We consider the notion of "system" as an organising concept, before going on to look in detail at various systemic metaphors that may be used as a ba… - Robert L. Flood

Cybernetics, although not ignoring formal networks, suggests that an informal communications structure will also be present such that complex conversations at a number of levels between two or more individuals exist.

Critique in its many manifestations puts up a common opposition to instrumental rationality, because such a rationality can be linked to control in the human condition in a similar way to the idea of power in the control of the natural world.

In the modern systems approach, the concept "system" is used not to refer to things in the world but to a particular way of organising our thoughts about the world.