Abstract
Suppose we have defined a problem and identified the system associated with it: how to start investigating this system? Take it apart, examine all individual parts (replacing faulty ones) and reassemble to see if it works? This carries the danger of drowning in too much information, too many details, forgetting about the relationships between the constituent elements, and ignoring the interactions between the system and its environment. Or should we look at the system from the outside, occasionally opening a suspect subsystem for closer investigation? Starting from the whole has the risk of not gaining enough depth to really identify the source of trouble. Either way might end up in addressing symptoms instead of finding the root causes; reason why this chapter looks into more detail about how to deploy systems theories for resolving problems.
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Dekkers, R. (2015). System Approaches. In: Applied Systems Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10846-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10846-9_3
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