Why Can’t We All Just Accommodate: A Soft Systems Methodology Application on Disagreeing Stakeholders

Abstract

The idea of accommodating worldviews in problem structuring is a common approach across many methodologies. A key assumption of this research is the idea that actors must reach a point where a debate about change, through an accommodation of worldviews, can occur. This paper looks at a field study where actors actively used their declared worldviews against each other to argue for change. Even though this process led to a stalling of the method, an argument is made that there is still much to be learned from actors who actively structure disagreement. In particular by studying how this process occurs, we can develop new streams of research into problem framing and methodology use that are currently absent problem structuring research.