Complex problems with multiple stakeholders: how to bridge the gap between reality and OR/MS?

The world becomes increasingly complex and problems tend to be broader and multidisciplinary. At the same time, OR/MS research seems to be narrowing down, building even more on analytical models. The flip side is the risk that OR/MS is increasingly diverging from reality and that its dominant paradigm becomes insufficient to guide us in understanding and solving complicated real-world problems. A methodology that allows a broader insight into exploring a complex system’s behaviour is urgently needed to guide OR/MS analytical models. We propose system dynamics as a methodology to link reality with the dominant OR/MS paradigm of narrowly focused and highly analytical models. © 2013, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.