"The transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common to all complex entities, and the (usually mathematical) models which can be used to describe them."
(Synonymous with complexity science, or at least a subset of it)
Systems theory is an emerging academic domain that is at the forefront of "the new science". It argues that however complex the environment that we experience is, we will always find different types of organization in it, and such organization can be described by concepts and principles which are independent from the specific domain at which we are looking. Hence, if we can study systems in terms of general laws and behaviour, we can analyze and solve problems in any domain. In other words, the same concepts and principles of organization underlie the different disciplines (physics, biology, technology, sociology, etc.), providing a basis for their unification. The systems approach distinguishes itself from the more traditional analytic approach by emphasizing the interactions and connectedness of the different components of a system.
Although systems theory generally encompasses all types of systems, in practice its focus is on complex, adaptive, self-regulating systems (or cybernetic systems). In fact, systems theory shares a great deal with cybernetics, so much so that they are usually lumped together in one field: Cybernetics and Systems Science. They essentially study the same problem--organization independent of the substrate in which it is embedded--though a distinction can be made: systems theory has focused more on the structure of systems and their models, whereas cybernetics has focused more on how systems function, i.e. how they control their actions, how they communicate with other systems or with their own components, etc. Since structure and function of a system cannot be understood in separation, it is clear that cybernetics and systems theory should be viewed as two facets of a single approach.
Nodes even vaguely related:
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REFERENCES:
http://pcp.lanl.gov/SYSTHEOR.html