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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- This short paper is intended to stimulate thinking and hopefully more serious efforts toward understanding how systems thinking tools can most effectively catalyze the development of management intuition. This effort draws from an on-going research program, the program in Systems Thinking and the New Management Style, aimed at advancing systems thinking as a practical tool for developing a more wholistic, long-term, and creative (as opposed to reactive) orientation in organizational leadership. The program involves a network of organizations, many of which have been pioneers in developing more visionary nonauthoritarian work environments. The organizations serve as laboratories to explore innovations in management education. The central premise in these explorations is that the localization of management responsibility will require transforming an organization's capacity to learn, so that local control and understanding can advance together. The research at M.I.T. is focused on developing a library of "generic structures," relatively simple models of organizational dynamics that recur in diverse settings, which can provide a foundation for that education. This paper discusses basic assumptions about learning that underlie the program.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The present article describes an example of the application of the MDS approach (Modelli Dinamici per Strategie - Dynamic Models for Strategies) to the study of criteria for a supply policy and for a consequent economic evaluation of the different supply policies which may be adopted. The aim of the study is limited to an evaluation of the direct economic effects of the different hypothetical policies, excluding those associated with the market and with different production steps. The results of a series of simulations using the model are presented along with an outline of the economic benefits deriving from the adoption of a "tight-rein" stocks policy carrying a reasonable level of risk.
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Sancar, Fahriye H. with Robert J. Cook , "Cognitive Criteria for Structuring System Dynamics Models"
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- This paper discusses the development of cognitive criteria for use in guiding the problem definition phase of System Dynamics modeling. The System Dynamics modeling process is presented as currently defined in the literature. The problem definition phase of the process is then isolated because of its overriding influence on model structure. Topics relating to information, information processing and group decision making are discussed and the shortcomings of human judgment and inference are identified. These shortcomings are related back to the tasks required for problem definition and criteria are identified which can serve as guidelines for the development of cognitive aids for structuring System Dynamics models. The paper closes with a brief discussion on operationalizing the concepts of cognition, creativity and social interaction as tests of the relative value of these criteria.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The general considerations for the development and customization of a generic system dynamics model for rural community development are presented. A preliminary version of a generic model is presented. Alternative customization strategies based on problem complexity as perceived by the community are discussed. The customization involves generating a network representation of the problem using a modified version of interpretive structural modeling and a pattern transfer procedure to enhance the generic model. The entire procedure is based on cognitive criteria to overcome human information processing limitations; to provide a rational and systematic approach to the simplification of problem complexity, and to promote a shared understanding of the problem situation among the participants.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- This paper attempts to explain the pervasive problems of poverty and hunger of the developing countries in terms of the internal tendencies of their socicio-technical organization. The analysis is based on a generic system dynamics model of an agrarian economy which determines income distribution and food adequacy endogeneously but treats government policy as exogenous. It is suggested that the policies such as agricultural development, financial and technical assistance for the poor, and population control, that directly address the symptoms of the problems of poverty and hunger, may be defeated in the long run since socio- technical arrangements of the system favor persistence of poverty and vulnerability to food shortage. These policies will, however, be successful if concomitant efforts are also made to reduce income inequality through fiscal measures and to build up a food slack in the system through obtaining food calories uneconomically from cereal production.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The past offers few guidelines for forecasting the future of a drug in a new therapeutic category, but a systems dynamics model that counts patients instead of prescriptions can help predict demand for the product.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- A revolutionary new piece of software called STELLA is introduced. STELLA-which stands for Structural Thinking, Experiential Learning Laboratory with Animation -- is a system dynamics "expert system," embodying expertise in the areas of computational and structural logic, conceptualization, equation formulation and model analysis. STELLA is designed to facilitate efforts to bring the system dynamics framework to a much broader audience. The software enables even those lacking computer experience or a quantitative orientation to conceptualize, construct and analyze high-quality system dynamics models, while accelerating the development of an intuition for dynamics. Several STELLA-based products targeted at audiences in both formal education and business are described.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- This paper describes a model of a prototypical developing nation. The purpose of the model is to understand why violence and violent repression are so pervasive in the development process. Further it is intended to show how violence affects and is affected by other aspects of development. The model, which is programmed in micro dynamo, has three sectors, POPULATION, ECONOMY, AND GOVERNMENT. Preliminary results show that fluctuations in economic growth can lead to outbreaks of violence and deteriorating economic performance.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- One constraint on the growth of System Dynamics as a methodology can be removed by enabling non-professional users to make use of System Dynamics models with reduced professional involvement. Such use requires that models be disseminated in packaged form, that is, with supplementary software that gives English-language access to the model, guides the user in its intelligent use, and performs automatic analysis of simulation results. A new generation of the DYNAMO simulation language contains tools that assist the model builder in the packaging process. Experience has shown that while the benefits of packaging are considerable, it is easy to underestimate the effort involved.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- In The Nerves of Government (1963), Karl W. Deutsch postulated the crucial problems of "steering" and of the "creative intelligence function" - the ability to invent and carry out fundamentally new policies to meet new conditions, the ability to combine items of information into new patterns so as to find and recognize relevant new solutions - that increasingly confront government institutions and that constitute an essential aspect of the decision- and policy-making processes on which the political system may depend. This paper is an initial effort to conceive a System Dynamics (S/D) model of the U.S. Congressional system from this perspective, to promote further investigation of Deutsch's work in this area, and thus to effect appropriate change in Congressional institutional structure and function in this respect.