Systems Theory

HR 485: Strategic Human Resource Management

Unit 5 Project

Amanda Card

March 2, 2012

I will describe systems theory and the advent of systems thinking, provide a description of historical events or factors that have influenced systems thinking, discuss how these historical factors have influenced society, human resources, and me as an individual, and explain advantages and disadvantages that systems thinking have demonstrated in the workplace.

Systems theory has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in being able to understand how an organization works. This field studies systems from the perspective of the whole system, its various parts, and patterns that continually occur in the relationships between all the parts of a system. Systems theory influences how we understand and change organizations.

The idea of systems thinking was founded by an MIT professor named Jay Forrester in 1956. “Systems thinking allows people to make their understanding of social systems explicit and improve them in the same way we can use engineering principles and improve our understanding of mechanical systems” (Aronson, 1996, p. 1). How something that is being studied interacts with other parts of a system is the focus of system thinking (Aronson, 1996). Systems thinking puts an emphasis on looking at something as whole, not just the parts, and stresses the importance in the role of relationships within the whole.

Historical events and/or factors that have influenced systems thinking include, but are not limited to, the Phoenicians with their cuneiforms, the Egyptians with their pyramids, Greek philosophers, and the Maya Indians. The Mayan calendar is an example of an evolutionary system that is based on mathematics.

Society interrelates with almost all areas of human life. Society can be described as a complex system where problems are vaguely defined and other parts of this system are uncertain. Decision-making can be stressful and difficult, while solutions are...