what-when-how
In Depth Tutorials and Information
2.1 Introduction
In addition to network models of sociotechnical networks, there are many other
ways to model sociotechnical systems, taking into account the interactions between
social and technological components. When analyzing a sociotechnical system, it
is necessary to look at the entire system in a holistic fashion. One of the major
milestones favoring this type of systemic approach in the analysis of complex sys-
tems is
systemstheory
. It was first proposed as an alternative to reductionism in the
1940s by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who published his General Systems
heory (Bertalanffy, 1968). He emphasized that real systems were open and that
they exhibited behavioral complexity or emergence. Rather than analyzing the
individual behaviors of system components in isolation, systems theory focuses
on the relationship among these components as a whole and within the context of
the system boundaries. According to Bertalanffy, a system can be defined by the
system-environment boundary, inputs, outputs, processes, state, hierarchy, goal
directedness, and its information content (Bertalanffy, 1968).
2.2 SystemsAnalysis
While systems theory provides the fundamental concepts for understanding a
complex sociotechnical system, it does not provide a common methodology for
how to analyze such a system. In the 1960s and 1970s, systems analysis evolved
as an approach to analyzing complex systems. he American Cybernetics Society
defines systems analysis as “an approach that applies systems principles to aid a
decision-maker with problems of identifying, reconstructing, optimizing, and
managing a system, while taking into account multiple objectives, constraints and
resources. Systems analysis usually has some combination of the following: iden-
tification and re-identification of objectives, constraints, and alternative courses of
action; examination of the probable consequences of the options in terms of costs,
benefits, and risks; presentation of the results in a comparative framework so that
the decision maker can make an informed choice from among the options.”*
Many systems analysis tools and processes have been proposed for analyzing
different aspects of complex systems. Here we will look at Systems Engineering,
Systems Dynamics, and the CLIOS Process as important ways to analyze CLIOS.
In the following sections, we will take a look at each of these approaches.
2.2.1 Systems Engineering
Systems engineering is a discipline that develops and exploits structured, efficient
approaches to analysis and design to solve complex engineering problems. Jenkins
*
WebDictionaryofCyberneticsandSystems
, American Cybernetics Society, http://pespmc1.vub.
ac.be/ASC/indexASC.html.
