THE APPLICATIONS OF SYSTEM THINKING WITHIN BUSINESS COMMUNITIES - REVIEW OF THE INFLUENCE OF SYSTEM IDEAS IN CORPORATIONS IN LAST 60 YEARS THROUGH TWO DIFFERENT PATHS

摘要

Since the birth of system science and cybernetics in 1940s, the significant achievements in the academic research have taken two different paths of entering into management practices. One path is through high-profile senior system scientists, think-tanks, big consulting companies, and the influence from the well-funded military or space programs into the civil business organizations. Examples on this path are such as the spreading of concepts of System Engineering and Operations Research from NASA and Pentagon, the influence of System Dynamics through the Club of Roma report "the Limit to Growth," or China's efforts initialized and led by Professor Qian Xuesen and his colleagues. The author calls this path "the Elitist Approach." The second path, the author identified, which is less high-profile but may be more effective in terms of causing substantial change, is the system/cybernetic ideas penetrating into daily business practices through various popular writers, news media journalists, individual entrepreneurs and consultants, shop-floor managers' re-inventions, bestseller books, and even Hollywood movies. Examples on this path are such as the early invention of assembly-line, the popular concept of user feedback, the practice of continuous quality improvement, and the most recently Technology of Participation in producing organizational intelligence and team synergy. In this path, system and cybernetic ideas are "borrowed" indirectly or "re-invented" in a different format that could be spread widely by the public. The author calls this path "the Re-inventing Approach." Peter Senge's success in applying circular causality and feedback concepts to generate the movement on learning organizations in business world would be a typical example of the Re- inventing Approach. "The Fifth Discipline" and its successor books became best-sellers in 1990s, while the concepts of circular causality and feedback were discussed among academics in as early as 1940s. By paying attention to the Re-inventing Approach, the daily business management could be benefited by insights contributed by the academic scholars such as Stafford Beer, Edward Deming, Peter Senge, Humberto Maturana, and Stuart Umpleby.