Systems Thinking – A Post-Structuralist Critique

Systems thinking, understood in a broad sense, encompasses so-called 'hard systems' techniques that include the dynamic simulation of linear and non-linear systems (of differential and difference equations), and stochastic optimal control and filtering theory. The latter provides the quantitative and theoretical core of finance theory (asset and option pricing, portfolio management, risk management), operations research (logistics, PERT, CPM, production scheduling), and modeling and simulation in economics, management accounting, actuarial studies and marketing. However, in this paper I primarily address Soft Systems Methodologies (SSMs), which their advocates view as encompassing hard systems, while extending their concerns for design, planning and control into the uncertain and ambiguous domains of problem-oriented human systems. By their nature, social systems are susceptible to a variety of interpretations due to the differing values, beliefs and world views espoused by various social and organizational roups. In this paper I present a post-structuralist critique of systems thinking, questioning the soundness of its contribution to an understanding of organizational processes. To this end, I first review 'hard' systems approaches to the cognitive and linguistic dimensions of human behaviour. The inadequacies of these quantitative approaches propel me to review so-called SSMs that draw loosely on themes developed within the critical strand of postwar Continental philosophy, especially those set out in the works of Edmund Husserl and Jürgen Habermas. However, my critique of this material is motivated by an awareness that, from the late 1940s onwards, many scholars working in the Continental tradition, including Habermas, have distanced themselves