Soft Systems Methodology: A Context Within a 50-Year Retrospective of OR/MS

Authors:
Arnold Reisman;Muhittin Oral
Affiliations:
Reisman and Associates, 18428 Parkland Drive, Shaker Heights, Ohio;Graduate School of Management, Sabanci University, Orhanli, Tuzla 81474 Istanbul, Turkey
Venue:
Interfaces
Year:
2005

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Abstract

Soft systems methodology (SSM) has been used in the practice of operations research and management science (OR/MS) since the early 1970s. In the 1990s, it emerged as a viable academic discipline. Unfortunately, its proponents consider SSM and traditional systems thinking to be mutually exclusive. Despite the differences claimed by SSM proponents between the two, they have been complementary. An extensive sampling of the OR/MS literature over its entire lifetime demonstrates the richness with which the non-SSM literature has been addressing the very same issues as does SSM.