SYSTEMS THINKING
Systems ecology
Neža Orel
INTRODUCTION
A system is a complex whole the functioning of which depends on its parts
and the interactions between those parts (Jackson M.C., 2003).
A set of components that interact with one another and serve for a common
purpose or goal.
Different types of systems:
• Physical
• Biological
• Designed
• Abstract
• Social
• Human activity.
Phylosophical systems
River system
Automobiles
Quality assurance
Living organisms
Families
Reductionism
„A complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts.“
• Traditional, scientific method for studying systems.
• Decompose complex system on less complex sub systems.
• Tries to identify the parts, understand the parts and work up from an
understanding of the parts to understanding of the whole.
The whole is often not recognizable from the
parts. The whole emerges from the
interactions between the parts, which affect
each other through complex networks of
relationships.
Holism
„The whole is greather than the sum of its parts.“
• It sees the complex systems as wholes, not as
collections of parts.
• It is interested in the parts and relationships
between them, but primarily in terms how
they give a rise to the whole.
• This approach can cope with problems of
complexity, diversity and change in complex
systems.
• Encounter of holism with philosophy, biology,
control engineering, organization and
management theory and the physical science.
PHILOSOPHY
• Classical Greek philosophers:
• Aristotle (384-322 BC) – The parts of
the body only make sense in terms
of the way they function to support
the whole organism.
• 18th and 19th century:
• Kant (1724-1804) – Believed it was helpful for humans to think
in terms of wholes, self-organization is introduced.
• Hegel (1770-1831) – Introduced process into system thinking.
An understanding of whole could be approached through a
systemic unfolding of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
BIOLOGY
• Understanding the whole organisms.
• 1920s and 1930s: Organisms are more than
the sum of their parts.
• One of the key characteristics of the
organization of living organisms is hierarchy
– molecules, organelles, cells, organs,
organisms.
• At certain points in hierarchy one level have
properties, which did not exist at levels below.
BIOLOGY
• Organism had a clear boundary, which
separates it from its environment:
• Autonomy
• Sustained itself in a steady state by carrying
out transactions across this boundary with its
environment. It had to be capable of making
internal transformations to ensure that it was
adapted to its environment.
The processes which maintain the steady state
were referred to as homeostatic – selfregulating mechanism which controls body T.
This behaviour was result of interdependence
of individual parts, which gave a rise to new
level of organized complexity.
BIOLOGY
Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972):
• Organisms should be studied as complex
wholes.
• Distinction between closed systems and
open systems.
• Closed system – has no exchanges with its
environment.
• Open system – allow interactions between its
internal elements and environment. Depend
on the environment – take inputs from
environment, transform them and return
them.
BIOLOGY
Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972):
• “General system theory”:
• Interdisciplinary study of systems in
general, with the goal of elucidating
principles that can be applied to all
types of systems at all levels in all fields
of research.
• A general theory of systems that would
help to create a coherent theoretical
model of relevance to all living systems.
• The open systems in biology could be
demonstrated by open systems in other
domains.
BIOLOGY
The biological system model
Properties of biological system:
• Boundary: System is separated from
environment.
• Components: System has a complex
structure – it can be divided into
subsystems which also contains parts.
• Hierarchy: Systems are arranged in a
hierarchy of systems.
• Homeostasis: The close
interrelationships between the
subsystems must ensure homeostasis –
the maintenance of a steady state.
• Management: One subsystem is trying to
ensure integration and co-ordination.
• Comunication with environment: The
system takes inputs of material, energy
and information from environment, uses
some to sustain itself and transforms the
rest into outputs.
BIOLOGY
Maturana and Varela (1980):
• Emphasized the closed system of interactions that
occurs in living entities.
• These interactions ensure self-production of the system
and its autonomy.
• They named such self-producing systems autopoietic.
• Autopoietic systems can change their structure, only with a
view to keeping their fundamental organizational identity
unaffected.
• This perspective emphasis that living systems are „selfproducting“ mechanisms which maintain their particular form
despite material inflow and outflow.
CONTROL ENGINEERING
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964):
• A mathematician and control engineer
• Cybernetics (1948) – the science of control and
communication in the animal and the machine.
• A new science for studying systems in many different
disciplines because it deal with general laws that
governed control processes.
• Two key concepts: control and communication
CONTROL ENGINEERING
Purposive behaviour – a behaviour
directed to achieve a goal – requires
negative feedback.
Negative feedback:
• A process in which information is
transmitted about any divergence
of behaviour from a present goal
and corrective action taken, on
the basis of this information, to
bring the behaviour back towards
the goal.
Positive feedback:
• Tries to amplify the deviations
from a goal.
CONTROL ENGINEERING
CONTROL ENGINEERING
William Ross Ashby (1903-1972):
• Variety refer to the number of possible
states a system can exhibit.
• System can only be controlled if the
controller can command the same
degree of variety as the system.
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT THEORY
• Two main forms:
• Basic systems concepts were incorporated in the scientific management
tradition to yield optimizing approaches, such as systems engineering.
• Wholesale transfer of the biological analogy.
• They failed to recognize that systems containing human beings are
purposeful. The purpose of biological systems is survival. The parts of
social systems can generate their own purposes from inside the
system.
• Social and organizational systems have multiple purposes: they are
purposeful.
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT THEORY
• Terminology used for describe purposeful systems:
• Stakeholder – any group with interest in what the system is doing
• Decision-makers or owners – have the power to make things happen in
systems
• Actors – carry out basic tasks
• Customers or clients – benefit or suffers from what a system does
• Problem-owners – worry about the performance of some aspect of a system
• Witnesses – are affected by systems but unable to influence their behaviour
• Problem-solvers or analysts – try to improve the system.
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT THEORY
• Purposes came from the human mind – attention also has to be given
to different mental models.
• Mental models are made up of a mix of the understanding and values
that individuals have gathered through their experiences and
education.
• Individual or group of people can constitute their own world view or
Weltanschauung (‘world image’).
• For those who want to manage purposeful systems world image
becomes critical.
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT THEORY
• In case of purposeful systems the
concept of boundary becomes very
significant.
• The boundary for purposeful systems,
depends on the world view of the
person observing the system.
• Business system should include
natural environment, local community,
unemployed people etc.
• Values and ethics play a part.
THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
• Systems thinking emerged as a transdiscipline, in the 1940s and
1950s, in a large part as a reaction to the reductionism and its failure
to cope with the complexity in biological and social domains.
• The systems thinking was the antithesis of the scientific method.
• More recently the physical science undergone their own systems
revolution and holism have been welcomed in physic and chemistry.
• It offered new forms of explanation and exploration.
THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
• Quantum theory in physics and the study of dissipative structures in
chemistry are examples of a more holistic orientation in the physical
science.
• Quantum physics: the concept of indeterminacy and new meaning to the
concept of relationships.
• Chemistry: reinforcement of the process view of systems and the idea of selforganization.
• The most important has been the birth of a new kind of general
system theory in science – a complexity theory.
THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
• Complexity theory complements the
normal systems concern for order by
being equally concerned with
disorder.
• Complex systems appear to exhibit
disorder, irregularity and
unpredictability, that’s why they are
hard to understand.
• Complexity theorists demonstrated
that a small change in the initial
conditions of a system can lead to
large-scale consequences later on.
These two plots demonstrate sensitive
dependence on initial conditions.
THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
• They also found that apparent
chaos has a pattern.
• Complex systems never repeat exactly
the same behaviour, but what they do
remains within certain limits.
• The patterns that govern complex
systems seem to be repeated at
different levels of the system. The
parts of the whole are similar in shape
to the whole. Example: cauliflowers,
snowflakes…
THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
• ‘Edge of chaos’ – Narrow transitional zone
between order and chaos where systems
become capable of taking on new forms of
behaviour.
• ‘Edge of chaos’ – A metaphor that some
physical, biological, economic and social
systems operate in a region between order
and complete randomness or chaos,
where complexity is maximal.
• Systems that are too simple are static and
those that are too active are chaotic – on
the edge between these two behaviours
system can undertake productive activity.
WHY IS THE SYSTEMS LANGUAGE SO
POWERFUL?
• The emphasis on holism offers a useful corrective to
reductionism. Systems are complex and the relationships
between the parts are crucial.
• The emphasis modern systems thinking puts on process as
well as structure. This stems from systems philosophy, from
von Bertalanffy’s open systems concept and from complex
theory.
• The transdisciplinarity of systems thinking. It draws its ideas
and concepts from a variety of different disciplines and in so
doing can draw on their different strengths.
Thank you for your attention!
QUESTIONS
• Which are two approaches for studying systems, and what is the
difference between them?
• Which are impotant ideas introduced by Ludwig von Bertalanffy? How
did he expaned open system model.
• Describe negative and positive feedback.
• How the systems thinking in physical science started? Explain the
term „Edge of chaos“.
• Why is the systems language important? Why is so powerful?