Soft Thinking and Intellectual Capital

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University of Glamorgan
MSc International Logistics and Transport Programme/Strategic Procurement Management
STRATEGY AS PRACTICE  
Soft Systems Thinking and Intellectual Capital
Assignment 1
*Student No:   *08193738
Assignment Date: 5 April 2009
*Submission Date:* 15 May 2009
Module Lecturer: Paul Davis
Word Count:* * *2,* 600  
Critically evaluate the role that Soft Systems thinking can play in promoting organisations Intellectual Capital.
To evaluate the benefits of Soft Systems Thinking (SST) in promoting an organisational intellectual capital it is necessary to understand the concept of Soft Systems Methodology and how this methodology can be used to foster teamwork, communities of practice and social learning, and whether these learning outcomes adds knowledge to employees, and leads to improved professional practice and efficacy. So what price do you put on learning – and as an intangible asset does it need to be measured to promote Intellectual Capital (IC) to support the “effective delivery of strategic goals by focusing management activities and processes”. Andriessen (2004).
Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) advocated by Checkland and Scholes (1990) is a methodology based on applying systems thinking to non system situations. It is a holistic way of dealing not with the problem but the “situation” in where there are “social, political and human activities” Checkland and Scholes (1990). As opposed to “hard system methodologies, which can be quantified, measured and are technology orientated.
Soft Systems takes a group of “actors” through a process of a shared “problem” appreciation. Learning about the problem, then formulating a root definition of interrelated systems, these examine the relationships of the relevant subsystem: which are the stakeholders, such as customers, employees, the worldview (weltanschauungen) and the management who are “all active in the system and take collective action to improve... [continues]

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