Sustainability and Systems Thinking

This assignment delves into the crucial relationship between sustainability and systems thinking. It examines how understanding complex systems can inform strategies for environmental, social, and economic well-being. Students will analyze various case studies showcasing the application of systems thinking in achieving sustainability goals. The assignment emphasizes critical thinking, research, and the ability to synthesize information from diverse sources.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
The Importance of System Thinking in Developing Solutions to Domestic Violence
Name of the Student
Student ID:
Name of University
Author Note

1SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
The following essay tries to illustrate the identification of challenges in procuring and
practicing sustainability. With the identification of such challenges an effective tool is going to
be devised. The tool that has been taken into account for the implementation to overcome the
challenges of sustainability is system thinking. System thinking is associated with management
discipline that is channelized through the intelligibility of a system in an organisation that is
linked with organisational or social environment of an individual (Perdicoúlis 2016). Through
system thinking an individual is carried through the process of human and non-human linkage.
System thinking, in general, comprises of the entities such as policies, process, practice and
people of an organisation. System thinking can be studied through two different perspectives-
open and closed. The closed perspective of system thinking is the external boundaries of the
thought process of an individual in relation to the system’s core process. On the contrary, the
open perspective is the links with the systems’ environment (Basile and Caputo 2017).
In order to identify and overcome the challenges of sustainability in any discipline, the
thought process needs to be developed as a corrugated process linking each fold of the process
with the problem found during the study of the sustainability. This essay is going to find out how
effective this would be for the specific findings of the entities of the challenges to sustainability
with special focus on domestic violence in Australia. According to the Family Law Act of 1975,
domestic violence is “violent, threatening or other behavior by a person that coerces or controls a
member of the person's family, or causes the family member to be fearful” (Legislation.gov.au
2017). The impact of domestic violence in the world of twenty first century is not just limited to
physical abuse alone but to sexual, emotional and mental abuse as well. Physical abuse, though,
is the most common form of domestic violence; it includes a pattern of hitting, kicking, punching
and burning. Based on the research conducted in the recent years, it can be stated that one in

2SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
three Australian women has experienced domestic violence, since the age of fifteen. Domestic
violence is one of the direst issues one faces today, because of its impact and consequences like
family dysfunction, depression and self-conscious. Addressing the challenge of domestic
violence requires the social beings to act and be educated so that such wicked problem is fought
against. Social beings as individuals, households, schools and community groups ought taken
such issue as a derogatory one and the overcoming factor of the issue needs to be considered as
an obligation. There has been little research directed at understanding why intervention strategies
with perpetrators are only minimally effective. A systems approach encourages the exploration
of the relationships between social, environmental and economic interactions. This essay aims to
portray a System thinking method, which will be quite effective method to deal with domestic
violence, which will provide us an overall strategy that can be available to handling the issues
and sectors of domestic violence.
The worst victims to the domestic violence in any society are the women. The following
statistical graph clearly demonstrates a comparative study that shows how women are victimized
to the domestic violence in the country:

3SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
Fig 1: Victims to Domestic Violence: a Gender based Comparison
Source: (abc.net.au 2017)
The aforementioned diagram succinctly shows that there have been 1,479,900 female
partners in relationship who have been shattered by continuous domestic violence. In this
context, it can be stated that females in comparison to the males are highly perpetrated to the
force of domestic violence such as mental and physical trauma and torture. S one of the most
heinous practice in domestic level has been non- consensual intimacy that can also be treated as
physical molestation of the women. However, domestic violence to the male counterpart cannot
be neglected. Intimate partners’ violence remains at the apex of its position in different modes.
According to an article by ABC News, Australia, 1 out of 4 women faces intimate violence in
domestic level from the age of 15. This might comprise of sexual or other psychological
violence (abc.net.au 2017).
Many of the research works have found and considered domestic violence to be a strong
barrier to sustaining the works in social and organisational level. According to the Bureau of

4SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
Crime Statistics, 6% of the Australian women aged from 18 are assaulted- both physically and
mentally each year affecting more than $4 billion in economic development. Domestic violence
and the access to job opportunity by the women in the country are correlatively affected thus
adversely impacting upon the overall sustainable economic and community development of a
country. According to an article published in the European Union, social sustainability directly
impacts upon the organisational sustainability as both are interrelated (enviroinfo.eu 2017).
According to Brundtland’s report published in the United Nations, the mainspring of the growth
of an economy is the technological advancement however; one cannot deny the contribution of
social wellbeing. In his report Brundtland has clearly specified that besides economical
development and ecological development, the social condition needs to be developed so as to
ensure sustainability (Tàbar and Chabay 2013). Social sustainability in the context of
globalization has become quite important so as to conform how this would compile to the overall
economic development of a country. As a matter of fact, this has to be taken into certain
consideration that in most of the cases the social imbalance hinders overall growth of a nation
(www.un-documents.net 2017).
Taking the aforementioned discussion into consideration it needs to be taken into
certain consideration that the business sectors need to focus more on the recruitment process.
Hiring women in the higher position becomes an obligation for the business organisations.
Domestic violence becomes a solid hindrance in front of the women employees, specifically in
the higher position. The progressive decisions taken by the companies are highly affected by the
social condition of the business (Turcu 2013). As a matter of fact, this needs more
comprehensive understanding of how the women are behaved in the domestic circumstances.
Sustainability in the human resource department would sincerely focus on the cognitive as well

5SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
as behavioral development of the female employees so as to engage them with the existing task
and drive them to the organisational objectives. Often the organisations are found to be
developing certain policies for the welfare of the women- specifically for the welfare of the
mothers who are observed to be acting as the driving force for both the organisations and the
family. There are some rectifying measures that are highly effective from the mastering position
of the women in senior executive level in an organisation; this has to be devised as the changing
milieu of the female workforce of a company (Nguyen and Bosch 2013). A psychological
understanding needs to be concretized by the organisations so as to maintain the sustainability in
human resource practices. The National Coalition against Domestic Violence has formulated
some important strategies and directed the business organisations to maintain certain policies for
the welfare of the working female workforce so as to define it through the basic understanding of
the policies that have been taken into certain understanding for the entire case. In order to
deploy the women in senior executive position, the iceberg model can be implemented for the
further evaluation of the process (Rauschmayer, Omann and Frühmann 2012). This is used as
the system thinking tool used for the evaluation of the behavioral, structural and mental pattern
of an individual. The following diagram demonstrates the iceberg model formulated by M.
Goodman:

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Fig 2: Iceberg Model of System Thinking
Source: (www.ascd.org 2017)
In order to implement strategic forces towards the sustainable development of a
community the iceberg model would highly associate the social role of an individual. In this
context, it needs to be taken into certain consideration pertaining to the effective understanding
of the process. The traditional thought process such as going out of the house by women or
taking family decisions and so on. The organisations through assigning important leadership
roles to the female workers would change the process. However, domestic violence often hinders
the women from taking significant leadership roles as they turn into a puny individual, a very
wimped one. Assigning leadership role to the women becomes a huge obligation for the

7SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
organisations pertaining to the effective role play of every employee. By implementing the ice
berg model the constraints and the complexities of self image has been identified as the major
problem for the evaluation of the attribute of the female workers in the organisations who have
been suffering from domestic violence over the years. Self image stimulates the individual
workers to conceive either positive or negative perception upon the changes undertaken in the
purpose of sustainability. One of the most important factors behind such problem has been the
creation of mixed image in the workplace. Prevalence of the female employees in the senior
managerial body would definitely encourage and motivate other female employees in
strengthening their professional attributes. According to Loorbach and Wijsman (2013), this
process of solve the wicked problem that has remained prevalent throughout the years.
One of the most important aspects in this context has been familial rape and molestation
that undoubtedly shatters the exact understanding of the process. The wicked problem lies in this
fact that post trauma period for the women becomes unproductive. As a matter of fact, this has
been taken into certain consideration with the effective understanding that this has been taken
into certain consideration for the effective issues.
According to Hinrichs (2014), in order to ensure sustainability in the business sector three
pillars of sustainability needs to be taken into consideration thus leading towards successful
execution. There are three obvious pillars of sustainability:
i) Economic
ii) Social
iii) Environmental

8SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
These three pillars can put greater impact upon the thwart of the wicked challenges. In order
to meet the requirements pertaining to the society, most of the organisations tend to maintain
positive work environment so as to direct the employees towards personal and professional
success. For instance, the MNCs like Microsoft Corporation, Mercedes and others have been
focusing on recruiting a diversified workforce. However, the initial challenge for the
companies would be to manage the diversified mentality of the working individuals, yet it
would lead them towards achieving a positive and productive working condition. In this case,
the women or the other employees – victim to domestic violence would get a strong platform
to share their individual, personal and professional problems with each other. In order to
address the social complexities such as the women not being allowed to work in professional
sectors, the companies need to provide them with new openings offering them handsome
salary.
The aforementioned process is hereby agreed with because of its authentic
process distribution. As a matter of fact, this has been taken into certain consideration
pertaining to the exact implementation of the leadership deployment process considering the
three pillars and ice berg model. The position decision making for the women needs to be
strengthened as it would eradicate the social discrimination. With the effective
understanding of the process, this has been taken into certain consideration pertaining to the
fact that there has been a serious concern for the cognitive and behavioral development of
both the genders.
Recent study has found that in legal sector in Australia; most of the students are women.
The recent Canadian government comprises of equal number of male and female members.
Most of the commonwealth members are female. With gradual uplifting of the process and

9SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
the advancement of progressive mindset, this has to be taken into account that the skills and
knowledge is equally distributed. However, the social discrimination has been hindering the
overall development of the women in the professional level. It can thus be concluded that the
analysis done on the basis of the ongoing perception of the social and domestic turmoil
conducted upon the women stringently provides a structural concept of how the systematic
thought process would be considering the effective consequence in both domestic and
professional level.

10SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
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2017].
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