PROCESS-BASED SYSTEMS THINKING - CHALLENGING THE BOUNDARIES OF STRUCTURE

The call for theories, models, and frameworks which promote a general theory of systems and the application of these theories in practical f ields remains an ongoing appeal. We suggest that a process-based syste ms perspective might encourage some new responses to this call, and we outline some important process-based systems principles. These princi ples are that life is essentially of a process nature, that nature is approximate rather than definite, that organization in nature is dynam ic, that systems function according to principles of autonomy and inte gration, that creation is a process of emergence and that teleos is a character of living systems. We suggest that these general principles for process-based systems practice can be used to explore the developm ent and application of systems approaches beyond traditional structure -based systems thinking.