Linking System Dynamics with Network Analysis

[Graham Durant-Law]

During the course of my PhD I became interested in system dynamics and eventually built, or helped build, several models – you can find a paper on one model here , and slides 13 to 19 show the PhD model . I think system dynamics has applications in both knowledge management and network analysis, and I plan to discuss this in some coming posts. In the meantime here’s a primer.

The system dynamics approach was developed by Professor Jay Forrester in the mid-1950s and first described at length in his book Industrial Dynamics (Forrester 1961). According to Sterman (2000), who replaced Forrester at the Sloan School of Management in 1989:

'System Dynamics is fundamentally interdisciplinary. Because we are concerned with the behaviour of complex systems, system dynamics is grounded in the theory of nonlinear dynamics and feedback control developed in mathematics, physics, and engineering. Because we apply these tools to the behaviour of human as well as physical and technical systems, system dynamics draws on cognitive and social psychology, economics, and other social sciences. Because we build system dynamics models to solve important real world problems, we must learn how to work effectively with groups of busy policy makers and how to catalyse sustained change in organizations’ (pp. 4-5).

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