Aerospace systems are among the most complex anthropogenic systems and require large quantities of systems knowledge to design successfully. Within the aerospace industry, an aging workforce places those with the most systems experience near retirement at a time when fewer new programs exist to provide systems experience to the incoming generation of aerospace engineers and leaders. The resulti...

Today’s work environment presents engineers with complex challenges that demand holistic approaches. Systems thinking provides ways to think about a problem and its solutions using “whole system” perspectives. There have been multiple studies that identify the key elements that comprise systems thinking. These studies have resulted in the identification of sets of individual systems thinking tr...

Drawing on more than a decade of research on the social implications of systems thinking, as well as practical experience in integrative, community-based approaches to education, this paper is an inquiry into philosophical and ethical considerations growing out of recent developments in systems thinking. In his foundational work on general system theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy distinguishes bet...

Recent world events and geopolitics have brought the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to cyberattacks forefront. While there has been considerable attention attacks on Information Technology (IT) systems, such as data theft ransomware, vulnerabilities dangers posed by industrial control systems (ICS) received significantly less attention. What is very different that can be made do thing...

In some of my reading and in conversations and meetings, I have noticed two phenomena: on the one hand, an explicit commitment to teaching systems thinking to our students and residents, and on the other, situations in medical education where systems thinking would have made a substantial contribution. The collection of articles in this issue of the CMEJ similarly demonstrate systems thinking o...