A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of Social Systems

Systems thinking comprises one of the greatest revolutions of the 20th century. The core of such approach embodies crucial epistemological questions, which refer to the need to formulate methods suitable to their premises. As the theoretical reflexive space cannot be neglected within the scientific process, not only the construction of empirical methods, but also the methodologies for building theoretical hypotheses to describe and explain complex phenomena must be appropriate to the perspectives of the ideals of such complexity. Thus, the present research effort aims at proposing a structured methodological approach, based on the philosophical principles of the general systems theory and Husserl’s phenomenology, which can be used as an alternative to describe and explain complex systems phenomena. As a solution to the problem at stake, we present a research framework based on a hybrid procedure, which applies analogue processes and also eidetic reduction in order to build theoretical descriptions capable of synthesising complex dynamics in a structured manner. Despite some challenges inherent to its nature, the proposed method shows robustness in philosophical terms, to organise the formulation of theoretical hypotheses in an action research environment.