Socio-technical systems theory

Socio-technical systems (STS) theory, first emerged around 1949 at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London (Trist, 1981), has become a common approach for designing or-ganizations and analysing the organizational impact of technology (Cummings, 1978; Dillon

& Morris, 1996). The STS theory is a holistic approach focusing on the interdependencies of technical and social factors occurring between and among individuals, technologies and the

environment within an organization (Cummings, 1978). As it became clear in the previous chapter by outlining the challenges associated with the implementation of ESN, that a suc-cessful adoption does indeed heavily depend on the social aspects involved in the ESN and to a lesser extent on the technical part, we found it particularly appropriate to adopt the STS the-ory for the purpose of our study by analysing the adoption of ESN viewed from the perspec-tive of the STS elements and its principles in order to reach our research aim.

Elements of the STS theory. In the view of the STS theory, an organization is an open work system and consists of technical and social elements, where the socio-technical system is open in this way, that both elements, the social and technical system are part of an inclusive system, but they should be open to its environment, to be able to continuously adapt to the changes in the environment in order to maintain the system state stable (Mumford, 2006). Thus, the work system include on the one hand, the social system referring to the people working in the or-ganization (actors), workgroups and the relationships between them, which in turn are influ-enced by the actors’ attitudes, skills, and values. On the other hand the technical system con-sisting of the work processes and techniques, technologies, knowledge and skills used by the actors of the social system needed for the organization to function and to perform its tasks (Bostrom & Heinen, 1977; Cherns, 1976; Emery & Trist, 1965; Pasmore, Francis, Haldeman,

& Shani, 1982; Trist, 1981).

According to Pasmore et al. (1982), the STS theory suggests

“that organizations are made up of people that produce products or services us-ing some technology, and that each affects the operation and appropriateness of

the technology as well as the actions of the people who operate it” (p.1182).

Indeed, the STS theory provides an integrated concept which support the understanding of the complex way in which individuals cooperate and use technologies in an organizational envi-ronment in order to get their collaborative work done (Eason, 2008). Thus it is widely used for the design of organizational systems that consider human, social, organizational as well as technical factors within a work system (Baxter & Sommerville, 2011; Trist, 1981). By taking both into account, it focuses on the social and the technical factors’ interdependencies , while it is argued that the interactions among the two systems leads to the creation of either success-ful or unsuccesssuccess-ful system performance (Read, Salmon, Lenné, & Stanton, 2014). Indeed, the STS theory has at its core the notion that the performance or design of a work system can only be improved when the social and technical part are brought together and treated as independ-ent aspects (Clegg, 2000). Specifically, STS theory predicts, that when optimization is done in only one subsystem, for example introducing a new technology such as an ESN without con-sidering the social system, it leads to impracticability of the overall system. This is in line with the previously mentioned statement (section 2.3), where it is argued, that social technol-ogies such as ESN is only be useful if it is interpreted and appropriated to the organizations’

social and technical system in order to enable the integration in the work environment and in shared work practices (Riemer et al., 2009). Thus, in order to reach a successful system per-formance, both components need to be managed and designed in a coordinated way in order to attain a joint optimization (Davis et al., 1992).

Principles of the STS theory regarding effective work design. Furthermore, the STS theory can support the creation of an effective work design, where it follows the main proposition, that the overall productivity of a system is directly related to the precise analysis of its social and technical needs and requirements (Appelbaum, 1997). Advocates of the STS have devel-oped several guidelines and principles concerning the design of work. Some of the basic

propositions, stated by Cherns (1976) are, that the work system has to (1) be organized in a way that it is compatible and attain the organization’s goals, (2) adapt to its environment, and (3) group those individuals together in autonomous work groups, that perform related tasks which are relatively differentiated from other units in order to facilitate information, knowledge and learning sharing. In context to the implementation of ESN, this means that the work system emerging through the adoption of the ESN has to be aligned with the overall organizations’ goals, has to be integrated in existing work procedures and processes, and should enable the creation and development of working groups, herein communities within the ESN, related to specific work-related tasks.

Especially the principles of the STS theory, characterizing an effective work design are help-ful to describe the important factors to be considered in analysing the work system. In this respect, the prominent STS author Cherns (1976, 1987) outlines several principles of soci-otechnical design in his paper:

 Compatibility - means that process of design has to be aligned with its objectives

 Minimal critical specification - which means undertaking tasks should be flexibly specified, in a meaning that as much as necessary rules, policies and predefined proce-dures, and as little as possible should be defined

 Variance control - states that processes of variances, or deviations should be con-trolled from where they were originated

 Multifunctionality – points out that an individual should have a variety of skills and expertise in more than one area in order to have work groups characterized by flexibil-ity and the abilflexibil-ity to respond to changes

 Boundary location - indicates that boundaries should be drawn and maintained in an order that it does not hinder the sharing of information, knowledge and learning

 Information flow - states that information systems should be designed in order to pro-vide information to the desired site of action and problem solving,

 Support congruence – means that social systems should be designed in a way that it strengthens the desired social behaviour

 Design and human values - where the work design should enable the achievement of high results by allocating a high quality of work life in order to enable employees to fulfil their individual needs, including the offer of jobs to be reasonably demanding, learning opportunities, an area of decision-making, social support, the ability to con-nect social to work life and a job that leads to the desirable future of the individual.

 Incompletion – refers to the awareness that design is an iterative process, where new demands and conditions arising in the work environment are taken into account by continually rethinking the structures and objectives

Principles in context of ESN. Regarding these principles, ESN can be seen as a sociotech-nical system, where its main focus is to create interactive communication, support social rela-tionships and ad hoc sharing (Riemer et al., 2012). It could then be argued, in order to adopt an ESN successfully, it is needed to take the principles of work design into account such as being aware of its overall objectives (referring to the principle of compatibility), should be aligned with the individual needs, characteristics and abilities (related to the principle of de-sign and human values) or examining behaviour and communication patterns of the individu-als in order to reach the desired social behaviour, which is mostly the enhancement of the amount and efficiency of information sharing (referring to the principle of support congru-ence).

As already indicated earlier, referring to the challenges related to the adoption of ESN (sec-tion 2.3), it has become evident, that ESN has been adopted by many organiza(sec-tions without being successful, mainly caused by lack of management, lack of structure or lack of engage-ment, where employees do not see their benefits in using the system (Alarifi & Sedera, 2013).

It has also been stated, that, organizations in fact need to understand the possible benefits of the system before getting employees to adopt the system (Kügler & Smolnik, 2013). Thus, it can be argued that it is crucial to regard the technology within its social context by consider-ing simultaneously the work practices in which they are embedded (Richter & Riemer, 2013).

Hence, we believe, that viewing the ESN as a sociotechnical system supports us to meet our research objectives, where we are reminded that both has to be taken into account: the social system, with its underlying elements as well as the technical system (Figure 2-8).

Social system

Technological system

Work processes and techniques Knowledge and skills

ESN

Environment

comprises Relates people to

Relationships

Actors interaction

Consists of

Technologies

Attitudes Skills Values and

norms

Influenced by

Work groups Culture

Figure 2-8. ESN as a socio-technical system.

In particular, analysing an ESN and its usage by integrating the STS theory in our research framework, it enables us to reach the main objectives of our study, in a way to being aware of the interdependencies of social and technical subsystem of the ESN and thereby gives impli-cations about what social and technical subsystem elements have to be examined influenced by the ESN.