Investigating the Influence of Demographics and Personality Types on Practitioners’ Level of Systems Thinking Skills

Although the application of systems thinking (ST) has become essential for practitioners when dealing with turbulent and complex environments, there are limited studies available in the current literature that investigate how the ST skills of practitioners vary with regard to demographic factors and personality types (PTs). To address this gap, this article uses a structural equation modeling approach to explore the relationship between practitioners’
ST skills, PT, and a set of demographic factors
. The demographic factors included in the study are
education level, the field of the highest degree, organizational ownership structure, job experience, and current occupation type
. A total of 99 engineering managers, 104 systems engineers (SEs), and 55 practitioners with other occupations participated in this article. Results showed that the education level, the field of the highest degree, PT, organizational ownership structure, and current job experience of practitioners influenced their level of ST skills. Additionally, the current occupation type of practitioners partially affects their level of ST skills. An in-depth analysis was also conducted using multiple group analysis to show how seven ST skills of the practitioners vary across their level of education. Taken together, the findings of the study suggest that PT and a set of demographic factors—the education level, the field of the highest degree, organizational ownership structure, current job experience, and current occupation type—influence the overall ST skill of the practitioners.