The term also refers to coherent systems of human relations, technical objects, and cybernetic processes that inhere to large, complex infrastructures.
[1] The term sociotechnical systems was coined by Eric Trist, Ken Bamforth and Fred Emery, in the World War II era, based on their work with workers in English coal mines at the Tavistock Institute in London.
[3] Sociotechnical theory is about joint optimization, with a shared emphasis on achievement of both excellence in technical performance and quality in people's work lives.
The involvement of human elements in negotiations may cause a larger workload initially, but it is crucial that requirements can be determined and accommodated for prior to implementation as it is central to the systems success.
Due to its mutual causality (Davis, 1977), the STS approach has become widely linked with autonomy, completeness and job satisfaction as both systems can work together to achieving a goal.
The study was based on the paradoxical observation that despite improved technology, productivity was falling, and that despite better pay and amenities, absenteeism was increasing.
The analysis that followed introduced the terms "socio" and "technical" and elaborated on many of the core principles that sociotechnical theory subsequently became.
Sociotechnical theory pays particular attention to internal supervision and leadership at the level of the "group" and refers to it as "responsible autonomy".
[10] The overriding point seems to be that having the simple ability of individual team members being able to perform their function is not the only predictor of group effectiveness.
As Carvalho states, this is because "...operators use verbal exchanges to produce continuous, redundant and recursive interactions to successfully construct and maintain individual and mutual awareness...".
The key to responsible autonomy seems to be to design an organization possessing the characteristics of small groups whilst preventing the "silo-thinking" and "stovepipe" neologisms of contemporary management theory.
In order to preserve "...intact the loyalties on which the small group [depend]...the system as a whole [needs to contain] its bad in a way that [does] not destroy its good".
Firstly is the issue of "human redundancy"[16] in which "groups of this kind were free to set their own targets, so that aspiration levels with respect to production could be adjusted to the age and stamina of the individuals concerned".
Trist and Bamforth (1951) could have been writing about these with the following passage: "A very large variety of unfavourable and changing environmental conditions is encountered ... many of which are impossible to predict.
"[10] Many type of organisations are clearly motivated by the appealing "industrial age", rational principles of "factory production", a particular approach to dealing with complexity: "In the factory a comparatively high degree of control can be exercised over the complex and moving "figure" of a production sequence, since it is possible to maintain the "ground" in a comparatively passive and constant state".
The agility and internal regulation of the group allows problems to be solved locally without propagation through a larger social space, thus increasing tempo.
[17] This is no more illustrated by the antithetical example of "working to rule" and the virtual collapse of any system that is subject to the intentional withdrawal of human adaptation to situations and contexts.
Effects-based operations and the notion of a "whole task", combined with adaptability and responsible autonomy, have additional advantages for those at work in the organization.
This is because "for each participant the task has total significance and dynamic closure"[10] as well as the requirement to deploy a multiplicity of skills and to have the responsible autonomy in order to select when and how to do so.
Greater interdependence (through diffuse processes such as globalisation) also bring with them an issue of size, in which "the scale of a task transcends the limits of simple spatio-temporal structure.
[10] The group based form of organization design proposed by sociotechnical theory combined with new technological possibilities (such as the internet) provide a response to this often forgotten issue, one that contributes significantly to joint optimisation.
This contradicts the principles of specialisation and the division of labour whereby work is divided into small units, each of which is performed repetitively by an individual worker.
Job rotation is an approach to management development, where an individual is moved through a schedule of assignments designed to give him or her a breadth of exposure to the entire operation.
With the view that socio-technical design is by which intelligence and skill combined with emerging technologies could improve the work-life balance of employees, it is also believed that the aim is to achieve both a safer and more pleasurable workplace as well as to see greater democracy in society.
The achievement of these aims would therefore lead to increased motivation of employees and would directly and positively influence their ability to express ideas.
Mumford suggests that a delegation of responsibility could help employees stay motivated as they would feel appreciated and belonging thus keeping them in their current organization.
By using a work system lens in can bring many benefits, such as: The social network perspective first started in 1920 at Harvard University within the Sociology Department.
[30] Recent work on Artificial Intelligence considers large Sociotechnical Systems, such as social networks and online marketplaces, as agents whose behaviour can be purposeful and adaptive.
The purpose, meaning and structure can derive from multiple contexts and once obtained it can be passed on to the sociotechnical systems that emerge throughout the organisation.
After forgetting a vital request from the customer to discuss and potentially fix the issues found with the current organisation, she gave her advice on making a system.