If We Really Want a Management Revolution – Models In System and Management Science

Abstract

The three main components of the methodologies of management science (Methodology: theoretical basis + the imaginary model based on the basis + the practical method of applying the model) are not of equal strength. The theory is of a particularly high standard, and a large number of high-level methods are also available for practicing managers. There is no area of management in which we could not find detailed methodologies backed up by the most modern IT tools. Yet, looking at the outcome of the processes currently taking place in our world, we seem to be going round and round in terms of the development of the management of our specific human systems. Despite the best intentions and the use of the best methods, we have not achieved such a qualitative leap in the management of the world's systems containing human elements as physics (the science describing the
tangible world) has achieved in understanding the controlled processes of real systems, or as management science and information science have achieved in the actual management of real systems by using the modeling power of imaginary systems.
However, in order for the management of our human systems to be truly revolutionized and to have the same high-quality results in human systems as automation, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, etc., (which apply control science’s results, the ones that were developed in systems science), we need to review the third component: our models behind the methods used and eliminate potential obstacles to development. For this, it is inevitable that management science should become familiar with and integrate the relevant achievements of systems science. As long as the two sciences progress independently, we have no chance of a real revolutionary change in the methodology of managing human systems.
My goal is to draw the attention of high-level scientists and professionals in management science to the fact that if we really want to initiate a management revolution in the near future, if we want to break out of the traps of our modeling methodologies, and if we want to rethink management science, then we have to focus on an area that has not been sufficiently investigated: we have to overcome obstacles deeply embedded in our modeling.