Socio-Technical Systems

Framing the Change Situation

Action research from the perspective of STSs tends to start with plans to introduce a new technology, different work procedures, new products and other aspects of operating a business or providing services. Such strategies require co-operation from employees for alteration in assignments, training, terms and conditions and occupational differentials. Such changes almost always have to do with the organization's regulatory or competitive environment more widely and need to involve bargaining with employee representatives. Industry, commerce, shipping and energy are the sectors in which this framing of change originated.

Role of Consultant and Stakeholder in a Typical Change Approach

Scholarly practitioners involved with an STS analysis use design interventions that help people study their own work processes and identify improvements in how the people and technology relate across and between flows of work. The role of the consultant tends to include expertise in elements of diagnosis, analysis and recommendations for particular work organization redesign. By definition, an STS approach includes those with a stake in the outcome in problem-solving and decision-making groups of various sizes and interconnectedness.

Nature of Intervention and Character of Participation

A central orientation of intervention from an STS perspective can be the work organization design. A few, well-established approaches to intervention tend to be [Page 721]used, sometimes in co-operation with other change management techniques and goals. A long-term infrastructure tends to use organization-wide steering teams, specific design teams for subunits or a series of temporary project teams to design and deliver elements of the change. Alternately, large-group interventions focus on bringing people together in order to design and deliver work restructuring. Participation is of particular importance for STS action research: People who will be working in the new work system must participate, thus building capability to manage STS change through training of internal people and including their views throughout.

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