he two in terms of conventional economic theory. This will allow us to establish where these phenomena are placed in the economists' view of the world, a world view that is well-established and has been articulated over a long period of time. As we proceed, however, we will have frequent occasion to identify points at which specific economic questions require an interdisciplinary systems perspective for their full understanding. We will find that the profession of international marketing, and patterns of unemployment within that profession, are closely linked to an emerging system, the global economy. We may then briefly outline the characteristics of the global economy as a system. With this perspective in mind, we can then look back into unemployment, international marketing, and their interaction, in order to see where they fit in the systems framework. In short, we will move from the specific to the general, adopt a systems orientation, then move back from the general to the specific.
We must then ask whether the round trip was worth it. Does a systems perspective upon unemployment and international marketing illuminate them in any way that the conventional economic perspective did not? If the answer is "no," then--at least in this case--systems analysis has failed to deepen our understanding of at least one set of economic phenomena. If the answer is "yes," then we have identified at least one instance in which systems reasoning has enriched the discipline of economics.
Before setting forth on this conceptual expedition, we must be clear on what we may expect or at least hope to find, and on what we should not expect to find. Systems analysis is not a theory about a specific domaine, analogous to existing economic theories or even to the general paradigms that underlie the physical sciences. In a recent discussion of the role of systems analysis in another social science, sociology, Kenneth D. Bailey (1990, p. 16),...