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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper describes a way of using systems thinking concepts and a system dynamic model to help clients design strategic approach. The client, a large information services corporation, knows the market it is serving now and the market it wants to serve in the future. It also knows the core competencies necessary to meet the benefits needed in each market. A can-do attitude and limited time for reflection limit the client's ability to design the policies necessary to achieve this strategic transition. Systems thinking concepts help the client understand the urgency of the situation and the difficulties faced in achieving a strategic transition. The model is designed around the client’s perception of the corporation's present and desired market, and around Gary Hamel's strategy concepts. It is not designed to answer a specific question, but rather to allow the client to address strategic issues. The model incorporates every implied casual link that the developer could collect from diverse constituencies within the company to increase the chances that users will find topics from which to build a discussion. Reports are made to look like corporate reports to ground the model in the client’s mind. The model runs on MicroWorlds. It is used like other existing management flight simulators.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- Research regarding the examination and evaluation of work climate in understanding organizational functioning has enabled us to formulate strategies that not only improve the behavioral aspects in institutional functioning, but also result in more effective organizational performance. While sufficient studies exist on examination of work climate for industrial, service and allied sectors, relatively few researchers have considered government-funded Research and Development (R&D) institutions as their unit of study. Further, most of the studies reported have been conducted for scientists working in R&D units in developed countries. System Dynamics methodology as applicable to studying organizational behavior have found limited acknowledgement in literature. Moreover, most of these studies are based upon theoretical understanding of the subject with little empirical support. The present study is an offshoot of a serious of studies which were undertaken in the National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies on different aspects of R&D Management with primary emphasis on organizational behavior. An attempt is made here to model the work climate of an R&D laboratory using the System Dynamics methodology with support from the studies carried out earlier as mentioned above. The motivational conditions prevailing in an R&D laboratory was studied in order to understand the factors and forces which are necessary to provide a climate which will motivate the scientists. Likewise, factors and forces that contribute significantly to the overall satisfaction with the work group were also studied. The question whether operating within an environment as is prevailing with the R&D laboratory stimulating or a debilitating effect on the work enthusiasm of the scientists were addressed to them. The aspect of R&D effectiveness of the research group was also probed into and the factors and forces contributing to the same identified. A detailed flow diagram was then developed relating to above factors to the project flow dynamics. Trail runs of the model using the DYMOSIM package have been carried out and project-related data collection are currently in progress to evaluate the constants and multiplier factors and for validation of the model structure.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- The increasing rate of change to which organizations are exposed, along with the growing complexity of projects and of the environment, has highlighted some weaknesses of traditional approaches in coping with the strategic issues of project management. System Dynamics models provide a useful tool for a more systematic management of these strategic issues. There have been a number of applications of System Dynamics in project management; this experience permits a tentative comparison with the more traditional approaches and to examine the particular benefits of system dynamics. The conflicts of options between their supporters stress the different perspective underlying the two approaches. The comparison of the two approaches is focused on the "view" of the project management process. Although they both assume a system perspective, identifying a cycle of planning, implementation and control, the level of detail in which they consider the project system is different. Traditional models support the project manager in the operational problems within the process, while System Dynamics models provide more strategic insights and understanding about the effectiveness of different managerial policies. For effective project management both operational and strategic issues have to be handled properly. This paper suggests an approach to combining the lessons of system dynamics and traditional models within a single, integrated project management methodology.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper addresses the dynamics of energy development projects. Nationalization has repeatedly squandered the economic, physical and mental resources of large joint-ventures between multinational oil companies, and developing countries. A deteriorating relationship between multinational oil (MNOC) management and regional hosts consistently leads to nationalization. This cultural gulf between corporation and regional host, while existent in many regions is most significant in high conflict areas, which is why petroleum managers, with most of their experience in low conflict areas, have mostly ignored and cultural gulf. To form strong relationships that bridge the cultural gulf requires cultural sensitivity. Neighbor conflict studies show this problem to be most prevalent in developing countries, but also existent in emerging areas such as offshore California, Florida and Alaska. The proposed microworld trains first world petroleum managers, through cause-effect analysis, that while cultural-sensitivity to the developing country's need increases marginal costs, it's lower the probability of nationalization, generating positive project economics and raising expected payouts from extended project life.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- Ongoing research at the Rockefeller College is exploring the ability of subjects in a computer-based management laboratory to manage the implementation of welfare reform. Reflection on the design of such research have pushed us to develop a firmer theoretical foundation to guide our research on distinguishable submodels focused on ends (goals), means (strategies, tactics, policy levers) and connection between them (the means/ends model). These distinctions, coupled with a view of human judgment from Brunswikean psychology, lead to a rich integrated theory of perception, planning, actions, and learning in complex dynamic feedback systems. From that theory we derive classes of testable research hypotheses about decisions making in dynamic environment in particular, design logic and operator logic hypotheses that have serious implications for system dynamics research and practice. The operator logic hypothesis suggests that system intervention focused on understanding detailed system structure will have little impact if they are not captured in easy-to-digest chunks of strategic insights that managers can integrate into relatively simple means-ends associations. Compounding the difficulties of mental research is the likelihood that individuals’ mental models can not be directly elicited without distortion.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper examines some of the experience of using business simulations, for management teaching, in an academic environment. It is particularly concerned with simulations which promote groups and collaborative working, and which encourage students to review their interaction within the group. Using this experience, and examining the nature of managers’ work in business, it discusses the extension of these principles to in-service management training. In the business context, the emphasis on group work translates to an emphasis on enabling managers to recognize and use their individual skills, and personalities, to the best effect. Management training, especially in the UK, has long been regarded as a luxury, only to be indulged in where money and time are plentiful. To encourage the use of simulations in business, some ideas for evaluation of their effectiveness in training are also discussed.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper describes a simple model of a manufacturing firm in which a successful productivity improvement program is implemented. This model is an attempt to generalize an earlier theory developed to explain one company's paradoxical experience with Total Quality Management (Kofman, Repenning and Sterman, 1994). The model describes a dynamic hypothesis concerning the firm's financial performance. In this model the Half-life Equation suggested by Schneiderman (Schneiderman 1988) is used to determine the maximum rate of improvement. The spread of skills and commitment is modeled as a diffusion process, and the allocation of resources to support that commitment is represented as a dynamic adjustment process with a multi-dimensional utility function and fixed resources constraint. This formulation, with the assumption of locally rational decision rules, results in differential rates of improvement in the capacity and demand generating areas of the firm. This differential, when coupled with traditional accounting, pricing, and human resource policies, can create unanticipated side effects that result in sub-standard performance or failure of the program.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- Delay function is one of the most important functions in dynamo Language in system dynamics. This article discusses intersection characteristic of output curves in the case of delayi (i=1,2,3,…), and proves that in step-input, output curves in the case of delayi (i=1,2,3,…) doesn't intersect at the common inflection point and that when DEL1=DEL2/2=DEL3/3, the output curves in the case of delayi (i=1,2,3,…) doesn't intersect with each other except common initial point. Above-mentioned result is very important in the application of delay function.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- In this paper we describe the process of building a conceptual model of a guided missile base of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, a complex organization in the middle of transformation. Based on this conceptual model, we developed a policy exercise that is used by the Air Force to explore their future organization, focusing especially on the communication structure. We will describe the steps made in developing the model and explain the choices that lead to some methodological innovations in communicating complexity through a conceptual model. We will also describe this model, which consist of 28 actors and actor groups, and between them more than 350 relationships of nine different types, including five specified types of communication. Furthermore we will look shortly into the possibilities of transforming our qualitative model of actors and relations between actors into a system dynamic model, thus broadening the scope of system dynamics by giving an input from the system analytical approach we use in developing policy exercises.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- A number of writers have argues that Soft Systems Methodology embodies a distinctly "subjective" philosophical approach and (or) yield a system methodology based on a "subjectivist" epistemology, and as such it is distinct from "objective" methodologies. It has also been argued that Soft System Methodology avoids, or attempts to avoid, the "reductionism" inherent in traditional approaches to study of natural phenomenon. In this paper it is argued that such argument contain a number of conceptual and historical confusions, and that whilst the advocates of the developed form of Soft Systems Methodology in fact subscribes to a subjective mode of enquiry, such a mode has its history firmly grounded in the natural sciences. It is also argued that the Soft System Methodology advocates (in fact) subscribe to the thesis of epistemological reductionism, and this thesis will be contrasted with that of epistemological holism.