Title: Holistic and reductionist thinker: a comparison study based on individuals' skillset and personality types

Authors: Morteza Nagahi; Raed Jaradat; Safae El Amrani; Michael Hamilton; Simon R. Goerger

Addresses: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 9542, Mississippi State, 39762, USA ' Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 9542, Mississippi State, 39762, USA ' Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 9542, Mississippi State, 39762, USA ' Institute for Systems Engineering Research, Mississippi State University ISER, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS, 39180, USA ' Institute for Systems Engineering Research (ISER), U.S. Army Engineer Research Development Center (ERDC), 3909 Halls Ferry Rd., Vicksburg, MS 39180, USA

Abstract: As organisations operate in turbulent and complex environments, it has become a necessity to assess the systems thinking (ST) skills, personality types (PTs), and demographics of practitioners. In this study, we investigated the relationship between practitioners' ST profile, their PTs profiles and demographic characteristics in the domain of complex system problems. The objective of this study is to address the current gap in the literature - lack of studies dedicated to predicting practitioners' ST profile based on their PTs and demographics characteristics. A total of 258 practitioners with different demographics and PTs provided the data. The results show that (1) practitioners can be classified based on their ST skills scores into two clusters: holistic and reductionist (that is, ST profile), (2) each cluster has different PTs profiles and demographic characteristics, and (3) practitioner's ST profile can be predicted, with good accuracy, based on their PTs profile and demographic characteristics.

Keywords: systems thinking skills; systems thinking profile; personality types; complex systems; practitioners; clustering; prediction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSE.2020.112312

International Journal of System of Systems Engineering, 2020 Vol.10 No.4, pp.337 - 366

Received: 08 Feb 2020
Accepted: 10 May 2020
Published online: 07 Jan 2021 *

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