Report R2.10 Management Research: Logics and Languages Seminar Leader: D. P. Dash, XIMB dpdash[at]ximb.ac.in This seminar dealt with the following issues: * A model for the organised use of rational thought * Co-existence of multiple frameworks * Hard systems and soft systems methodologies * Goal seeking v/s relationship maintaining * Accommodation v/s problem solving * Methodological issues concerning SSM Management and allied fields such as policy studies are sometimes described as fields that facilitate "rational intervention in human affairs." Peter B. Checkland opines that in such fields, the twin concepts of theory and practice are more closely tied to each other than in other fields. He proposes a way to make a distinction between theories on the one hand and methodology used to apply these in a particular area of application on the other. According to this model, the methodology employed in a study springs from an intellectual framework (F) or a basic set of ideas. This methodology (M) helps in purposeful and organised application of these ideas to a particular area (A). All these elements are intimately linked in such a way that the methodology not only influences and changes the area of application, but also the intellectual framework and the methodology itself. Checkland calls this F-M-A process the organised use of rational thought. There can be multiple frameworks in any given context. This multiplicity does not imply that frameworks are totally different or mutually exclusive. They may have sizable common components and their apparent difference may only be superficial. Thus we cannot assert with certainty that only one of them is true or useful. More than one framework can be applied to the same situation at the same time. Research can aim to identify processes that lead to the simultaneous development of these frameworks. Thus frameworks help in defining a methodology for intervention in the domain to improve something. Some frameworks seem to be favored by nature. Herbert Simon calls them natural frameworks. On the other hand, artificial frameworks evolve purely as social products without any apparent natural preference. The quality of our actions improves when we are able to accommodate both of these. The tradition of systems thinking that Checkland categorises as "hard systems thinking" regards human systems as goal-seeking systems that seek to optimise performance with respect to goals imposed from outside. However, such an approach is possible only at the level of very simplified abstraction of real world complexities. Though they are neither complete nor perfect, they are sometimes good enough for a limited purpose. Another problem with this approach is that goals are continually changing and thus any results based on the particular goal as its basis would not be very useful. Checkland proposes that the concept of "relationship-maintaining," originally proposed by Geoffery Vickers, is more fruitful than the concept of goals seeking. Relationship maintaining is achieved through the cyclic process of appreciation that constantly compares our standards and norms with perceptions, modifying the very standards and norms in the process. This approach is the cornerstone of the proposed Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). It seeks convergence through a cyclic process that employs learning and not optimising. Thus SSM does not recognise models "of" some phenomenon but a model that aids a discussion about this phenomenon. This process seeks accommodation rather than a solution. The relationship between hard and soft systems methodologies is not one of mutual exclusion. The former is best viewed as a particular case of the latter. Many researchers observe that the cyclical process of refinement of framework, methodology, and area of application employed in SSM never really comes to an end. This makes it impossible to zero-in on a particular methodology for the study. Another observation points out that multiple frameworks are sometimes incommensurable, i.e., one cannot be evaluated from the standpoint of another. However, the type of convergence (or accumulation) possible under soft systems thinking may have to be understood from a standpoint very different from classical research methodology. Reference Checkland, P. B. (1985). From optimization to learning: A development of systems thinking for the 1990s. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 36(9), 757-767. Reprinted 1991, in R. L. Flood, & M. C. Jackson [Eds.], Critical systems thinking: Directed readings [chap. 3]. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
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