Systems Thinking 1.0 and Systems Thinking 2.0: Complexity science and a new conception of "cause"

View/ Open
Author(s)
Dekker, Sidney
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2011
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Our understanding and investigation of accidents in aviation is dominated by a mechanistic worldview that seeks to find and fix broken parts. Even though "systems thinking" has become quite fashionable over the past two decades, this still often reduces to finding broken parts further away in space and time from the accident. This is Systems Thinking 1.0. In contrast, complexity science, and its new conception of "cause," offers a route to Systems Thinking 2.0. In this, investigators and managers can be made aware of the consequences of path-dependency, open systems, the asymmetry between small inputs and large effects, and ...
View more >Our understanding and investigation of accidents in aviation is dominated by a mechanistic worldview that seeks to find and fix broken parts. Even though "systems thinking" has become quite fashionable over the past two decades, this still often reduces to finding broken parts further away in space and time from the accident. This is Systems Thinking 1.0. In contrast, complexity science, and its new conception of "cause," offers a route to Systems Thinking 2.0. In this, investigators and managers can be made aware of the consequences of path-dependency, open systems, the asymmetry between small inputs and large effects, and the unpredictability of efforts to control or regulate complexity. This paper uses a case study to compare Systems Thinking 1.0 and 2.0 and develop the latter.
View less >
View more >Our understanding and investigation of accidents in aviation is dominated by a mechanistic worldview that seeks to find and fix broken parts. Even though "systems thinking" has become quite fashionable over the past two decades, this still often reduces to finding broken parts further away in space and time from the accident. This is Systems Thinking 1.0. In contrast, complexity science, and its new conception of "cause," offers a route to Systems Thinking 2.0. In this, investigators and managers can be made aware of the consequences of path-dependency, open systems, the asymmetry between small inputs and large effects, and the unpredictability of efforts to control or regulate complexity. This paper uses a case study to compare Systems Thinking 1.0 and 2.0 and develop the latter.
View less >
Journal Title
Aviation in Focus
Volume
2
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2011. For information about this journal please refer to the publisher’s website or contact the author. Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
Subject
Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified
Transportation and Freight Services