The pre-reading of Emery (1967), “The Next Thirty Years: Concepts, Methods and Anticipations” was introduced as a challenging article for the second meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario on Feb. 21, 2013. The theme for the evening was “Systems Thinking and Future Studies”, so there was some irony in looking backwards to 1967 to have a discussion on looking forward.
In my role as reviewer in Systems Thinking Ontario sessions, I would prefer to try to stick to the text rather than adding editorializing. However, since this Emery (1967) article is particular rich, I tried to provide some additional context to make the reading easier.
Fred Emery is especially known for his work with the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, as one of the pioneers of the field we know today as organization science, including organization development and organization design. In 1967, systems thinking was new: The Systems Approach would be published by West Churchman in 1968, and On Purposeful Systems by Ackoff and Emery would follow years later in 1972. The Club of Rome was founded in 1968. In this article, Emery was thinking about how systems thinking frames viewing the future.
In I. Prediction and Planning, the systems of interest are in the social sciences. The longer history of systems thinking prior to 1967 would have been a stronger cybernetics orientation. The research from the Tavistock Institute on the socio-psychological, socio-technical and socio-ecological systems perspectives would have been fresh. … Read more (in a new tab)
The pre-reading of Emery (1967), “The Next Thirty Years: Concepts, Methods and Anticipations” was introduced as a challenging article for the second meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario on Feb. 21, 2013. The theme for the evening was “Systems Thinking and Future Studies”, so there was some irony in looking backwards to 1967 to have a discussion on looking forward.
In my role as reviewer in Systems Thinking Ontario sessions, I would prefer to try to stick to the text rather than adding editorializing. However, since this Emery (1967) article is particular rich, I tried to provide some additional context to make the reading easier.
Fred Emery is especially known for his work with the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, as one of the pioneers of the field we know today as organization science, including organization development and organization design. In 1967, systems thinking was new: The Systems Approach would be published by West Churchman in 1968, and On Purposeful Systems by Ackoff and Emery would follow years later in 1972. The Club of Rome was founded in 1968. In this article, Emery was thinking about how systems thinking frames viewing the future.
In I. Prediction and Planning, the systems of interest are in the social sciences. The longer history of systems thinking prior to 1967 would have been a stronger cybernetics orientation. The research from the Tavistock Institute on the socio-psychological, socio-technical and socio-ecological systems perspectives would have been fresh. … Read more (in a new tab)
