What Is a System? What Is a Mess?

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan and Ellen S. O’Connor
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Ian I. Mitroff: University of Southern California
Can M. Alpaslan: California State University

Chapter 3 in Everybody’s Business: Reclaiming True Management Skills in Business Higher Education, 2014, pp 19-33 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The idea and nature of “systems” and “messes” are central to the concept of Schools of Management. For this reason alone, we concentrate on the theory of systems and systems thinking. We argue that management is a system, not a conglomeration or loose confederation of separate disciplines. Thus, merely improving the parts (such as curriculum, faculty, disciplines, etc.) of a system will not improve the status of the whole (such as management, or even business). We also argue that every important management problem is in fact part of a “mess” that is, a system of problems, and the Management Mess includes all the messes that besiege modern, complex societies.

Keywords: Business School; Crisis Management; Wicked Problem; Separate Discipline; Purposeful Motion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-41205-8_3

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137412058_3

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