From Operations Research to Futures Studies: The Establishment, Diffusion, and Transformation of the Systems Approach in Sweden, 1945–1980
From Operations Research to Futures Studies: The Establishment, Diffusion, and Transformation of the Systems Approach in Sweden, 1945–1980
This chapter describes and examines the development of the systems approach in Sweden from 1945 to 1980. It uses the term “systems approach” to signify a specific intellectual tradition that started with operations research in the 1940s but later developed in a variety of ways into systems analysis, policy analysis, and futures studies. The chapter begins with operations research and the people and organizations in this particular field, moving on afterward to the activities that grew out of the field, which involved the same people and organizations. The boundaries of this tradition are somewhat arbitrary. First, there were activities similar to operations research long before World War II. Second, there were other activities in the postwar period that resembled the systems approach but did not involve operations researchers. A main focus in the chapter is the gradual transformation of the systems approach.
Keywords: systems approach, Sweden, intellectual tradition, operations research, systems analysis, policy analysis, futures studies, World War II, postwar period
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