The Dynamic Production Axioms and System Dynamics Behaviors: The Foundation for Future Integration

Realistically, organizational and/or system performance is dynamic and non-linear. However, in the efficiency literature, system performance is frequently evaluated considering linear combinations of the input/output variables and without explicitly taking into account the causes of efficiency behavior nor the dynamic behavior of systems. Policy decisions based on these results may be sub-optimized because the non-linear relationships among variables, causal relationships, and feedback mechanisms are ignored. This research takes the initial step of evaluating system performance in a dynamic environment, by relating the factors that effect system performance to the policies that govern it. To accomplish this, this paper extends the concepts of the static production axioms into a dynamic realm, where inputs are not instantaneously converted into outputs. The relationships of these new dynamic production axioms to the basic behaviors associated with system dynamics structures are explored. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003