Realising Systems Thinking: Knowledge and Action in Management Science

This wide-ranging book deals, in a detailed and scholarly way, with the contribution of a systems approach to a range of disciplines from philosophy and biology to social theory and management. It weaves together material from some of the pre-eminent thinkers of the day — Maturana, Varela, Bateson, Merleau-Ponty, Checkland, Giddens, Habermas, Bhaskar, and Luhmann — to create a coherent path from the most fundamental work on philosophical issues of ontology and epistemology through specific domains of knowledge about the nature of information and meaning, human communication, and social intervention right up to the implications of these theoretical developments for action and intervention in real-world affairs. It will be of interest to scholars in philosophy, biology, information systems, communications, social theory, management science and operational research as well as everyone in the systems community.