Sociotechnical Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Chris W. Clegg
Keyword(s):  
Sociotechnical Theory

Traditional Job-Related Factors and Career Salience in IT-Based Workplace

2012 ◽  
pp. 222-230
Author(s):  
Aminu Ahmad ◽  
Hartini Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Job Involvement ◽  
Role Stress ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Digital Workplace ◽  
Working Environments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
Unique Approach ◽  
Career Salience

Despite growing academic and practical concerns about IT-transformed workplaces, little research empirically investigates these concerns. This paper adopts a unique approach to address these concerns by evaluating the appropriateness of traditional drivers of career salience in high IT working environments. Building on established measures of role stress, participation in decision making, job involvement and career salience, questionnaires were distributed to staff working in high IT organizations in Nigeria. Multiple regressions were run from a valid response of 223, resulting in the three traditional drivers accounting for 25% of the variance in career salience. Similarly, standardized ß coefficients indicate on job involvement (0.46) makes unique significant contribution to career salience. This finding is in line with sociotechnical theory—that changes in technical sub-system affect the social sub-system and vice versa. The finding also provides indirect exploratory support for the decreasing importance of non-IT factors in the evolving digital workplace. Other implications, limitations and direction for future research are highlighted.

Sociotechnical Theory and Communities of Practice

2009 ◽  
pp. 78-81
Author(s):  
Andrew Wenn
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Interorganizational Communication ◽  
Virtual Community Of Practice ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Entities

Communities of practice (CoPs), by their nature, are social entities. Such communities may be large or small, geographically dispersed or located within a confined region. Essentially, communities of practice consist of members who chose to come together because they have a passionate dedication to sharing knowledge and a desire to develop their own and other’s capabilities (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). No matter what type of CoP (collocated or virtual; intra or interorganizational) communication is one of the prime desiderata. Thus, it is highly likely that technology of some form will be involved. For instance, a virtual community of practice may use e-mail or a more sophisticated groupware application to keep in touch. CoPs within a knowledge management environment will certainly have access to technology. To understand the workings of such communities requires a theory that enables us to deal at the levels of the individual, the group, and the larger world in which the community is embedded (Lave, 1988). Any such theory must be able to account for the role of technology within the community as well as its social aspects.

scholarly journals A Sociotechnical Approach to Evaluating the Impact of ICT on Clinical Care Environments

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Li
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Care ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Clinical Work ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽  
Departmental Culture ◽  
Actual Nature ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
The Impact

Introduction: Process-supporting information technology holds the potential to increase efficiency, reduce errors, and alter professional roles and responsibilities in a manner which allows improvement in the delivery of patient care. However, clashes between the model of health care work inscribed in these tools with the actual nature of work has resulted in staff resistance and decreased organisational uptake of ICT, as well as the facilitation of unexpected and negative effects in efficiency and patient safety. Sociotechnical theory provides a paradigm against which workflow and transfusion of ICT in healthcare could be better explored and understood.Design: This paper will conceptualise a formative, multi-method longitudinal evaluation process to explore the impact of ICT with an appreciation of the relationship between the social and technical systems within a clinical department.Method: Departmental culture, including clinical work processes and communication patterns will be thoroughly explored before system implementation using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Findings will be compared with post implementation data, which will incorporate measurement of safety and workflow efficiency indicators.Discussion: Sociotechnical theory provides a paradigm against which workflow and transfusion of ICT in healthcare could be better explored and understood. However, sociotechnical and multimethod approaches to evaluation do not exist without criticism. Inherent in the protocol are limitations of sociotechnical theory and criticism of the multimethod approach; testing of the methodology in real clinical settings will serve to verify efficacy and refine the process.

Enterprise Systems, Power and Improvisation

2018 ◽  
pp. 237-267
Author(s):  
David W. Wainwright ◽  
Teresa S. Waring
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Systems ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Organizational Environments ◽  
Integrated Technology ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
The Impact

Enterprise systems (ES) have been extensively procured in large organizations but much research fails to develop sociotechnically informed approaches that facilitate their implementation whilst understanding the impact of integrated technology on professional working practices within complex organizational environments. This chapter takes a critically informed sociotechnical approach to power and improvisation in ES implementation. The contribution is a combined “circuits of power-improvisation” (CPI) framework which can facilitate a better understanding of ES implementation, sociotechnical theory, and practice. Practical lessons learned from the study may potentially be used to avoid some of the problems experienced with the over-zealous and rapid introduction of digital technologies into university organizations where the risk is that they become a student mass production system. It highlights the important role of power and improvisation, enabled and afforded by new digital technologies, in what may be misrepresented as planned strategic and deliberate organizational change.

Sociotechnical Theory and NEC System Design

2007 ◽  
pp. 619-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy H. Walker ◽  
Neville A. Stanton ◽  
Dan Jenkins ◽  
Paul Salmon ◽  
Mark Young ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
System Design ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory

Organization Behavior and Organization Theory

2013 ◽  
pp. 160-195
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Organization Structure ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Organization Behavior ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Role Of It

In this chapter, the authors attempt to find a middle ground between optimism and pessimism by approaching organization theory and organization behavior empirically, first looking at the alleged effects of information technology on organization structure and then on behavior. After investigating some of the key questions that relate information technology to organization theory and behavior, the chapter expounds on the role of IT on both organizational theory and behavior in light of the theoretical themes of the book, specifically technological determinism, reinforcement theory, sociotechnical theory, and systems theory.

Enterprise Systems, Power and Improvisation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1593-1615
Author(s):  
David W. Wainwright ◽  
Teresa S. Waring
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Systems ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Organizational Environments ◽  
Integrated Technology ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
The Impact

Enterprise systems (ES) have been extensively procured in large organizations but much research fails to develop sociotechnically informed approaches that facilitate their implementation whilst understanding the impact of integrated technology on professional working practices within complex organizational environments. This chapter takes a critically informed sociotechnical approach to power and improvisation in ES implementation. The contribution is a combined “circuits of power-improvisation” (CPI) framework which can facilitate a better understanding of ES implementation, sociotechnical theory, and practice. Practical lessons learned from the study may potentially be used to avoid some of the problems experienced with the over-zealous and rapid introduction of digital technologies into university organizations where the risk is that they become a student mass production system. It highlights the important role of power and improvisation, enabled and afforded by new digital technologies, in what may be misrepresented as planned strategic and deliberate organizational change.

Technology and Industrial Democracy An inquiry into some theoretical issues and their social basis

1985 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Holtan Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
Industrial Democracy ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
Impact Of Technology ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Similar Issue

The issue of the possible impact of technology on industrial democracy is explored theoretically, using two different approaches — sociotechnical theory and the Marxist labour-process approach. Within each of these approaches, a model of the interaction between technology and democratization is developed to illustrate how different theoretical conceptions produce different problematics and expose a seemingly similar issue in nearly non-comparable ways. The social basis of these differences is also discussed, and the necessity of further theoretical work is argued.

Putting a band-aid on a wooden leg

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 383-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lander Vermeerbergen ◽  
Geert Van Hootegem ◽  
Jos Benders
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Intervention Study ◽  
Job Autonomy ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sociotechnical Theory ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Organisational Level ◽  
The Way

Purpose Decentralisation attempts that aim to increase job autonomy do not always succeed. This paper aims to study to what extent the tendency to maintain existing operational task divisions is an important explanation for this lack of success. Design/methodology/approach In total, 456 employees in 25 organisations participated in a cross-sectional intervention study. Each employee filled out a questionnaire on job autonomy both before and after the decentralisation process, in which all organisations shifted regulatory, preparatory and supportive tasks to the lowest organisational level. Findings This study found small, but significant, effects of decentralisation attempts on job autonomy. The size of the effects, however, depended on the way the way in which the operational tasks were divided. Simultaneously, larger effects were found for organisations which decentralised tasks and changed the way operational tasks were divided. Both findings reached the conclusion that although decentralisation attempts seemed important for increasing job autonomy, the way in which the operational tasks were divided and even changed, was at least as important for a successful decentralisation process. Originality/value After decades of research on modern sociotechnical theory, this study is the first to show that decentralisation attempts do not merely increase job autonomy. The effect of such attempts depends on the way in which operational tasks are divided in organisations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document