System Dynamics

This new book addresses the status of the field of System Dynamics 60+ years after its inception. It presents state-of-the-art expositions by leading authorities in either a facet of the theory and methodology of the subject or its application in a specific domain. Exhibiting greater reach and authority than would be possible in a conventional authored textbook, the volume includes nine chapters covering methodological aspects, and 14 on various contemporary applications.

Emerging from the System Dynamics section of the Encyclopedia of Complexity & Systems Science, First Edition (2009), the book features brand new chapters covering project management, workforce modelling, applications in defense, operations management, engineering of strategy, the roots of model validation, as well as many considerably enhanced versions of existing chapters. Together, the chapters reveal a remarkable landscape of theory and practice, and how System Dynamics can contribute criticalpolicy insights to a broad audience of students and professionals across many fields of study.  

Brian Dangerfield is currently employed in the School of Management at the University of Bristol, joining in 2014. At the start of his academic career, and following a short spell in Industrial Operational Research, he was recruited by the University of Liverpool, UK, before moving on to the University of Salford where he was promoted to a Chair in Systems Modelling in 2000. Educated in the UK, Brian holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics, Statistics, and Operational Research from Swansea University, a postgraduate diploma in Industrial Administration from Bradford University, and a Ph.D. (System Dynamics) from Salford University.

Brian’s research interest is in the application of system dynamics (SD) simulation models to policy-level issues in economics, business, health, and public policy generally. Domains have included the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, patient pathways, managing capacity enhancements in tertiary care, economies of scale and capacity management in the steel industry, macroeconomic modelling, and competitiveness in the UK construction industry. Numerous journal articles have resulted from this work, and he is a coeditor of the books Discrete-Event Simulation and System Dynamics for Management Decision Making (Wiley, 2014) and Feedback Economics

(Springer, forthcoming 2020).

Brian was awarded the UK Operational Research Society’s President’s Medal in 1991 and their Goodeve Medal in 2005, both awards being for health-related papers applying the system dynamics methodology. For the 10 years to 2011 he was Executive Editor of the System Dynamics Review. In 2018, he was awarded a gold medal from the UK System Dynamics Society for an Outstanding Contribution to UK System Dynamics. Brian was a member of the National Council of the Operational Research Society from 1989 to 1991 and returned as a member of their General Council and Education and Research Committee from 2012 to 2017. During 2009–2010, he was the President of both the Economics Chapter and the UK Chapter of the System Dynamics Society. In 2011, he acted as a Senior Visiting Professor at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

In 2005, Brian completed a major economic modelling project funded by the State government of Sarawak in East Malaysia. From 2005 to 2008 he was Principal Investigator on a Research Council–financed project (joint with Reading and Loughborough universities) examining the systemic basis for sustained competitiveness in the UK construction industry. This project won the 2009 Chartered Institute of Building Innovation Research Paper Award.

Brian has supervised numerous Ph.D. and several M.Sc. research graduates on topics such asthe effects of the introduction of a minimum wage, the future for health and social security funding given an aging population, the sustainability of mass tourism in island tourist economies, the rise and fall of superclubs in dance music culture, the supply of and demand for UK higher educated manpower, shifting the balance of care in health, the provision of a more vocationally skilled human resource base from schools in Sarawak, an early warning system for twin crises in sovereign and banking debts, childhood obesity, and modeling reverse logistics policies. He has held external examinership appointments for 17 Ph.D. vivas in the UK and abroad.

Brian’s current interests include SD projects in health care, particularly childhood obesity and the management and planning for dementia at local authority level. He is also researching closed loop supply chains and how to employ social marketing campaigns to effect behavior change.