A Materialist Analysis of Operational Research

Rosenhead, Jonathan; Thunhurst, Colin

doi:10.2307/2581295

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Sometimes this has been to outline distinctive approaches to OR, or raise questions about its practice; sometimes it has been to provide greater clarity on the philosophical underpinnings of different OR research paradigms, and/or to integrate them within various meta-level frameworks (Rosenhead and Thunhurst, 1982;Jackson, 1991;Mingers, 2001;Ormerod, 2008). Others have turned to the social sciences in order to tease out the theoretical underpinnings of particular methodologies.…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

The what, the why and the how of behavioural operational research—An invitation to potential sceptics

Brocklesby

2016

European Journal of Operational Research

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Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

The what, the why and the how of behavioural operational research—An invitation to potential sceptics

Brocklesby

2016

European Journal of Operational Research

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“…Other strongly argued critiques were to follow, by authors such as Dando and Bennett (1981) and Rosenhead and Thunhurst (1982), but none had a similar impact. Ackoff's critique caused strong reactions for two reasons.…”

Section: Mathematical Versus Contextual Sophisticationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Operational research and critical systems thinking—an integrated perspective

Ulrich

2012

Journal of the Operational Research Society

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What does good OR practice mean, and what can critical systems thinking (CST) do for it? This two-part essay proposes new answers to both questions. It reaches out to the wider community of OR professionals and explains from their perspective what CST is all about and why it matters for good practice. Part 1 first reviews the idea and history of systems thinking in OR, as a basis for properly situating CST within OR. It then offers a comparative, non-partisan account of the two strands of CST, critical systems heuristics and total systems intervention, and identifies their combined potential in an ability to enhance the contextual sophistication of OR. The prevalent but inaccurate notion of the history of OR as a linear evolution from 'hard' to 'soft' and 'critical' systems thinking is replaced by an integrated perspective of OR as applied systems thinking.

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“…Guba and Lincoln (1989) make the important statement that, ''To a greater or lesser extent, politics suffuses all social scientific research'' (p. 125) and it is important to convey this. Rather than presenting to students a false view of the research process as unpolitical and unproblematic, we should be drawing their attention to the political nature of OR/MS practice (Rosenhead and Thunhurst 1982;Rosenhead 1986, make a significant contribution to this).…”

Section: Conclusion: Approaching the Swampmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning, Politics and the OR/MS Guild

Gregory

2007

Syst Pract Act Res

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This paper is about how the medieval guild represents a metaphor that offers insights into the management science/operational research (OR/MS), including systems, academic practitioner community of practice. Within that community of practice different approaches to the process of OR/MS, forms of learning and politics/power can be distinguished that can be related to the different levels within the medieval guild.

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A Materialist Analysis of Operational Research

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

The what, the why and the how of behavioural operational research—An invitation to potential sceptics

The what, the why and the how of behavioural operational research—An invitation to potential sceptics

Operational research and critical systems thinking—an integrated perspective

Learning, Politics and the OR/MS Guild

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