Russell L. Ackoff's research while affiliated with University of Pennsylvania and other places
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Publications (56)
Purpose
One does not learn from doing something right; one already knows how to do it. By doing something right one gets confirmation of what one already knows but no new knowledge. The fact that schools are more interested in teaching than in learning is apparent from their failure to determine if students learn from their mistakes. This is a crit...
Leadership is an art and, as such, requires talent. Talent can be enhanced but not taught. Leaders must be able to formulate inspiring visions and strategies for approaching them. Idealized design can be used for this purpose. In addition, leaders must understand the nature of social systems and what this implies, and the nature of the transformati...
I frequently talk to groups of managers on the nature of systems thinking and its radical implications to management. In doing so I use several case studies involving prominent American corporations. At the end of the presentation I am almost always asked, "If this way of thinking is as good as you say it is, why don't more organizations use it?" I...
A study of terrorism was carried out. A major factor in the success of terrorism lies in the fear and social paralysis it induces. Terrorism can be reduce by promoting development in societies that breed terrorists. A developed country can tolerate and incorporate introverted and non-violent extroverted fundamentalists but not terrorists, indigeneo...
Most contemporary social systems are failing. The educational system deteriorates as functional illiteracy increases. Head Start is said to be a failure. So-called healthcare institutions fail to provide needed care to more than 40 million people. In fact, there is considerable evidence that the alleged health care system itself produces and mainta...
The authors argue that consultants are of two types: self-promoting gurus and educators. Gurus that pontificate and promote their proprietary problem solving techniques do not educate their clients. They promote maxims that define rules of behavior but do not increase the competence of managers. They promote their proprietary solution as a fix for...
Every system has one or more functions in one or more larger systems of which it is a part. For example, an automobile is part of a transportation system and its function is to carry people from one place to another. When Newton asserted that the universe, which contains everything, was a mechanical system,he as faced with an apparent paradox: How...
Fundamentalism is a response to an environment that is undergoing an accelerating rate of change and rapidly increasing complexity. These two conditions combine to produce what is generally referred to as a "turbulent" or "chaotic" environment. Such an environment is characterized by discontinuities and uncertainty, hence unpredictability. It is on...
The most frequent approach to improving white collar productivity is the meat axe—indiscriminate across-the-board staff cuts
that can seriously weaken a division or department. Instead of going through a series of downsizings that yield no lasting
cost reductions, companies need to manage internal operations and keep them under control. In turn, su...
The psychological types of C.G. Jung—introversion and extroversion—are expanded and with appropriate hypotheses are used to explain the quality of the interactions between members of pairs, trios, and larger ‘small’ groups. The application of these concepts and hypotheses to cultures is also explored.
Distinctions are drawn between deterministic (e.g., mechanistic), animate (e.g., organismic), social, and ecological systems and models. Historical examples of applying models of one type to systems of another type are provided and the current consequences of such mismatches affecting social systems are discussed.
Three types of system are identified and differentiated: mechanical, organismic, and social systems. The evolution of our concept of an enterprise from mechanical to social is then traced, as enterprises are viewed from each of these perspectives. Some consequences of conceptualizing them as social systems are then discussed, including the conseque...
It is argued in this paper that the lessons that can be drawn from the failure of the Soviet Union have not yet been learned by American corporations. Most organizations, institutions, and government agencies in the United States still operate with centrally planned and controlled economies. The problems arising in such economies are described. An...
The systems view of the world includes a system of concepts, a body of theory, a theory of practice and methodologies of research on, planning for and design of systems. The making of systems scientists involves their learning all these things. But the educational media used in systems education are mechanistically conceived however systemic the me...
To think about anything requires an image or concept of it, a model. To think about a thing as complex as a social system most people use a model of something similar, simpler and more familiar. Traditionally, two types of models have been used in efforts to acquire information, knowledge and understanding of social systems: mechanistic and organis...
Rationality is a judgement made by one or more persons of one or more others (subjects). It involves the relationship between the researcher's and the subject's models of the reality faced by the subject(s). For this reason, the attribution of irrationality by one to another is often a consequence of mismatching models. Therefore, it is suggested t...
The author describes an approach to planning that differs from conventional concepts. This approach, called interactive, or proactive planning, deals with interdependent problems and pursues goals, objectives, and ideals. Emphasizing that ideals play the key role in interactive planning, Ackoff contrasts this approach with prevailing planning conce...
Maintains that alcoholism is a behavior that individuals learn and use as a means of coping with stresses arising from interactions with their environments. It is hypothesized that immediate effects of alcohol consumption are adaptive, functional, and rewarding for the individual. 65 alcoholics and 69 controls completed a questionnaire on stress an...
The design-oriented planner has a major responsibility for providing inputs to the planning process, in organizing and guiding it, in educating those involved in it, in specifying the nature of the output that is required, in providing criteria by which the output can be evaluated, and in facilitating such evaluation. The design-oriented planner mu...
It is argued that the principal obstructions to national development of less-than-well-developed countries are cultural, not economic or technological. Furthermore, such countries tend to mistake activity for change, and self-imposed constraints for ones that are externally imposed. The author proposes concepts of development and planning that are...
It is argued that the preoccupation of Operational Researchers and Management Scientists with optimization and objectivity leads to their withdrawing from reality — to their “opting out”, First, a typical project is reviewed to reveal the points at which the researchers clung to optimality but lost their grip on reality. Secondly, it is argued that...
It is argued that quality of life is primarily a matter of aesthetics and that aesthetics has been ignored in the process we call "development". It is further argued that the aesthetic function has two complementary aspects: the creative and the recreative. The creative subfunction is to provide inspiration, the desire for and commitment to pursuit...
Two requirements of professionalism are discussed: consideration of the interests of those not participating in but affected by decision-making in which the professional takes part, and assistance to those who need but cannot afford it. The implications of these requirements to operational research are considered and some illustrations of their ful...
In this paper the author brings together a number of ideas which are presented more fully in his forthcoming book—Redesigning the Future (John Wiley and Sons, New York): This synthesis amounts to a digest of Part 1 of that book. The article is organized into 5 parts: The Systems Revolution; The Self-Control Problem; The Humanization Problem; The En...
In the past fifteen years numerous information systems have been developed to support decisions in different organizations. A variety of researchers have explored topics in the field, though most of the existing literature on information systems is concerned ...
I believe we are leaving one cultural and technological age and entering another; that we are in the early stages of a change in our conception of the world, a change in our way of thinking about it, and a change in the technology with which we try to make it serve our purposes. These changes, I believe, are as fundamental and pervasive as were tho...
The memorandum to you of April 20, 1972, from Peter V. Norden and Sidney W. Hess on “Change of Slate for TIMS 1972 Election” stated, “Russell L. Ackoff, nominated as a candidate for the Office of President Elect of TIMS for the 1972–73 term … has withdrawn his candidacy for personal reasons.” This is not true. But I can understand the reasons for e...
The emergence of Systems Science does not constitute a rejection of traditional scientific and humanistic disciplines. It supplements them with a new way of thinking that is better suited than they to deal with large-scale societal problems. It offers us some hope of dealing successfully with such problems as poverty, racial and other types of disc...
The concepts and terms commonly used to talk about systems have not themselves been organized into a system. An attempt to do so is made here. System and the most important types of system are defined so that differences and similarities are made explicit. Particular attention is given to that type of system of most interest to management scientist...
An essay about frontiers of management science presented in the form of an interview with Russell L. Ackoff.
The worst thing that can happen to operations research is that our conception of what it ought to be becomes equivalent to our conception of what it is. In a changing world, even equilibrium must be dynamic.
The brevity of this statement hardly permits a position to be presented fully let alone defended adequately. Hence what follows are a set of assertions whose baldness gives them a dogmatic tone that they are not intended to have. Enough of apologies. There is no more space to spare. This discussion is divided into what I consider to be the four ess...
In this article, Professor Ackoff develops a new concept of planning, Adaptive Planning—in a systematic way and attempts to exploit the management and behavioural sciences to the fullest. He discusses the nature of planning, the parts of the planning system, and the different philosophies of planning—which he calls satisficing, optimizing, and adap...
An analysis is made of the means by which an underdeveloped country can accelerate its development. Some of the problems associated with the effective use of these means are identified and discussed. Two suggestions are made as to how these countries can be assisted by universities in developed countries and by IFORS.
Five assumptions commonly made by designers of management information systems are identified. It is argued that these are not justified in many (if not most) cases and hence lead to major deficiencies in the resulting systems. These assumptions are: (1) the critical deficiency under which most managers operate is the lack of relevant information, (...
Citations
... Moreover, many Arab managers are unwilling to become leaders to employees; instead of using power and authority, leaders use guidance, support and encouragement. Leaders who rely on supportive techniques instead of authority and power will motivate employees to achieve organizational goals and deal with uncertainties in the most effective manner (Ackoff and Pourdehnad, 2009). This managerial culture in Jordan could be attributed to the fact that most Jordanian organizations are family-owned. ...
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... Researchers have used a broad classification of task types, specifying simple tasks and complex tasks (Ackoff, 1972;Rittel & Webber, 1973). A simple (routine) task has clear objectives which can easily be mapped to solutions. ...
... Depending on the goal, other ways to classify systems exist (Ackoff & Gharajedaghi, 1996). Here, we note two distinctions among systems. ...
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/273766538280960-1442282437346_Q64/Jamshid-Gharajedaghi.jpg)
... Discipline education planning in Islamic boarding schools is a projection of what is required to achieve valid and valuable goals. Planning is a systematic process in making decisions about actions to be taken in the future (Ackoff, 1970;Cook, et al, 2014). It is called systematic because it is carried out in accordance with principles such as decision-making processes, scientific application of knowledge and techniques, and organized actions or activities. ...
... Ostrom et al. [20] (p. 15176) say "panacea proneness is a diluted form of fundamentalism rather than a method of serious diagnosis" [50]. Fixes are simplistic solutions to complex problems, and they invariably fail: "The track record of the use of panaceas is one of repeated failures" [20] (p. ...
... System 3 emphasizes that problems can be resolved, solved or dissolved. In system 3, to resolve a problem is to select a course of action that yields an outcome that is good enough, to solve a problem is to select a course of action that is believed to yield the best possible outcome, and to dissolve a problem is to change the nature, or the environment of the entity in which it is imbedded in order to remove the problem (Ackoff, 1993). The conceptual model in figure 1 showed the two traditional models in organizational design which reflects system 1 and system 4 in organizational design. ...
... Many structural and process mechanisms have been suggested to correct for these problems. Examples include more active discussion of performance strategies (Hackman, 1983), brainstorming (Osborn, 1957), scenario construction (Ackoff, 1971), and the use of the nominal group technique and the Delphi method (Delbecg, Van de Ven, & Gustafson, 1975). All these methods are aimed at getting the best decision. ...
... Soft A/R describes an approach to inquiry that is based on the Lancaster notion of 'Systems'. Soft systems is underpinned by the phenomenology of Husserl and the Sociology of Schutz that were combined with the experience of theorists and practitioners such as Vickers 1983, West 1971and Ackoff 1977. These ideas produced a whole new way of thinking about systems and of 'organisational' inquiry in particular (see Checkland 1999). ...
Reference: ‘Virtual’ Action Research: Two examples
... Further, Kreng and Huang (2011) found that CSR builds the overall assessment of the corporations. Researchers have shown that CSR has positive value creation potential and a positive impact on corporations (e.g., Denworth, 1989;Lai Chiu, Yang, & Pai, 2010;Fombrun and Shanley, 1990;Roberts and Dowling, 2002). In addition, several empirical studies have confirmed that CSR can positively influence branding (Lai, Chiu, Yang, & Pai, 2010). ...
... El pensamiento sistémico es un marco conceptual que busca generar entendimiento en un sistema [14] en la que se genera una comprensión de la manera como unas partes se relacionan entre sí y que consolidan un todo [15]. Este entendimiento se da a nivel operativo, que como ya se ha dicho, lleva a entender cómo efectivamente opera o funciona ese sistema para comprender los efectos que producen en sí mismo o en las partes que lo conforman [8], [15]. ...
