Assessing the Barriers to Implementing Systems Thinking in Organizations Using Interpretive Structural Modeling

Systems thinking is a useful approach to realizing and analyzing real-world phenomena. It helps us to study components of a system jointly rather than individually. In this regard, organizations need systems thinking to strengthen their holistic inclusiveness because it aids managers examine structures, patterns, and events about each other and not just observing events. Even though applications of systems thinking have been the center of scholars' attention, barriers, and factors that cause organizations to impair systems thinking have not appropriately been addressed and have been paid less attention. The passage of six decades of systems thinking as a theoretical-practical approach implies that it is appropriate that the field of growth and promotion of this effective thinking in the management of society and organization are given more attention by managers and decision-makers. Therefore, this study has been carried out to identify and analyze the barriers to systems thinking in Iranian organizations using the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique. This method is one of the system analysis methods and examines the interactions between system elements. In this study, after a comprehensive review of the research literature, 64 factors were extracted, combined as much as possible, and finally, the identified barriers were reduced to 7 categories. The results of the ISM model divided these 7 categories of factors (general barriers) into three levels of importance and effectiveness. Organizational, cultural, financial, educational, and personality factors were at the first level of influence. The mental factor took the second position, and the information factor took the third place. It can be mentioned that the managers should pay special attention to 5 factors in the first level as they are the most effective factors that concentration on them can lead to successful systems thinking in organizations.