Re-affirming the need for systems thinking in social sciences: A viable systems view of smart city

Although widely recognized as fundamental to supporting the understanding of social and economic dynamics, systems thinking still seems to suffer from the old criticism of being considered too abstract to address solutions for specific real problems or maybe there is a lack of capacity to think about our societies in a more systemic and holistic way. With the aim of re-exploring the contribution of systems thinking in the field of management, the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) has been developed in the last decades as a methodology, rooted in systems thinking and based on the Viable Systems Model of Stafford Beer, which is useful to interpret and articulate complex social and business dynamics. As an exemplification of the way systems thinking can be applied in the context of social sciences through the VSA, the case of Smart City is proposed, which highlights how the VSA can contribute to bridging the gap between an abstract adoption of systems thinking and the application of its principles and models to specific problematic contexts of high social complexity.