text citation, without
plagiarism, (deduct up to 10% marks).
Guidance to Question 01
(a)
Note that the submission for this question requires your rough spray diagrams,
and a condensed or tided up version. You should do your best to follow the conventions
for the spray diagram as explained in T552. It is also important that the diagram
communicates to your tutor, so make sure the writing is legible and not too small.
However, don't redraw your initial rough spray diagrams just to tidy them up; we want to
see what you drew as you worked. You need to identify the main idea of the article and
include it within your central topic, and then identify the most important points and
include them within the subtopics blobs then branch out as explained in T552 appendix
A1.1.
(b)
Here you are required to draw a system map diagram, which clearly shows the
main system of interest which was defined to you as “Employee Welfare”. Keep in mind
that 'components' of a system can include resources, people, rules & regulations,
assumptions, and ideas. This question is intended partly to allow you to practice
articulating a clear system of interest and structuring a system map diagram accordingly.
Your tutor’s feedback will be helpful in clarifying to you any misconceptions you might
have about the concept of a “system of interest” and how it can be articulated. It will also
help in assessing your diagramming skills.
(c)
This question focuses on the organizational application of systems’ thinking by
asking you to discuss how applying the systems approach can help in improving our
understanding of organizational actions and performance and to discuss how applying the
multiple perspectives method can help in this regards.
Your analysis should focus on the importance and value of systems’ thinking &
principles. Kindly refer to ideas discussed in T551”Linear programming”, readings 01 to
08, as relevant in order to justify your views, and to analyze the question. You also need
to use relevant material from T553 Modeling (Reading 03 mental models/implicit and
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explicit), and concept file 02 reading 10 (the self concept) and reading 12 (self sealing
behavior).
There are different ways to tackle and structure your ideas. Please remember that your
work should be structured in an essay format with a clear introduction, then possibly
different subsections (as needed) to assess each idea and a conclusion.
The body paragraphs can focus but are not limited to the following:

The systems approach to thinking and management. Its importance for good
performance and the benefits of the holistic thinking
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The meaning and relevancy of gaining multiple perspectives, and the role of our
worldviews in this regards (provide relevant examples from the article)
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The meaning and relevancy of mental models (implicit and explicit and the role of
the self concept, and of the self sealing behavior (provide relevant examples from
the article about contextualizing our mental models).

Conclusion
The introduction should set out the topic of the discussion clearly. For each of the body
paragraphs/sub-sections you need to provide a clear theoretical discussion which explains
how the relevant course concepts are related to the article on hand (You must take clear
examples from the case). The conclusion should summarize your findings and reflect on
your learning. You should not write in the first person (i.e. I think), the third person is
more appropriate for college level writing (i.e. we can conclude), but in any case it is
preferable to avoid both styles and to state your argument (i.e. instead of saying “this
essay will tackle the systems approach”, you can start with a statement about the
application of systems thinking in organizations). Similarly in your conclusion you should
not use “it could be concluded”, rather simply restate the main points and your findings.
Again you are strongly advised to use your own words to discuss the concepts as you
understood them. Do not copy material from the books since it might have a negative
impact on your grade, and very importantly do not get consumed in a redundant
discussion. Make sure to respect the word count as it is an indicator to you of the depth of
analysis required. Please remember that failure to paraphrase, and to reference will
lead to plagiarism and to failing the TMA.
5
Harvard Style - References / bibliography
How -to guide
Note: It is a requirement that all students include a header/footer of the following
information on every single page of the TMA: Name, ID, Course Code, TMA #, Tutor
name, section, and semester.
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You have to use the Times New Roman Font Size 12 (except for the cover
page).
Line spacing should be 1.5
All pages should be numbered
Keep wide margins for your instructors' comments
Align your text to the left. Don’t justify leaving spaces between words
Harvard Style Referencing:

There are various ways of setting out references / bibliographies for an assignment.

“Harvard Style” is a generic term for any referencing style which uses in-text references
such as (Smith, 1999), and a reference list at the end of the document organized by author
name and year of publication.
In this guide, we are using a “Harvard Style” which is based on the author-date system for books,
articles and “non-books”.
NOTE: When you write your list of references/bibliography, please keep in mind the
following points:
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Your bibliography should identify an item (e.g. book, journal article, cassette tape, film,
or internet site) in sufficient detail so that others may identify it and consult it.
Your bibliography should appear at the end of your TMA with entries listed
alphabetically.
If you have used sources from the Internet, these should be listed in your bibliography.
FOR A BOOK
The details required in order are:
1. name/s of author/s, editor/s, compiler/s or the institution responsible
2. year of publication
3. title of publication and subtitle if any (all titles must be underlined or italicized)
4. series title and individual volume if any
5. edition, if other than first
6. publisher
7. place of publication
8. page number(s) if applicable
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
One author
Harper
Berkman, RI 1994, Find it fast: how to uncover expert information on any subject,
Perennial, New York.

Two or more authors:
edn,
Cengel, YA & Boles, MA 1994, Thermodynamics: an engineering approach, 2nd
McGraw Hill, London.
for the
Cheek, J, Doskatsch, I, Hill, P & Walsh, L 1995, Finding out: information literacy
21st century, MacMillan Education Australia, South Melbourne.
 Editor(s)
Pike, ER & Sarkar, S (eds) 1986, Frontiers in quantum optics, Adam Hilger, Bristol. Jackson, JA
Geological Institute, Alexandria, Va.
(ed.) 1997, Glossary of geology, 4th edn, American

Sponsored by institution, corporation or other organization
Australia, Institution of Engineers, Australia 1994, Code of ethics, Institution of Engineers,
Barton, A.C.T
 Series
mathematics
Bhattacharjee, M 1998, Notes of infinite permutation groups, Lecture notes in
no.1698, Springer, New York.
 Edition
Zumdahl, SS 1997, Chemistry, 4th edn, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
 Chapter or part of a book to which a number of authors have contributed
engineering
Bernstein, D 1995, ‘Transportation planning’, in WF Chen (ed.), The civil
handbook, CRC Press, Boca Raton.
 No author or editor
Kempe's engineer's year-book 1992, Morgan-Grampian, London.
FOR AN ARTICLE
The details required, in order, are:
1. name/s of author/s of the article
2. year of publication
3. title of article, in single quotation marks
4. title of periodical (underlined or italicised)
5. volume number
6. issue (or part) number
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7. page number(s)
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Journal article
Huffman, LM 1996, ‘Processing whey protein for use as a food ingredient’, Food
Technology, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 49-52
 Newspaper article
13
Simpson, L 1997, ‘Tasmania’s railway goes private‘, Australian Financial Review,
October, p. 10
FOR A NON- BOOK
NON-BOOK
The details required are the same as for a book, with the form of the item (eg video recording,
tape, computer file, etc.) indicated after the year.
Productions, Get the facts (and get them organized) 1990, video recording, Appleseed
Williamstown, Vic
FORM OF ITEM
CaliforniaDr Brain thinking games 1998, CD-ROM, Knowledge Adventure Inc., Torrance,
FOR WEB SITES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC SOURCES
� FOR WEB SITES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC SOURCES

This could include sources from full text compact disk products, electronic journals or
other sources from the Internet.
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The basic form of the citations follow the principles listed for print sources (see above)
1. name/s of author/s
2. date of publication Note: If you cannot establish the date of publication, use n.d. (no date).
3. title of publication
4. edition, if other than first
5. type of medium, if necessary
6. date item viewed
7. name or site address on internet (if applicable)
Magazine,
Weibel, S 1995, ‘Metadata: the foundations of resource description’, D-lib
<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/July95/07weibel.html>. viewed 7 January 1997,
Engineering
ASTEC 1994, The networked nation, Australian Science, Technology and
Council,
<http://astec.gov.au/astec/net_nation/contents.html> Canberra, viewed 7 May 1997,

If no author is given, the title is used as the first element of a citation.
CaliforniaDr Brain thinking games 1998, CD-ROM, Knowledge Adventure Inc., Torrance,
REFERENCES IN THE TEXT OF YOUR ESSAY
8
FERENCES IN THE TEXT OF YOUR ESSAY

In an author-date style, a textual citation generally requires only the name of the author(s)
and the year of publication (and specific page(s) if necessary).

This may appear at the end of a sentence, before the full stop.
Examples:
It is futile to maintain that the sexes are interchangeable (Moir & Jessel 1991).
It is futile to maintain that the sexes are interchangeable (Moir & Jessel 1991, p.94).

Alternatively, the author’s surname may be integrated into the text, followed by the year
of publication in parentheses.
Examples:
interchangeable. Moir and Jessel (1991) have shown that it is futile to maintain that the sexes are
sexes are Moir and Jessel (1991, pp. 93-4) have shown that it is futile to maintain that the
interchangeable.
 If two or more works by different authors are cited at the same time, separate them with a
semicolon
Example:
The implications for land degradation have been much debated (Malinowski, Miller & Gupta
1995; Thomson 1999).


If two or more works by the same author are cited at the same time, do not repeat the
author's name. Separate the years of publication by a comma5
Alternatively, the author’s surname may be integrated into the text, followed by the year
of publication in parentheses.
Example:
Subsequent investigation confirmed these results (Watson & Clark 1996, 1998).
Public housing remains a neglected area (ACOSS 1997a, 1997b).

If there are more than three authors, list only the first, followed by 'et al.'
Example:
Other researchers have questioned these findings (Larson et al. 1987).
 If you cannot establish the year of publication, use 'n.d.' (no date).
Example:
Recent advances have been made in this area (Bolton n.d.).

If there is no author or authoring body, cite the work by title, in italics.
Example:
leadership the In military settings, leadership acquires a different significance (Be, know, do:
Army way, 2004).
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