Systems Thinking as a Complementary Theory

Systems thinking have been described as a trans-disciplinary approach which emerged out of necessity to investigate and find solutions to management problems, especially in areas where human interactions are diverse and cluttered. The emergence of the approach led to the first publication on soft systems thinking by Peter Checkland in 1981. He is known as the creator of soft systems methodology, and developed the theory from some earlier thinking on the theory of systems as alternative to reductionism. Checkland‟s contribution was to expand the thinking beyond economics, biology and ecology to include the so called „soft‟ or „social‟ human perspectives, and thus make systems thinking more relevant to human and management issues in society. Therefore, Checkland (1981) makes sense of systems thinking from the viewpoint of countering the reductionism of natural sciences. It describes early experiences of trying to apply systems engineering outside the area for which it was developed. The rethinking of systems thinking, which early experience made necessary, sets out the first developed form of soft systems methodology as a seven-stage process of inquiry (outlined in page 163 of the book). The seven-stage process has now evolved into what is now known as the four-activity model. In reflecting on the learning and evolution of soft systems methodology, Checkland (2000) identified four key thoughts which dictated the overall shape of the development of the soft systems methodology and the direction it took.

Firstly, system thinkers and practitioners are moving away from thinking, in terms of real- world systems of improvement, to focusing on the fact that every action research undertaken is a human situation in which people are attempting to take purposeful action which is meaningful to them. This led to the idea of modelling purposeful human activity systems as sets of linked activities, which together could show the emergent property of purposefulness.

The second thought is that system thinkers could only model purposeful activit in relation to declared world views. In the process of exploring human activities there is bound to be multiple interpretations of purposeful models of activities. As a result, Checkland asserts that there could be a large number of human activity models which one could build to depict the declared world views. The selection of the most relevant and insightful ones will depend on the viewpoint from which the model is built, the world view upon which it is based.

The third thought is that there is a shift away from working with the idea of an obvious problem that required solution to developing models as a way to tackling problem situations. The models are used as devices to structure debate about real-life situations. This process derives new knowledge and insights concerning the problem situations, and leads to further ideas for relevant models. In principle, the learning process about real-life situations is an ongoing enquiry or learning process. What would bring it to an end, and lead to action being taken, was the development of an accommodation among people in the situation that a certain course of action was both desirable in terms of the analysis, and feasible for these people with particular history, relationships, culture and aspirations. The fourth thought is that the activity models are sets of activities which link together to show the purpose of a whole system.

Checkland argues that the seven-stage version, though still often used for initial teaching purposes, has a rather mechanistic flavour and can give the false impression that soft systems methodology is a prescriptive process which has to be followed systematically; hence its fall from favour. Nevertheless, the theory of perceiving situations in wholeness and as systems with connected and interrelated subsystems cannot be discarded. Systems are „wholes‟ because their parts are connected in such ways that give rise to a sense of wholeness. Further, the underpinning ontological and epistemological belief in applying systems theory lies within the constructivist interpretative paradigm. As suggested by Patton (2002:41):

The whole phenomenon under study is understood as a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts; focus on complex interdependencies and systems dynamics

that cannot meaningfully be reduced to a few discrete variables and liner, cause-effect relationships.

These ideas give rise to perceiving livelihoods on Lihir from a systems perspective where the actors have different perspectives, and operate in dynamic and varied, but interconnected subsystems. This gives rise to the dynamics and complexity between the subsystems of the whole livelihood systems. Although the application of soft systems methodology has been largely on modeling „purposeful human activity‟, underpinned by the action research paradigm, it is possible to apply the theory in other social science fields and traditions in which it could be considered legitimate and appropriate. To that end, the focus is not upon „action‟, but upon understanding and learning, and contribution to knowledge. Often, that learning will be represented as theory generation, or theory testing (Rose, 1997). Therefore, from the systems perspective, the concern of this study is on enquiry – learning about the interaction and relationships between the various subsystems of the livelihood system on Lihir rather than action debate-change. Accordingly, Rose argues that the underlying assumption is the construction of relevant human systems, which in itself interprets meanings of human activity systems. In this regard, a relevant system is constructed based on the empirical data to show the livelihood system on Lihir prior to the mine operation (see Figure 3.10).