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General systems theory - the skeleton of scienceE:CO Special Double Issue Vol. 6 Nos. 1-2 2004 pp. 127-139

General systems theory:The skeleton of scienceKenneth E. Boulding

Reprinted by permission. Copyright 2004 INFORMS. Boulding, K. E. (1956). General systems theory - the skel-eton of science, Management Science, 2: 197-208. The Institute of Management Sciences, now the Institute forOperations Research and the Management Sciences, 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Mar yland21090, USA.

The second of this issues two classical paperswas written by Kenneth E. Boulding back in1956 and published in one of the earliest issues

of Management Sciencewhich is currently celebrating to the team at Management Science.

Boulding is a peer of a number of great systems

West Churchman, Alfred Emerson, Anatol Rapoport,and many more - it is likely that selected writings fromthese thinkers will appear in future issues of E:CO.

For those readers not familiar with the general arguably emerged) Boulding starts his paper with a

brief description:

General Systems Theory is a name which has comeinto use to describe a level of theoretical model-buildingwhich lies somewhere between the highly generalizedconstructions of pure mathematics and the specifictheories of the specialized disciplines.

-how be reduced to a neat little theoretical package much or as Boulding puts it a general theory of practically world of theory and the fuzzy world of practice. Bould-ing rightly points out that any claims to any sort of would be almost without content, for we always pay

Classical

Bouldings General systems theoryis a sort of today. A major role for any GST was to facilitate com-

also emerging, containing concepts such as emergence,self-organization, chaos, bifurcation, exaptation, etc. -con), which also aims to facilitate cross-disciplinarydialogue (though I personally doubt whether such an and all of them should be allowed, initially at least).

-ment (although to many writers the t wo seem almostsynonymous), but there is a lot to be learnt from the

systems thinkers share a lot of the aims and ambitions need for cross-disciplinary communication and the de- world. In this paper Boulding not only describes theneed and role of a general systems f ramework but alsooffers a skeleton of what that framework might looklike. Some readers may be surprised as to how freshthis paper still is.

Kurt Richardson

Management Sci-ence, Management Science, 50(1): 1-7.

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