Nothing so practical as a good theory; Five ways to use system dynamics for theoretical contributions

Abstract

The ubiquitous practical relevance of system dynamics makes it easy to overlook the scientific impact that system dynamics has had. Studies on building theory with simulations suggest that there are very different ways of arriving at a theoretical contribution, which brings up the question how system dynamics is used to arrive at theoretical contributions. This paper provides a systematic review of system dynamics based theoretical contributions in management theory between 1990 and 2016. The results help pointing out which ways have proven to be specifically helpful for contributing to theory with system dynamics, and which opportunities for the future still exist.