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The current field of systems thinking consists of a variety of views, methods and a number of organisations involved with these views which suggests a state of confusion and fragmentation of the field which fundamentally is supposed to be a uniform view of structures or systems. This can be interpreted as a “crisis situation”. A resolution of the crisis in the form of a “new science of systems” is proposed. Assuming this new science becomes part of the field of systems thinking, a debate of the elements of the field is suggested with a view to consider its current state and future developments. “Crisis - resolution - debate” is the central theme of the paper.

The field of current systems thinking is described in terms of views, methods and organisations and is seen as the “problematic issue”. A “new science of systems” strongly rooted in natural language as its primary symbolism and consisting of three general principles of systems and linguistic modelling is outlined to be considered as the resolution of the crisis. A set of criteria is discussed for use of judging the quality of models and element of the field of systems thinking including the “new science of systems”. To demonstrate a preliminary use of these criteria, the same example is worked out using both, the “soft systems methodology” and “linguistic modelling” for comparison.

The universal view of parts of the world as structures or systems is inconsistent with the multiple methods basically pursuing the same purpose: modelling aspects of systems which prevail in current systems thinking. To try to resolve this anomaly an equally universally applicable approach, the “new science of systems” is proposed which can also serve as an aid to problem solving, in particular to an integrated systems and product design. This approach is to be part of the suggested debate of the field of systems thinking. In general, there is no alternative to the structural view.

The “new science of systems”, if found acceptable, can offer research opportunities in new applications of accepted branches of knowledge like logic, linguistics, mathematics of ordered pairs, uncertainties and in the philosophy of science. New teaching schemes can be developed at classroom level combined with engineering as creator of novelties with linguistics as the symbolism to supplement mathematics. Further considerations can be given to current methodologies of systems thinking as part of a debate with a view of future developments in exploring pioneering ideas. New software is needed for working out the dynamics of scenarios.

The debate, if it takes place, should result in new developments in the field of systems thinking such as concepts accepted as fundamental in the discipline of systems. Applications of the “new science of systems” to larger scale scenarios and organisations guided by the universal scheme in Figure 1 and linguistic modelling with software are needed for development of schemes for problem solving schemes “utilising” or “producing” products.

The “new science of systems” is rooted in accepted branches of knowledge; it is highly teachable at school and university levels and should lead to use by professionals and in everyday life activities once found acceptable. The use of the scheme in Figure 1 should help in clarifying confusing scenarios and to aid problem solving.

The suggestion of a debate is an original idea. The “new science of systems” consists of three general principles of systems implemented by linguistic modelling of static and dynamic states. Mathematics of uncertainty and topics from conventional science at the object level supplement the “new science” which together form the “scientific enterprise”. The notions of cognitive value and informative content of models are introduced for evaluating their cognitive worth.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how effective school principals use systems thinking, aiming to present the systems school leadership (SSL) approach – an approach where principals lead schools through the systems thinking concept and procedures.

Participants were 28 Israeli school principals, selected as outstanding leaders by recommendations from their superintendents and according to their schools’ achievements. The study employed semi-structured interviews as well as focus groups. Generating themes was an inductive process, grounded in the various perspectives articulated by participants.

Data analysis generated four main characteristics of SSL: leading wholes; adopting a multidimensional view; influencing indirectly; and evaluating significance.

Further research that will explore to what extent and how often principals use systems thinking is required. In addition, replication in various educational contexts is important in order to substantiate the validity of the SSL's characteristics. Beyond principals’ perceptions, more objective measures like direct observations are needed to evaluate actual implementation of SSL in diverse school settings.

Identifying the SSL characteristics facilitates the development of practical processes for nurturing SSL in various stages of school leaders’ educational career.

This paper provides a useful conceptual and empirical framework to evaluate SSL as a managerial approach.

The purpose of this paper is to provide advice to organizations on how to become successful in the digital age. The paper revisits Peter Senge’s (1990) notion of the learning organization and discusses the relevance of systems thinking and the other four disciplines, namely, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning in the context of the current digitalization megatrend.

This paper is based on content analysis of essays from international organizations, strategy experts and management scholars, and insights gained from the author’s consulting experience. A comparative case study from the health and social sector is also included.

With the current digitalization megatrend sweeping across the globe, the practice of systems thinking would certainly become more crucial for organizations seeking to develop new digital ecosystems. In addition, the application of the other four disciplines of the learning organization would also help to nurture a digital culture for organizations to stay ahead of the competition.

Organizations and digitalization practitioners could benefit from applying systems thinking to develop digital ecosystems, and the other four disciples to nurture a digital culture.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by offering a relook and justifications on the relevance of the five disciplines, in particular systems thinking, in the present times. It offers advice to organizations on how to become successful as part of the digital transformation journey.

Brings together some of the empirical findings from a series of action research projects undertaken in a number of engineering companies. Systems concepts were employed with engineers to assist organisational change. The key driver for each programme of change was the implementation of a new company‐wide strategy for increasing competitive edge in the open market. In each instance, senior management recognised that, while their engineers possessed the “hard”, technical skills to fulfil such a strategy, they did not all possess the “soft”, people‐related skills to cope with the cultural aspects of the change. Systems concepts, such as rich pictures and metaphors, were used to generate new perspectives that would stimulate a more holistic approach to organisational change management.

Looks at a specific variant of systems thinking, called critical systems thinking, which is an approach that was developed in the UK during the 1980s. In particular, consideration is given to “rule‐bound” systems – scenarios where the possibilities for change have been found to be problematic. The characteristics of such situations will initially be set out, focusing on the power relations that appear to pervade such situations. A prison‐based change management initiative is used to show how critical systems thinking can be employed, and provide some reflections on the process of change management and the outcomes achieved. These reflections point to some difficulties experienced that emerged from the rule‐bound nature of the problem situation and ways in which such difficulties might be addressed in similar situations in the future are suggested. Insights for both private and public sector organizations are drawn throughout the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the product of a ten year study, the PhD thesis, “Feminist Systems Thinking: Principles and Practice”, conferred in April, 2012 by the University of Queensland, which contains a set of five practical principles, to assist in policy directions for enhanced community development and project management.

This research adapted Constructivist Grounded Theory to complete Part A, a theoretical imbrication of Cultural Ecofeminism and Critical Systems Thinking. Part B of the thesis is a set of four applied case studies utilising participatory action research.

The findings of Part A of this work established a meta‐theoretical framework in the form of five practical principles to guide project managers at various stages and scales of their work. Part B's evaluation of these principles found that the principles can make practitioners' work clearer, identify gaps to address the multiplicity of often overlapping social concerns, and flag implications for future research and practice.

Embedding the principles in practice can help managers plan, guide and evaluate community development interventions. Further research to establish the principles in a wider number of settings would be advantageous.

Embedding the principles draws in the voices of those on the margins of any project, helping to avoid superficial consultations and oversight of all (human and non‐human inhabitants) affected.

This work is entirely original. There is no known imbrication of the epistemologies selected for this study. In the recent examination of the thesis, the work was commended for its innovative methodological approach and original contribution to knowledge.

This paper is an exploratory study of one approach to incorporating situational information into information retrieval systems, drawing on principles and methods of discourse linguistics. A tenet of discourse linguistics is that texts of a specific type possess a structure above the syntactic level, which follows conventions known to the people using such texts to communicate. In some cases, such as literature describing work done, the structure is closely related to situations, and may therefore be a useful representational vehicle for the present purpose. Abstracts of empirical research papers exhibit a well‐defined discourse‐level structure, which is revealed by lexical clues. Two methods of detecting the structure automatically are presented: (i) a Bayesian probabilistic analysis; and (ii) a neural network model. Both methods show promise in preliminary implementations. A study of users' oral problem statements indicates that they are not amenable to the same kind of processing. However, from in‐depth interviews with users and search intermediaries, the following conclusions are drawn: (i) the notion of a generic research script is meaningful to both users and intermediaries as a high‐level description of situation; (ii) a researcher's position in the script is a predictor of the relevance of documents; and (iii) currently, intermediaries can make very little use of situational information. The implications of these findings for system design are discussed, and a system structure presented to serve as a framework for future experimental work on the factors identified in this paper. The design calls for a dialogue with the user on his or her position in a research script and incorporates features permitting discourse‐level components of abstracts to be specified in search strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review dominant conceptions of and approaches to quality in higher education. It suggests an alternative approach with potential to shift the focus of quality activities from accountability and control to improvement.

The applicability and limits of quality concepts and models are critically reviewed against key systems concepts of purpose, boundaries and environments. The limited transferability and utility of such models and the tensions between control and improvement are discussed.

The language and tools of industry‐born quality models are an imperfect fit to higher education. Authentic quality improvement is more likely to result from approaches to systemic intervention that encourage exploration of questions of purpose and of the meaning of improvement in context than from the imposition of definitions and methodologies from elsewhere.

Evidence to support the utility of systems approaches in higher education is limited. Research into their use is needed.

Systemic approaches are complex but likely to be beneficial.

The paper takes a systemic perspective on quality likely to be of value in encouraging debate and different interventions for improvement.

This chapter introduces readers to a complex adaptive systems approach for integrating research on genes, behavior, and social structures/institutions. Until recently, scientists have resorted to reductionism as a decoding and epistemological strategy for understanding human health. The complex bonds among health’s biological, behavioral, and social dimensions, however, cannot be fully grasped with reductionist schemas. Moreover, because reducing and simplifying can lead to incomplete understanding of phenomena, the resulting deficient knowledge has the potential to be harmful.

To achieve its purpose, this primer will: (1) introduce fundamental notions from complexity science, useful for inquiry and practice integrating research on genes, behavior, and social structures; (2) outline selected methodological strategies employed in studying complex adaptive/dynamic systems; (3) address the question, “Specifically, how can a dynamic systems approach be helpful for integrating research on genes, behavior, and social structures/institutions, to improve the public’s health?”; and (4) provide examples of studies currently deploying a complexity perspective.

The originality/value of this primer rests in its critique of the research status quo and the proposition of an alternative lens for integrating genomic, biomedical, and sociological research to improve the public’s health. The topic of complex adaptive/dynamic systems has begun to flourish within sociology, medicine, and public health, but many researchers lack exposure to the topic’s basic notions and applications.

In order to address the complex problems of society, the innovation research process should incorporate technical, social, economic and ethical factors, but also actively involve a diverse group of non-scientific actors. One way to prepare students for this type of research is to create “Citizen Scholars,” students who want to work for the betterment of society. Arvanitakis and Hornsby (2016) argue that we need to change how we teach and train students in specific proficiencies. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the pedagogical approach applied within the program contributes to building the proficiencies and attributes as described by Arvanitakis and Hornsby (2016).

The authors conducted a total of 12 interviews with alumni who started their program in 2014, one focus group discussion with lecturers and 132 questionnaires with alumni to discuss to what extend the proficiencies are trained in the program and whether these are used in their current jobs. The authors also included data of an earlier study conducted in 2014. These data contain 26 interviews with students during the first year of the program. These students graduated in 2017 and are thus from the same cohort as the alumni.

The results show that the pedagogical approach in the management policy analysis program trains all the attributes. Important elements in the program are: the inquiry-based approach intertwined with community service learning (CSL) throughout the program; gradually increased complexity of the real-world problems addressed; students working in teams; and gradually reducing support of the lecturer.

The authors conclude that our pedagogical approach applied in the program contributes to learning the proficiencies. The authors argue that for the training of inter- and transdisciplinary, the proficiency knowledge integration should be added.

The result show that more inquiry-based approaches and CSL programs can stimulate the four clusters of proficiencies, which should hold a central place in universities if we want to create citizen scholars.

With the approach, students contribute to research issues of local communities.

Despite the increasing interest of higher education to involve civic activities in the curricula, few pedagogical approaches are described. The research shows that theoretical insights in the adaption of a model to realize a citizen scholar.