Russell Ackoff Documents in the Library of Consciousness

Organizational Theorist and Professor of Management Science
February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009

Russell Lincoln Ackoff was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff was a pioneer in the field of operations research, systems thinking and management science.

WIKIPEDIA ➦

Date

November 1993

Format

Lecture

Word Count

11,260

Duration

01:12:33

Quotes

Views

5,019

From Mechanistic to Systemic Thinking

Ackoff states that humanity is in the early stage of a transition from the Machine Age to the Systems Age. The Machine Age was characterized by belief in complete understandability of the universe, analysis as a method of inquiry, and cause and effect as a sufficient relationship to explain all. The dilemma that disrupted such beliefs was systems thinking. The Machine Age began to die when humanity gave up the principle of understandability. Gradually, it’s become accepted that there can be no complete understanding of the universe because nothing can be understood independently of its environment—all is environmentally relative. While analysis produces knowledge, it is synthesis that produces understanding. Furthermore, the Systems Age recognizes that cause and effect is just one way of looking at reality among an infinite number.

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of Consciousness

Russell Ackoff

Organizational Theorist and Professor of Management Science
February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009

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Russell Ackoff

Organizational Theorist and Professor of Management Science February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009

1 Document

Filter

Sort

From Mechanistic to Systemic Thinking

Mentioned in 1 document

Organizational Theorist and Professor of Management Science
February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009