Back to the future: A critique of Demetis and Lee's "Crafting theory to satisfy the requirements of systems science"

Demetis and Lee's paper outlines criteria for constructing theory in accordance with systems science. This is a laudable aim but in this comment I suggest that their view of systems thinking is both narrow and somewhat dated. Demetis and Lee equate systems science with only one aspect of it – General Systems Thinking (GST) – and they discuss in detail only one theorist – Niklas Luhmann. I draw attention to a range of other systems approaches including system dynamics, soft systems methodology, complexity theory, critical systems thinking, critical realism and multimethodology. I conclude with tentative guidelines of my own.