Shifting paradigms: The need for action research and systems thinking for the new century

The purpose of this paper shows the usage of action research (AR), soft system methodology (SSM) and systems thinking (ST), as tools to show how to incorporate them together in solving certain issues to support continuous improvement and new product development in organisations for the new century. However, these environmental impact considerations are often outweighed by other competing resource distributions within the organisation. The paper has not merely focused on the tools themselves, but also on the use of the tools within an organisation context.