J. Morecroft, Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics. A Feedback Systems Approach

摘要

Before reviewing the book, a few words on the cultural terrain that is in the background of Morecroft's work may help the reader to appropriately position this contribution. John Morecroft is a leading figure in the System Dynamic community. System Dynamic (SD) is a discipline that includes a repertoire of modelling principles and simulation techniques to analyse the behaviour of complex social systems. Originated by the work of John Forrester at MIT, SD is the science of feedback behaviour in social systems (Forrester 1968a, p. 400) and, more specifically, the study of information-feedback characteristics of industrial activity (Forrester 1961, p. 13). At the gist of the approach is the analysis of how the emerging behaviour of an organisation is produced by the organisation's structure, this latter described by a set of information feedback loops, flows of materials, people and financial resources, and delays in decision-making.