[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# WSR: A Chinese Systems Approach

## Details

**Authors** Zhu Z

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-13

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Reading level** technical

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.54120/jost.0000025) 
10.54120/jost.0000025

## In authors' words

### Abstract

Evolving out from contemporary Chinese management practice, traditional Chinese thought and international academic encounters, the Wuli-Shili-Renli (WSR) approach urges knowing wuli (the technical-material), reflecting on shili (the mental-cognitive) and caring for renli (the social-emotional) in management decision making. Underlain by coherent ontology, epistemology and methodology, WSR has been used to assist formal engineering projects such as water resources management as well as informal coping which includes understanding social-economic reforms, improving business strategy and enriching the theory of the firm. As information complexity and value complexity grow rapidly within, and beyond, China, WSR should ideally develop into a multi-perspective, multi-method, multi-actor, general purpose management approach, as a useful tool for building an open, justice and prosperous society.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A chapter on the Wuli-Shili-Renli approach from China: knowing the technical-material, reflecting on the mental-cognitive, and caring for the social-emotional in management decision making.

### What they found (results)

Grounded in a coherent ontology, epistemology, and methodology, WSR has served both formal engineering projects and informal coping — and should grow into a multi-perspective, multi-method, general-purpose management approach.

## Commentary

### In short

Describes the Chinese Wuli-Shili-Renli (WSR) approach, which weighs the technical, cognitive and social sides of management decisions.

### Response

Published in the Handbook of Systems Thinking (Cabrera, Cabrera & Midgley, eds., 2023), a volume built on the premise that systems thinking now has a universal theory—DSRP-484. Its contents were selected on that basis by its editorial team in concert with a team of advisors.

**Patterns it shows** P

## Refers to

- [Handbook of Systems Thinking](https://dsrpevidence.org/element/382)

**How to cite this** Zhu Z (2023). WSR: A Chinese Systems Approach. Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-13.