“A social system consists in a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or environmental aspect, actors who are motivated in terms of a tendency to the "optimization of gratification" and whose relation to their situations, including each other, is defined and mediated in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols.”

—  Talcott Parsons

Source: The social system (1951), p. 5-6

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Talcott Parsons17
American sociologist 1902–1979

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“In sharp contrast (with the traditional social planning) the systems design approach seeks to understand a problem situation as a system of interconnected, interdependent, and interacting issues and to create a design as a system of interconnected, interdependent, interacting, and internally consistent solution ideas.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

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“The key insight of the approach is to consider that social action takes place in arenas, what may be called fields, domains, sectors, or organized social spaces… Fields contain collective actors who try to produce a system of domination in that space. To do so requires the production of a local culture that defines local social relations between actors.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

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In this text Harold Chestnut is here citing:
C. West Churchman, Russell L. Ackoff, and E. Leonard Arnoff (1957) Introduction to Operations Research. Wiley. New York, and
J. Morley English (1964) "Understanding the Engineering Design Process." The Journal of Industrial Engineering, Nov-Dec. 1964 Vol 15 (6). p. 291-296

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