Multimodal Investigation of Technology-Aided Human Practice in Business Operations

Abstract

Multimodal Systems Thinking (MST) is a recent approach to systems design and management in general. It distinguish itself from the more elaborated schools of thoughts, i.e. the so-called Hard Systems Thinking, Soft Systems Thinking, and Critical Systems Thinking, by assuming different meta-theoretical positions in regard to reality, knowledge, human nature, and particularly the motivational or existential ground-motives (discussed in chapter 13). Even though MST has extensively elaborated theoretical foundations, there are few documented applications within the domain of systems thinking or management. This text has presented an application of the Multimodal Theory, part of MST, in an analysis of a business process re-engineering case. This analysis has provided a multi- perspective description of the inquired situation and also provided an intelligible explanation of that situation. The employment of Multimodal Theory has generated a prototype of a generic method that may be used in future system analyses. This employment has also identified several shortcomings and issues for further study. The conclusion is therefore that MST provides potentially a powerful theoretical foundation for analysis and design of systems, but that this theory needs more research for its operationalization so that it may become an actual tool that supports systems analysis and design.