In the years immediately after the Second World War, researchers at the Tavistock Institute carried out a number of studies of work organization, looking specifically at questions of innovation and productivity.
This work led to coining the word sociotechnical to refer to a systems
perspective that pays attention to both technical and social factors,
and to the interaction between the technical and the social.
This included a classic study of deep-seam coal mining, where they found two very different forms of organization, which they labelled conventional
and composite
, both operated within the same seam and using identical technology. This finding supported a more general conclusion, that the same
machinery can coexist with different social arrangements.
The original research is described in a number of papers by Eric Trist, Ken Bamforth, Fred Emery, and others.
See also
E. Coakes, R. Lloyd-Jones and D. Willis, The New Sociotech: Graffiti on the Longwall (Springer, 2000)
Bob Cole The Tavistock Institute coal-mining studies (Anglia University, circa 2002)
Barry Palmer, The Tavistock paradigm: Inside, outside and beyond, in R. Hinshelwood and M. Chiesa (eds) Institutions, Anxieties and Defence.
Carmen Sirianni, Tavistock Institute Develops Practices of Contemporary Work Reform (Civic Practices Network 1995)
Case Study: Longwall Mining (February 2002)
Originally published at http://www.veryard.com/system/sociotechnical.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment