Article ID: | iaor20041901 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 54 |
Issue: | 7 |
Start Page Number: | 706 |
End Page Number: | 712 |
Publication Date: | Jul 2003 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Vennix Jac A.M., Mullekom Theo van, Pala |
Keywords: | systems, soft systems |
Contrary to the prevailing notion in hard OR, in soft system methodology (SSM), validity seems to play a minor role. The primary reason for this is that SSM models are of a different type, they are not would-be descriptions of real-world situations. Therefore, establishing their validity, that is representativeness with regard to reality, is useless. However, in this paper, we employ a broader meaning of validity (well-groundedness) and demonstrate that this surfaces a couple of neglected areas in the discussion of validity in SSM. These relate to (a) the notion of SSM as a learning system, (b) the idea to improve real-world problem situations, and (c) learning about the effectiveness of SSM itself.