Systems Thinking and Viable Systems

Economics and managerial scholars are largely aware of how difficult it is to define their field of study. This delimitation is not easy not only with regard to the definition of the specific research objective, relating to what business economics studies; but also, and above all, with regard to the method of investigation used, which refers to the way in which the business economy conducts its studies. While the process of identification of the field of study is almost always formalized and consequently, not very transferable from one research field to another, it seems clear that the method advances consolidated in the exact sciences can be profitably recovered in the less formalized sciences. Medical studies, for example, have borrowed the positivist approach that has established itself and evolved as a method of knowledge in the field of natural re-search, electing it as its own method. Based on this approach, with fluctuating levels of success but certainly with a continuous and indisputable advance in knowledge, they have accumulated scientific results which, through independent developments, have resulted in an ontological “knowledge” of the anatomy and physiology of the human being. It is hoped that the reader will find useful the conceptualizations, certainly not exhaustive, described in what follows, which introduce the research methodology for knowledge that science has developed over time. The intent is to outline a historical path that can provide useful elements to present, in sufficiently complete terms, the concept of paradigm, thus making it possible to understand the theoretical proposal presented here, which is part of a specific paradigm, the systems paradigm, and is related to a stimulating way of representing the being and behavior of business organizations: the Viable Systems Approach (VSA).