Managing sustainability using system dynamics: Selected papers from the Tenth European System Dynamics Workshop, at the University of Stuttgart, Germany
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The contents of this special issue have three things in common.First, all draw their methodology from the field of System Dynamics modelling, or SD (Forrester, 1958(Forrester, , 1961(Forrester, , 1968)).Second, early versions of the ideas published here were first presented at a workshop that took place in Stuttgart in June 2023.Third and last, they all relate to the topic "Managing Sustainability."Each of these commonalities merits brief comment: the first is addressed directly below, while the remaining pair is discussed in subsequent sections.Today, not least in this journal, SD is accepted as a member of "Systems Science," one of the range of approaches that make up that broad and variegated field (Jackson, 2009(Jackson, , 2019)).This was not always the case as SD emerged with very little evident support from systems science, drawing primarily on ideas from servomechanism theory (Lane, 2007(Lane, , 2022)), although having a wide range of contemporary influences (Crossett, 2007) and being part of the "techno-optimism" prevalent at that time (Malczynski & Lane, 2023).That said, detailed analysis shows how the ideas of SD fit comfortably with other approaches that take an interest in feedback, a core systems notion (Richardson, 1991), while the increase in articles in this journal-whether published in previous special issues or as individually submitted research articles-are evidence of the creation of richer connections that exist today (Jackson, 2021).Previous Guest Editorials have made much of the presence of SD papers on the pages of this journal; happily, this is no longer called for, and we can quickly pass on to more notable matters.
DOI: 10.1002/sres.3095
Authors: David C. Lane, Andreas Größler, Meike Tilebein
Institution: University of Stuttgart
Language: English
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4403838422