General Systems Theory Completed Up by Dialectical Systems Theory

■ Research Paper

General Systems Theory Completed Up byDialectical Systems Theory1

Zdenka Zenko1*, Bojan Rosi1, Matjaz Mulej1, Tatjana Mlakar2

and Nastja Mulej31EPF, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia2 Social Security Office, Novo mesto, Slovenia3Nastja Mulej s.e., Ljubljana, Slovenia

Traditional sciences are narrowly specialized into selected viewpoints and parts of reality. Thiscauses important insights and oversights that are supposed to be resolved by cybernetics andsystems theory. TheGeneral Systems Theory fights over-specialization; cybernetics grew frominterdisciplinary cooperation practicing this fight. More holism and wholeness result. TheDialectical Systems Theory adds methodology to support attainment of requisite holismand wholeness by influencing human attributes and methods. This makes it universallyapplicable. Its applied method USOMID and De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats are very closeand can be combined. The new concepts of social responsibility exposing ‘interdependenceand holistic approach’ apply a very comparable concept and are found helpful against the cur-rent crisis as a consequence of over-specialization. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords Dialectical SystemsTheory;GeneralSystemsTheory;SocialResponsibility; SixThinkingHats

INTRODUCTION INTO THE SELECTEDPROBLEM AND VIEWPOINT OFCONSIDERATION IN THIS RESEARCH

Since the World War II, the authors of systemstheory and cybernetics created many versionsand succeeded in making their theories known.By making the United Nations Organization the

most holistic political organization of humankind,the politicians of the word succeeded in using thesystems theory (at least informally). The EuropeanUnion (EU) createdmuch latter found necessary toexplicitly link systemic thinking with innovation.EU in its ‘Innovation in a knowledge-driveneconomy’ (2000) states on p. 6:

‘The Action Plan [First Action Plan forInnovation in Europe, 1996, based on Green Paperon Innovation, 1995] was firmly based on the“systemic” view, in which innovation is seen asarising from complex interactions between manyindividuals, organizations and environmentalfactors, rather than as a linear trajectory from new

*Correspondence to: Zdenka Zenko, EPF, University of Maribor,Razlagova 14, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia.E-mail: [email protected] contribution is based on research project that is supported by theSlovenian Public Agency for Research as a basic research project: 1000-09-212173, in 2009–2012. Part of this research project was presented atthe International Conference on Complex Systems, ICCS12, Agadir,Morocco, 5–6 November 2012.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Systems Research and Behavioral ScienceSyst. Res. 30, 637–645 (2013)Published online 7 November 2013 in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/sres.2234

knowledge to new product. Support for this viewhas deepened in recent years (EU, 2000).’

Such amove to support and even require systemicthinking is taking place currently again under thelabel of social responsibility: UnitedNationsOrgani-zation works on UN Global Compact for a decade,International Standards Organization launched ISO26000 (ISO, 2010) and EU advises its member statesand big enterprises to use ISO 26000 as a way outfromthe current socio-economic crisis (EU, 2011), etc.

Thus, the concepts of ‘interdependence’ and‘holistic approach’, i.e. systemic behavior, arefound crucial on the world-top level by politicians,professionals and business persons.

If this has to be stated explicitly in suchdocuments, these questions arise:

• Are we humans capable of the interdisciplinarycooperation that we need almost everymoment?

• What is the theoretical basis for those, who arenot capable of it, to learn?

The empirical experience-based and reference-based answers are as follows:

Very few humans are, by their nature and edu-cation, capable of interdisciplinary cooperation,because specialists teach specialists to be special-ists, including being proud of their specialization(Zenko and Mulej, 2012). This teaching is reason-able, but it is not enough; it may cause one to hidefrom reality behind the walls of one’s specializa-tion and lack respect for other specializationsand their need for each other—as well asrestricting their capacity to solve real problemsby interdisciplinary creative cooperation muchbetter than by separation (Mulej, 1979; Mulejet al., 1992; Mulej et al., 2000; Ackoff and Rovin,2003; Gigch, 2003; Mulej et al., 2013). Very fewuniversities offer courses on methods of holisticapproach. The good novelty says that about50 countries teach De Bono’s methods to teachersin primary schools, in China in 600 000 schools.

THE GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY—INSUFFICIENT BASIS FOR HOLISMAND WHOLENESS

The theoretical basis to learn the skills of theinterdisciplinary cooperation, as the basis for

holism of approach to human work and whole-ness of its outcome, stems from the original au-thors of the systems theory and cybernetics:Bertalanffy and Wiener. But many humans, eventheorists of systems theory and cybernetics (seee.g. François, 2004; Mulej et al., 2006; Bichleret al., 2012) now use them inside traditional disci-plines and forget that the fathers of the systemstheory and cybernetics have created theiranswers to the burning problems of their andour time through their interdisciplinary approach(Zenko et al., 2012). This is where DialecticalSystems Theory (DST) (Mulej, 1976, 1979; Mulejet al., 1992, 2000, 2013) of nearly four decadesago, allows us to fill the gap. François (2004) callsDST peculiar, for this reason, obviously.

The well-intended and well-applied versions ofsystems theory, which describe a part of realityinside a viewpoint of one single traditional,specialized, scientific discipline, are beneficial,but they do not match the well-stated EU’s andothers’ definition of ‘systems view’ (François,2004). They help people solve other problems butnot that of the holism of thinking, decision-makingand action, as a precondition of survival of human-kind and the planet on which we live and/or ofsuccess in any human action (Geyer et al., 2003).Interdependence of different professions is leftaside; unity in diversity is not attained. The currentcrisis is an obvious consequence.

DIALECTICAL SYSTEMS, REQUISITE HOLISMAND THE DIALECTICAL SYSTEMS THEORY

Beyond 40 years ago, Mulej learned about theGeneral Systems Theory (GST) and started usingit. Soon, he became disappointed because manyGST users reduced GST to their basis for a formaldescription inside their own selected viewpoint andprofession; he did not see holism that he expected.Holism means consideration of everythingrather than another reductionism to e.g. a singleviewpoint, literally. In our experience, one cancome requisitely close to holism best in interdisci-plinary creative cooperation, making a synergy ofinsights (based on viewpoints different from eachother) emerge from their differences from eachother and networking with each other in

RESEARCH PAPER Syst. Res.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Syst. Res. 30, 637–645 (2013)DOI: 10.1002/sres

638 Zdenka Zenko et al.

networks. Hence, we invented the notion‘Dialectical System’ (DS)—Table 1.What viewpoints and networks are essential?

This remains authors’ decision and responsibility.This fact requires impact over humans’ attributes(knowledge and values—KV). But KV, takenliterally, is not necessarily requisitely holistic(=a DS), neither is so motivation alone or creationof preconditions for life and work alone (Zenkoand Mulej, 2011b). KV and outer conditions areall interdependent rather than independent andmake the starting points of every human activity.The mentioned one-sided practices of many GSTusers deviated and deviate from Bertalanffy’s(1979, p. VII) basic intention and definition; he‘created GST against over-specialization of thecurrent times’. This means that Mulej’s work hasbeen in line with Bertalanffy’s intentions to makeholism a worldview with methodological supportleading to wholeness of outcomes. The practice ofN. Wiener, the author of cybernetics, can be seenas practitioner of what Mulej calls ‘requisiteholism’ (Mulej and Kajzer, 1998), a part of DST. Asummary follows.

A SHORT PRESENTATION OF THEDIALECTICAL SYSTEMS THEORY

Essence of the Dialectical Systems Theory

Dialectical Systems Theory is a peculiar version ofsystems theory (François, 2004, p. 169 in Part I). Itdoes not provide tools for humans to use on what-ever basis but tries to impact human thinking andfeeling, too. Namely, the level of holism to beattained in their perception, thinking, communica-tion, decision-making and action depends on thehumans’ subjective starting points (KV). DST

fights the fictitious holism, which some otherversions of systems theory may support. DST hasenabled many successful applications both inresearch and ‘the real world’ practice, especiallyin (non-technological) innovation, managementand organization (Zenko and Mulej, 2011a).

Dialectical Systems Theory’s point is theinterdisciplinary approach as a precondition of(the requisite) holism. The lack of interdisciplinaryapproach may namely make the presupposedholism—a central concern of cybernetics and sys-tems theory—rather fictitious. This lack is foundin practice (Mulej et al., 2006) and it opposes theBertalanffy’s andWiener’s groups/teams. The orig-inal authors of both systems theory and cyberneticswere interdisciplinary and aimed at synthesis(Hammond, 2003).

A Reality Considered as the Basis of the DialecticalSystems Theory

To make the concept of DS workable, Mulejcreated the DST as a methodology of behavior,especially thinking (in observing, reflecting,communicating, decision-making and impacting)based on the following findings about reality:

• Humans observe, think, decide, communicate,act and impact on the basis of their subjectivestarting points (KV), which are in turn subjectto influence.

• The starting points, especially the subjectiveones (which select, by observation anddecision, the attributes of the objective, i.e.outer reality to be taken in account), influencefurther processes of definition of objectives andtheir attainment, in which many features andattributes are interdependent, rather thansimply linearly dependent.

• The starting points can be influenced, especiallyones’ KV, by education and other information

Table 1 Definition of a system and a dialectical system in Dialectical Systems Theory

A system is at the same time:(1) From the viewpoint of the mathematical formalism: a round-off whole, i.e. a network of any/no content; and(2) From the viewpoint of its content: a partial (one-sided) picture/representation (mental and/or emotional) of anobject, which is considered/dealt with from either a selected viewpoint or a number or even a system of viewpoints.Thus, a system is holistic, formally and one-sided, in content, at the same time.A dialectical system is a system (formally) of all essential systems (in content) presenting the same topic/objectfrom different viewpoints, which are therefore interdependent and interactive; they make a synergy.

Syst. Res. RESEARCH PAPER


GST Completed Up by DST 639

processes. But the receivers of those influencestend to react to them differently, if their role is todefine objectives or to attain (imposed?) objec-tives by partial tasks to be accomplished.

• In acting according to their roles, humans tryto be holistic in order to avoid failures andresulting difficulties. But people tend to defineholism rather differently.

• It is impossible for people to be totally holistic,at the level of Bertalanffy’s requirements(Bertalanffy, 1979, p. VII). But if one definesone’s own holism very narrowly, e.g. insideone single specialization, a fictitious holism isproduced rather than a realistic one. Evenworse, one can imagine that a realistic holismhas been attained, despite its unreality.

A The Six Components and Relations Makingthe Dialectical Systems Theory, in Summary

Dialectical Systems Theory reflects thesefindings (in English, see Mulej and Zenko, 2004;for some details and scientific backgrounds, seeMulej et al., 2013):

(1) The law of entropy. There is a permanent naturaltendency of everything to change intosomething else, i.e. to be destroyed, and to helpcreate something else, simultaneously. Entropyrequires people to be requisitely holistic andcreative in order to succeed, rather than one-sided and routine-loving/addicted. Hence:

(2) The law of requisite holism. There is a continuingneed for a DSwhen a one-sided system is not aholistic enough picture of reality and a total(Bertalanffian) one cannot be attained.Decision makers must take responsibility fortheir selection of what enters the DS and whatis omitted, but their decision does not preventthe omissions from influencing outcomes(Mulej and Kajzer, 1998). Hence:

(3) The law of hierarchy of succession andinterdependence. It is not the structure of subordi-nation, but processes that cause results. It iscooperation that makes processes happen.Therefore, one must start with the definition ofsalient objectives. This process depends onsubjective and objective starting points. Theseare interdependent, so are the phases following

later on in the process and their content,including perceived needs and possibilities,preferential needs and related possibilities, ob-jectives, tasks tomeet them and processes to ex-ecute tasks. Consequently:

(4) The 10 guidelines on how to form the subjectivestarting points of persons defining the objectives.These guidelines must be used before thedefinition of objectives, in order to supportrequisite holism and creativity in this phaseof the work process. We will brief them soon.The decision makers must be rather broadand synthesis-oriented. But they are not alonein the entire work process. Hence:

(5) The 10 guidelines on how to form the subjectivestarting points of persons realizing the objectives.These guidelines must be used after the defini-tion of objectives, in order to support requisiteholism and creativity in this phase of the workprocess. We will brief them soon, too. Thesedecision makers/co-workers must be narrowlyspecialized and analysis-oriented, with respon-sibility for single details, while understandingand supporting a broader definition of requisiteholism, with creative cooperation with special-ists of other skills. They need tools to behavein a systemic way implicitly. Therefore:

(6) USOMID (DST-based applied methodology ofinterdisciplinary creative cooperation) is usedto enable participants of theworkprocess to con-sider and use the three laws and both dialecticalsystems of guidelines, even without knowledgeof their theoretical background. The experiencewith employment of DST in non-academic set-tings soon demonstrated the need for DST’srather philosophical concepts to be expressed inan organizational technology, i.e. methodology.This iswhyUSOMID came about; the Slovenianacronym reads: Creative Cooperation of Manyfor an Innovating Work (Mulej et al., 1982 andlater, including 2013). It helps people facecomplexity by using systems theory with noword of theory, but implicitly. Now the authorsof USOMID combine it with ‘Six ThinkingHats’(Mulej M and N, 2006; Mulej et al., 2013). Thelatter enables implicit systemic behavior, too.

We cannot provide details, here, except theones on the guidelines (points Ad 4 and Ad 5).




Ad 4. Guidelines about the subjective startingpoints before definition of objectives:

(1) Purpose of work in contemporary conditions:Both the contemporary human capacity ofglobal influences and the interdependencerequire humans to innovate their culturetowards more holism in terms of theTables 1–3, e.g. by awareness of complexityand purpose of facing it with a creative/in-novative action rather than avoiding it.Hence, the purpose is requisitely holisticinnovation in tackling any topic.

(2) Approach: For this general purpose to beattainable, systems thinking, e.g. by DSTmethods, must replace one-sidedness as themethodology of observing, thinking, com-munication, decision-making and action.

(3) The dialectical system of trouble, objective(s) and tasks: If the problem/trouble is over-sight by one-sidedness, and (requisite) ho-lism is the objective, then more of theapplication of creative cooperation basedon DST can be a task (among many more,such as the ones of the narrow specialists).

(4) The procedure of work on tasks: Applica-tion of the (D)ST in practice can belong tothe necessary procedures for more creativecooperation and work, and so can all avail-able, necessary and sufficient, i.e. requisiteknowledge and motivation of specialists.

(5) Consideration of everything crucial: Double-checking, whether meeting guidelines (1–4) is

enough or not, says that no single theory isenough, but the practice of system thinking,related legal and political institutions, and pre-vailing culture must support requisitely holis-tic, creative and even innovative behavior toattain synthesis of several theories. If, e.g., allcrucial professionals are not involved in theteam, one must introduce them.

(6) Capacity of requisite holism: Hence, thedialectical systems thinking, which stressesinterdependence and creative cooperation ofmutually different viewpoint-holders, such asthe interested parties in business and society,is needed as a human attribute. Using theconcepts of interdisciplinary and transdisci-plinary approaches of single-disciplinaryspecialists supports this human attribute(Herrscher, 2012).

(7) Dialogue in team: Teamwork is an organiza-tional possibility for cooperation that enablesparticipants of the work process and/or otherstakeholders to diminish alienation and attainrequisite holism. The combination ofUSOMIDand ‘Six Thinking Hats’ (Mulej and Mulej,2006;Mulej et al., 2013)makes the dialogue lesstroublesome and more productive.

(8) Continual updating: Innovation of thesubjective starting points of cooperating enti-ties toward ethics of interdependence andknowledge of cooperation make their team-work easier. Obsolete knowledge and valuesare obstacles to creative facing of the moderncomplexity and its challenges. Both seem

Table 2 The selected level of holism and realism of consideration of the selected topic between the fictitious,requisite and total holism and realism

←----------------------------------------------------------------→

Fictitious holism/realism(inside a single viewpoint)

Requisite holism/realism(a dialectical system/DS/of all essential viewpoints)

Total = real holism/realism(a system, i.e. network,of all viewpoints)

Table 3 Holism as a dialectical system of four interdependent attributes of human thinking

• Systemics (attributes of the whole, but not of its single components), complexity and synergies.• Systematics (attributes of the single components, but not of the whole), complicatedness and details.• Dialectics (attributes of relations that form the attributes of the whole, by causing emergence, resulting insynergy), interdependence and resulting interaction.• Materialism (attributes of the observer, decision maker, and/or actor, called also realism), the smallest possibledeviation from reality in observing, thinking, decision making and action.




tobe able to support updating of the given -knowledge on management of complexprocesses and situations.

(9) Interdependence of knowledge and values:For creative cooperation, both knowledgeand values/culture/ethic/norms need inno-vation because they are interdependent andsupport each other, either toward creativecooperation or against it. People withobsolete values of what is right and what iswrong will very rarely accept and developcontemporary knowledge, and vice versa(see proofs in Hrast et al., 2012).

(10) Evolution and path dependence: Innovationof human subjective starting points, e.g.toward the requisitely holistic behavior, israrely easy, if the experience of the tackledhumans lets them prefer the old KV andallows the old KV to keep impacting thecurrent behavior, although circumstances andconditions have changed. In such a case itwould be difficult to define up-to-date startingpoint and salient objectives. The likely alterna-tive is poor success due to lagging behindcompetitors who do not lack modernity.Several proofs are provided (in e.g. Bichleret al., 2012; e.g. Gagnidze and Maisuradze,2012). The current crisis is an obvious case, too.

Ad 5. Guidelines on how to form the subjectivestarting points of persons realizing the objectives

(1) Requisite holism throughout the entire workprocess: After the objectives have been de-fined, tasks and procedures for narrower spe-cialists have their turn. Still, success may bepoor, if specialists do not work hard enoughfor both their own and shared requisite ho-lism. Their knowledge is unavoidable but notsufficient without requisite holism in their KV.

(2) Openness: Holism, including the oneconcerning the work of narrow specialists, isvery rarely attainedwith a lack of cooperation,and hence specialists must be open to eachother, because they differ from each other.They become complementary to each otherin this way. If agents are humans, ones’ KVmay even be usable in combination withproject management (Vrecko, 2011)

(3) Dynamics, adaptability: Many specialists lacktraining in openness and must change/inno-vate their KV in this respect. Dynamics doesnot cover change in the course of time, e.g. instatistical terms, only; it includes human ca-pacity to adapt to each other, e.g. to acceptproofs that are based on another viewpoint.With ethics of interdependence, this is easierto attain thanwith ethics of self-sufficiency. Ex-perience in the use of USOMID and Six Think-ing Hats helps.

(4) Interdisciplinary approach: Openness iscloser to specialists, as long as they may stayinside their own specialty; interdisciplinaryapproach is harder for many but equally oreven more necessary for requisite holism.Capacity to listen to and hear the disagreeingones is crucial; application of the ‘Six Think-ing Hats’ helps crucially.

(5) Probability: One can never know and mastertotally everything; rather, a hard-to-definelevel of probability must be expected. This iswhy we do not speak of holism but of therequisite holism.

(6) Interaction based on interdependence andflexibility: If specialists use the modern dialec-tics rather than the one-sided medieval meta-physics (‘independence, no mutual impact,no change, boss is always right’), all the afore-mentioned five demands that concern special-ists can be met more easily and reliably: ethicsandpractice of interdependence support coop-eration and changing, including innovation ofhuman subjective starting points (KV).

(7) Clear delimitation of roles, jobs, viewpointsand resulting systems: Despite of guidelines(1–6) requiring the participants’ coopera-tion, the latter is easier to attain, if jobs ofspecialists are precisely delimited. Thus,responsibilities are clear-cut; nobody hasthe right of irresponsibility.

(8) Realism in generalization of conclusions: Onceevery specialist does his or her own job, onemust from time to time generalize findings/results; this phase includes a simplification,in which some details are omitted. It isimportant that this generalization is realistic,e.g. for a salient judgement on the level of




holism and performance attained so far.Tables 1–3 are crucial.

(9) Application of a dialectical system: To makethe judgement realistic, one should go forrequisite holism by using the dialectical sys-tem, rather than a total or fictitious/one-sided one. See Tables 1–3 again, if necessary.

(10) Interdependence of analysis and synthesis:Judgement results from analysis and fromsynthesis following it. But there is also anothersynthesis with a crucial impact: synthesis ofthe subjective starting points and the selectedviewpoints before, and as the basis of, analy-sis. This synthesis influences the level ofholism of specialists crucially, in every work.This is why both dialectical systems of guide-lines for subjective points were defined here.

On this basis, in Mulej’s DST, holism tends tobe both close to the definition of holism foundin Bertalanffy’s work and workable. Holism istherefore a dialectical system networking fourinterdependent attributes (Table 3):The attributes in Table 3 have been sought from

the very beginning of cybernetics and (the general)systems theory but have lost to the unavoidablenarrow specialization of the contemporary times.Formally, Table 3 can be attained inside a singleviewpoint, too, but practically the requisitelyholistic interdisciplinary cooperation is needed forpeople to avoid crucial oversights.A new method supportive of creative coopera-

tion of requisite and mutually different and henceinterdependent specialists, e.g. from differentunits/sectors of an organization or differentorganizations, surfaced in our research; we usedit in several workshops and consultancies withvery satisfactory responses from participants(Mulej and Mulej, 2006). A summary follows.

APPLICATION OF USOMID/SIX THINKINGHATS IN SYNERGY

USOMID (Mulej, 1982) and Six Thinking Hats (DeBono, 2005) have been applied in separation fornearly three decades, before Mulej and Mulej(2006) made a synergy (Table 4).

Each of the six thinking hats, used by all teammembers at the same time one after the other, notall in the same moment. This helps all emotionalattributes of every teammember to showupwith-out arguing that causes fighting. One comes fromargumentative thinking of people feeling infallible,to complementary thinking, called parallel think-ing (De Bono, 2005). This supports requisite holismand wholeness informally. So does De Bono’s‘lateral thinking’ because it invites all possibleviewpoints to the stage (De Bono, 2006).

INFORMAL APPLICATION OF DST VIASOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MODEL

There are seven areas of application of the conceptof social responsibility as defined in ISO 26000Standard as an advisory influence over humanKV and resulting organizational strategy (ISO,2010). We have no room to discuss its seven princi-ples and seven procedure steps, too. We can onlypoint out the two concepts that connect all of themand all participants of the process of any work:

(1) Interdependence, and(2) Holistic approach.

Obviously, they reinforce systemic behaviorbut more or less in terms of a general framework(Knez-Riedl et al., 2006). Thus, they can cruciallybenefit in application from use of DST.

The concept of ISO 26000 received a crucial sup-port from the EU (EU, 2011). The consequenceconcerning DST is another support. EU urges EUmember states and big enterprises to use social re-sponsibility (far beyond charity!) as a tool againstthe current crisis, because it helps rather than costsenterprises, humans and countries. Many creativeand innovative individuals demand for the prob-lem solving, systemic/requisitely holistic andsocially responsible processes (Rosi and Rosi, 2011).

CONCLUSIONS

Human behavior causes both good and bad life.DST shows that the current crisis is extremelyserious due to a critical lack of systemic behavior




of the influential persons (e.g. references inMulej, 2010). Humankind needs acceleratedtransition to a requisitely holistic society; onestarts best in KV of the government bya well-organized invention-innovation-diffu-sion process backed by systemic behavior(Zenko and Mulej, 2011a, 2011b, 2012).Governmental members are the most influentialsocietal group, once people find them credible.Then the government and other public services,such as education, medicine and research, getinvolved. Now, businesses will follow govern-ment’s advices more openly than so far, whenone-sided routine-lovers were telling them tobe holistic and innovative. Social responsibil-ity reinforces DST to solve the current crisis.Methods such as USOMID and Six ThinkingHats support them. Systemic/cyberneticbehavior can become daily practice.

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Mulej M. 1979. Ustvarjalno delo in dialekticna teorijasistemov (Creative work and the dialectical systemstheory). In Slovene. Razvojni center: Celje.

Mulej M. 1982. Dialekticno-sistemsko programiranjedelovnih procesov – metodologija USOMID. (Dia-lectical-Systemic Programming of Work Processes –Methodology USOMID. In Slovenian). Nase gospod.28(3): 206–209.

Mulej M. 2010. Five books review: stop hating yourchildren and grandchildren. Syst. res. behav. sci.2010(27): 1. Untitled book review.

Mulej M, Kajzer S. 1998. Ethics of interdependence andthe law of requisite holism. In STIQE‚98. Proceedings,Rebernik M, Mulej M (eds.). EPF: Maribor.

Mulej M, Mulej N. 2006. Innovation and/by systemsthinking by synergy of methodologies ‘Six ThinkingHats’ and ‘USOMID’. In PODIM 26, Cooperationbetween the economic, academic and governmentalspheres, Rebernik M, et al. (eds). EPF: Maribor.

Mulej M, Zenko Z. 2004. Introduction to SystemsThinking with Application to Invention and InnovationManagement. Management Forum: Maribor.

Mulej M, Zeeuw G, Espejo R. 1992. Teorije sistemov.(Systems Theories. In Slovenian.) EPF: Maribor.

Mulej M, Espejo R, Jackson MC. 2000. Dialekticna indruge mehkosistemske teorije (podlaga za celovitost inuspeh managementa) (The Dialectical and Other SoftSystems Theories (Basis for Holism and Success ofManagement). In Slovenian). EPF: Maribor.

Mulej M, Kajzer S, Potocan V, Rosi B, Knez-Riedl J.2006. Interdependence of the systems theories – po-tential innovation supporting innovation. Kybernetes35(7/8): 942–954.

Mulej M, Bozicnik S, Cancer V. 2013. Dialectical SystemsThinking and the Law of Requisite Concerning Innovation,(Exploring unity through diversity, vol. 3). LitchfieldPark: Emergent Publications, cop. 2013. XVII, 365str., ilustr. ISBN 978-1-938158-09-4.).

Rosi B, Rosi M. 2011. Razresevanje problemov zuporabo (mehko) sistemskega razmisljanja kotpotenciala druzbeno odgovorne ustvarjalnosti ljudi.(Problem solving through system thinking as a po-tential of human’s socially responsible creativity).Nase gospod. 57(1/2): 61–71.

Vrecko I. 2011. Obvladovanje strateskih kriz z uporaboprojektnega menedzmenta kot celovit invencijsko-inovacijskiproces: doktorska disertacija. EPF: Maribor.

Zenko Z, Mulej M. 2011a. Diffusion of innovativebehavior with social responsibility. Kybernetes 40(9/10): 1258–1272.

Zenko Z, Mulej M. 2011b. Innovating measurement ofeconomic success for more accurate information= Inoviranje merjenja ekonomskega uspeha za boljustrezne informacije. Nase gospod. 57(5/6): 11–19.

Zenko Z, Mulej M. 2012. Approach to requisite holisticsocially responsible behavior with Dialectical SystemsTheory.Mei Zhong gong gong guan li 9(2): 183–194.

Zenko Z, Rosi B, Mulej M, Mlakar T, Mulej N. 2012.Mulej’s Dialectical Systems Theory - a proven nextstep after Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory.In Proceedings of 2012 International Conference onComplex Systems (ICCS12) ESSAAIDI, Mohamed(ed.). [S. l.]: IEEE. Agadir, Morocco, 2012; 1–8.doi: 10.1109/ICoCS.2012.6458598 DOI:10.1109/ICoCS.2012.6458598#doi .




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