Читать книгу Organization Development - Donald L. Anderson - Страница 37

Sociotechnical systems (STS) was developed in the 1950s, driven by the action research philosophy described earlier, at about the same time as the Detroit Edison survey research project was taking place. The concept of sociotechnical systems is generally traced to a study of work groups in a British coal mine reported by Trist and Bamforth (1951), and was further pioneered at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London by Fred Emery (1959). The Trist and Bamforth study outlined social and psychological changes in work groups that occurred during a transition to more mechanized (versus manual) methods of extracting coal. They write that the study of coal workers shows that there is both a technological system (the mechanics) and a social system (relationships in work groups) in organizations that exert forces on an individual worker, and that the health of the system must take into account these two factors. The technological system consists of not just information technology as we might think of it today, but the skills, knowledge, procedures, and tools that employees use to do their jobs. The social system consists of the relationships between coworkers and supervisors, communication and information flow, values and attitudes, and motivation. In STS, OD interventions examine more than the social system, but in addition “arrangements of people and technology are examined to find ways to redesign each system for the benefit of the other in the context of the organizational mission and needs for survival” (Pasmore, Francis, Haldeman, & Shani, 1982, p. 1182). Cherns (1976), in describing and summarizing common sociotechnical design principles, acknowledged that those involved in work design often focused heavily on only one of the two systems, writing “that what they are designing is a sociotechnical system built around much knowledge and thought on the technical and little on the social side of the system” (p. 784).

Importantly, the technological system and social system interact with one another. An important principle of STS is that of joint optimization, which explains that “an organization will function optimally only if the social and technological systems of the organization are designed to fit the demands of each other and the environment” (Pasmore et al., 1982, p. 1182). One method by which joint optimization can be achieved is through an autonomous or semiautonomous work group, where members have some degree of ownership, control, and responsibility for the tasks that need to be performed. To jointly optimize both the social and technical systems of the organization requires an understanding of

1 the social processes that occur in organizations and the variety of theories and methods that exist to make more efficient use of human resources;

2 the technological processes used by the organization and the constraints that it places on the design and operations of the social system;

3 the theory of open systems, because no two organizations are exactly alike or are faced with the same environmental demands; and

4 the mechanics of change, both in the execution of the initial sociotechnical system design and in provision for the continual adaptation of the organization to new environmental demands. (Pasmore & Sherwood, 1978, p. 3)

Once a thorough diagnostic stage is completed to understand the social and technical system, the practitioner might propose interventions that could include “restructuring of work methods, rearrangements of technology, or the redesign of organizational social structures” (Pasmore & Sherwood, 1978, p. 3). As we will learn about more in the next section, findings of studies conducted at the time provided empirical evidence that involvement and participation in both the social and technical systems contributed to employee motivation and productivity.

Sociotechnical systems theory and practices are followed today by OD practitioners. Several global versions or variants have been developed as North American STS, Scandinavian STS, Australian STS, and Dutch STS, all with foundationally similar yet distinct approaches and philosophies (van Eijnatten, Shani, & Leary, 2008). Despite the fact that early studies of STS may have concentrated on manufacturing or physical production environments, there is increasing recognition that STS concepts have an important role to play today in our understanding of knowledge work, or how information technology and automation combine with social collaboration practices to affect our work environments.