Management science methodologies in environmental management and sustainability: discourses and applications

A Paucar-Caceres () and A Espinosa
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A Paucar-Caceres: Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
A Espinosa: Hull University Business School, The University of Hull

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2011, vol. 62, issue 9, 1601-1620

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates and discusses the use of systemic methodologies (SMs) developed in management science/operational research (MS/OR), in particular, those SM that have been informing the complexity inherent in environmental management and sustainable (EM/S) practices. By surveying a sample of the top MS/OR and systems journals, we assess the extent to which systemic management science methodologies developed recently have been used in tackling EM/S problems. Titles and abstracts of EM/S applications published in MS/OR and systems journals between 1989 and 2009 were queried for the occurrence of typical keywords associated with a set of SMs (eg, complexity theory, systems dynamics, soft systems, critical systems, viable systems model). The survey identifies a set of articles representing the practice of either a particular methodology or of a mixture of various SMs in EM/S setting. By assembling and critically reviewing a sample of applications in EM/S the paper hopes to raise awareness among environmentalists, operational researchers and management scientists of the benefits of using systemic approaches developed in MS/OR and, in this way, to encourage further exchange and conversation between these fields of management.

Keywords: management sciences; critical systems; soft systems; viable systems model; complexity theory; sustainability; environmental management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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DOI: 10.1057/jors.2010.110

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