Systems, Volume 8, Issue 1 (March 2020) – 9 articles

System dynamics implementations of financial statements are currently limited by the lack of a simple to use, yet sufficiently detailed model that operationally replicates the accounting reporting process for the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, and statement of changes in owners’ equity. While system dynamics accounting structures exist, they are inconsistently applied in the literature. In this paper, we offer a comprehensive accounting model in the hope that academics and practitioners will use its structures to better represent accounting reports in their projects. Full article

Automation and autonomous systems are quickly becoming a more engrained aspect of modern society. The need for effective, secure computer code in a timely manner has led to the creation of automated code repair techniques to resolve issues quickly. However, the research to date has largely ignored the human factors aspects of automated code repair. The current study explored trust perceptions, reuse intentions, and trust intentions in code repair with human generated patches versus automated code repair patches. In addition, comments in the headers were manipulated to determine the effect of the presence or absence of comments in the header of the code. Participants were 51 programmers with at least 3 years’ experience and knowledge of the C programming language. Results indicated only repair source (human vs. automated code repair) had a significant influence on trust perceptions and trust intentions. Specifically, participants consistently reported higher levels of perceived trustworthiness, intentions to reuse, and trust intentions for human referents compared to automated code repair. No significant effects were found for comments in the headers. Full article

Recent research on global fisheries has reconfirmed a 2006 study that suggested global fisheries would collapse by 2048 if fisheries were not better managed and trends reversed. While many researchers have endorsed rights-based fishery management as a key ingredient for successful management and rebuilding fisheries, in practice the results are mixed and success varies by geographic region. Rights-based approaches such as individual transferable quota (ITQ) provide a necessary help to the important task of rebuilding fisheries, but we assert that they are sometimes less effective due to the human component of the system. Specifically, we examine the issue of setting an appropriate total allowable catch (TAC) in Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) systems. ITQ are designed on the premise that economic ownership is sufficient incentive to entice fishers to be stewards of the resource. However, an excessive short-term orientation and an affective risk response by fishers can overwhelm feelings of ownership. In such cases, fishers and fishing communities can exert sufficient pressure on TAC setting and reduce the effectiveness of ITQ fisheries toward rebuilding fish stocks. Based on our analysis that draws on cognitive psychology, short-termism, and affective risk, we suggest heightened and wider democratic involvement by stakeholders in co-managed ITQ fisheries along with potential pilot tests of government-assisted financial transfers to help in transitioning ITQ fisheries to sustainable states. Full article

Systems thinking is an approach to reasoning and treatment of real-world problems based on the fundamental notion of ‘system.’ System here refers to a purposeful assembly of components. Thus, systems thinking is aimed at understanding relationships between components and their overall impact on system outcomes (i.e., intended and unintended) and how a system similarly fits in the broader context of its environment. There are currently several distinct flavors of systems thinking, both in practice and scholarship; most notably in the disciplines of systems science, systems engineering, and systems dynamics. Each of these, while similar in purpose, has a distinct history and a rich set of methods and tools for various application contexts. The WPI Systems Thinking Colloquium held on 2 October 2019 was aimed at exploring the diversity of perspectives on systems thinking from these disciplines. The colloquium brought together world-renowned experts from both industry and academia to share insights from their research and practice. This paper offers a compilation of summaries of the presentations given. Full article

This paper traverses the domains of leadership and decision-making within various types of systems with different levels of complexity. The article presents some background about both leadership and decision-making, and then explores the concept of leadership decision-making and some of the factors involved. The paper then reviews complex systems and provides examples to differentiate complex systems from other systems. Finally, these strands are brought together with a consideration of leadership decision-making in complex systems and presentation of a framework to assist managers faced with decision-making in complexity, based on data collected in a survey. The aim and practical contribution of this paper is to improve the outcomes of leadership decision-making within complex systems, based upon the findings and on a decision aid model derived from them. The paper, therefore, should help people in real life and leaders within organizational settings to improve their decision-making effectiveness within the ever-increasing range of complex situations which are now widely encountered. Full article

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development set the target of halving per capita global food waste and reducing food losses, including post-harvest losses. Food loss is a significant global challenge rising from the decrease in food quantities available for human consumption because of decisions and actions taken by food manufacturers and suppliers before it even reaches the retail market. Food loss within the Norwegian farmed salmon post-harvest processing system could be reduced by making change in the system’s behavior. This study, by following systems engineering principles, aimed to develop insight into the salmon post-harvest processing system’s behavioral dynamics causing current food loss and to consider conceptual keys to solutions. This study tied the food loss problem to systemic behavior of byproducts downgrading to non-food uses as the major cause. The decisions made on the materials flow are based on product design, quality control, and environmental solutions. Making a decision to conserve byproduct materials by prioritizing keeping them within the human food chain requires supportive data on their true potential as a food source. The system’s information pool that decision makers rely on can be fortified with the system’s engineering multidisciplinary outcomes that will enable the necessary paradigm shift to achieve the quested food loss reduction. Full article

As systems continue to grow in scale and complexity and have to operate safely in challenging disruptive environments, system safety and resilience has become a critical requirement. This recognition has drawn attention to the concept of resilience, which has different definitions and several different interpretations that tend to be domain specific. For example, resilience in health care clinics means something quite different than resilience in self-driving cars, or energy grids. This paper reviews the different characterizations of resilience and assesses their value proposition in realizing engineered resilient systems. This paper emphasizes the importance of systems modeling in engineering resilient systems and presents an overarching methodology that employs different modeling approaches for operational tasks as a function of problem context. This paper specifically focuses on systems modeling in partially observable and potentially hostile environments. It discusses the need for system model verification, which is key to safety, and system flexibility and adaptability, which are key to resilience. It introduces a formal, probabilistic modeling construct called the “resilience contract.” This construct employs a state-based representation that formalizes the concept of resilience while enabling system model verification and affording requisite flexibility for adaptation and learning. The key findings of our research are that different system modeling approaches and algorithms are needed based on mission tasks and operational context; adaptive capacity and continual adaptability are the two promising characterizations of resilience that can be cost-effectively realized in real-world systems; and the resilience contract construct is an effective means for probabilistic verification of system model correctness while affording flexibility needed for adaptation and learning. Collectively, these findings contribute to the body of knowledge in both model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and engineered resilient systems. Full article

New and unsaturated markets are predominantly located in countries with low incomes. To successfully establish businesses in these new markets, an increasing globalization of value creation is necessary. The integration of these new markets is challenged by their dynamics, turbulence and regulation. Above all, an initially low and volatile demand as well as high barriers for market entry must be counteracted by economical small-series production. As market development is a major challenge for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), knowledge about the impact of local conditions on their production strategy decisions is essential. Therefore, we design a recurrent fuzzy model combining country- and company-specific input factors as well as internal production parameters to obtain a transparent and reproducible impact statement. The model allows a simplified development of the expert knowledge base by mapping the influences in two steps. The application of the designed model is based on the example of the aCar mobility project, within which an electric vehicle was designed for local value creation in Africa. By applying the model for different African countries, strategy sensitivities can be identified, and recommendations derived. Full article