Improvement In System Equivalence

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

SOCIO-TECHNICAL THEORY

Prakash perumal(CWID: 892123647)

California State University, Fullerton

Style: APA

Abstract

Socio (Human and society) and technical (machines and equipment) are collectively to give ‘sociotechnical’ and/or ‘socio-technical’. Both mean the same thing but should it be Sociotechnical Theory (STT), Sociotechnical system (STS) or Sociotechnical Systems Theory (STST)? Positively, all of three terms are universally same. For example: "purposeful interacting socio-technical systems…" (Wilson, 2000, p. 557) or "complex Sociotechnical Systems …" (Woo & Vicente, 2003, p. 253) or "sociotechnical work systems…" (Waterson, Older Gray & Clegg, 2002, p. 376).

This paper discuss about the concept for managerial practice of join optimization by introducing the concept of system equivalence in the socio-technical theory. The socio-technical system is the rational tool to identify the pattern of how the technology is produced and how it was used. The join optimization in socio-technical system was termed by Emery in 1959 which focus on how the change should be implemented in organization. This paper will initiate the idea to convert the theoretical concept of join optimization to organization practice by the model system equivalence. This paper also discuss the improve mentation of the system equivalence by introducing the subsystem models which enhance the focus on each system in the organization.

Introduction

Socio-technical theory deals with the interaction among the human behavior, technical aspects and social complexity. The technical subsystem and social sub-system are the two subsystems of the STS in each organization. Researchers from Tavistock Institute in London say that "there should be fit between the two subsystems to archive the expected benefits from the organization. The socio-technical systems are the combination of people and technology but typically it’s much more complex mixture. Socio-technical system includes hardware, software, people, procedures, laws and regulation and data.

Figure 1 combines the socio-technical method and its workings (Bostrom &

Heinen, 1977).

Figure 1: Socio-technical architecture

The researchers hypothesized of the social and technical systems were (Watson, 2004):

The technical sub-system is more than the physical equipment in the organization; it can be defined as tool which converts organizational input in to product output.

The foundation of the socio-technical approach is attained by the joint optimization of the subsystems; every administrative which system maximizes performance only by referencing the subsystem independently.

Problem statement

Socio-technical system has few issues with following designs. Firstly, the implementation of analysis and design in different platform. Secondly, lack of focus in organization change by the impact of subsystem and finaly, the relationship between the before and after implementation.

Goals

Define the work design of socio-technical system.

Explain STS development.

What does join optimization method adds to the standard socio-technical system?

How system equivalence is implemented and measured?

Define future research about STS.

Definition of Terms

Socio-technical system:

The Socio-technical System approach is process of blending human aspects and technical features of the organizational process and to accomplish join optimization along with significant focus on technical performance and people excellence in work.

Literature Review

Socio-technical system

Trish and Bamforth introduced the concept "socio-technical system" when they researched about alteration in British coal mining organization when they change in technical system. The theory is to improve the collaboration between the societies and technology in all level of an organization (beekun, 1989). STS is a dynamic system which pursues to comprehend the variable in the company tiers and relationship with other system to their performance. The studies states that we can get better result in an organization by merging the enhancement in the social and technical systems. By joining the subsystem we can acquire Rapid productivity, quality enhancement, less absence, low cost, robustness and complaints (Pasmore, 1988; Trist and Hugh, 1993).

Joint optimization

After Trish and Bammforth introduced the concept "socio-technical theory", Emery came up with an idea to improve the performance of an organization. He proposed that organization should implement change simultaneous in both system level and social level in order to produce thoroughgoing efficiency.

The study about the automation of weaving sheds in India made him to realize the people are using same classical method which are ineffective and less productive consequently, there were no interaction between each operation. The worker doesn’t collaborate with any other team and they remained in their pre-assigned work; then they adapted to automated mechanization method to weave the sheds which bought socialization between operations became mandatory to accomplish total through put in performance. Subsequently, the researcher advised to demand both technical and social system in the organization requirement. (Cherns, 1987; Pasmore, 1988; Fox, 1995).

Currently, the term "sustainability" is major requirement for most of the organization and their product. Sustainability is an ability to remain unchanged without disturbance or weakening the current performance to meet future requirements (Reinhardt, 2000). Likely to this socio-technical system also needs to be sustainable and promotional, hence both technical and social subsystem is considered in socio-technical theory to maintain sustainability.

The Social System

The organization is a group of people to meet a specific requirement. Organization contain many people with different skills, ability and role thus they need to meet others regardless of the sophistication of the skills and roles they assigned. By this way the organization can deliver a user need in two ways:

Deliver products and services to advance the human society.

Develop the product which fills their personal and social needs through communication and participation.

Hawthrone Effect

Temporary performance improvement is frequently needed for performance improvement in the social system but if the management team doesn’t pay attention to the particular recital area there is a chance of performance depletion. The risk of hawthorne effect can be decreased by implementing the systemic interferences should be to both social and technical systems.

The Technical System

The technical system converts the raw input in to a purposeful product as output. The technical system doesn’t only focus on the physical materials it also focus on the relation between the technology, human ability and interaction used by the organization. The technical system consists of hardware, software, data, data structures and physical environment. It should be highly flexible and sustain upon the change in the organization. The technical system uses technique and procedure of an organization which acquires the inputs then processes the input and provides the output with serves the client and customer. The researchers believe that there is no sufficient focus in the technical system to maintain the performance improvement; consequently, they argue that the business environment should have equal priority as social and technical subsystem to maintain the performance.

Business Environment

The development of any sound organization depends on its environment. There are many ways to keep the environment in the organization to be perfect. In fact many of the scientist, thinkers and philosopher notably Bertanlanffy in 1950 have studied, written and proposed many theories; Unlike Bertanlanffy , the great social thinker like Trist et al have developed the theory to keep the system open to adapt the change in the organizations. The end result of every business organization depends on the input you give. According to the phrase, as you sow so shall you reap; the good output always depends on what you feed to the organization and how you process the input. So to make sound, developing organization it’s not only the responsibility of the working peers in it but also the external factors like supplier, bureaucrats are also responsible. The communication is also the key factor in them.

Many business firms and management organizations have adapted the theory of open system, strategy theories to run the organization. In every organization there are different levels of management and at each level there are managers whose work is to keep the environment upright. For example every organization has board of members and labors and every level of organization has their reasonability and goals. In organization meeting a manager of a specific level can place demand for the product improvement. The demands may get approved if it proved to be good for the organizations. This shows the feedback between the employees, managers and organization.

The change we made in the one subsystem should not make impact on other system; although, it can affect the roll and responsibility of the management. In addition it also affect relationship between the customer and suppliers because, the technical system enhancement is to maximize the organizational progress; thus the people in the organization need to learn and adapt to the change in technical system.

System Equivalence

System equivalence is defined as level at which all three system are mutually equivalent in value. Hence it is more appropriate term to explain the optimization of all three systems as compared to the term joint optimization which seems to be unsuitable and deceptive, since the idea of both the terms is similar. To obtain a highest level of performance it is essential to mix the requirements equally which is done by system equivalence by determining the important aspects of system environment and suggesting to address all the three factors- technical, social and environmental to measure the effectiveness of change in organizational process.  

Measuring system equivalence

The survey methodology which is coined by sabires (1998) is used to calculate the system equivalence. The survey is based on the previous analysis of the organization and current system score. The survey has 20 scales representing aspects of social, technical, and environmental factors within an organization. Table-I lists all 20 scales on the organization based on social, technical and environmental. While Sabiers intended a survey to describe a firm’s social, technical and environmental system, his research is silent on how to measure a firm’s joint optimization. The goal of this paper is to provide such a measurement.

System efficiency = (Scmax – Scmin)/Scavg.

Where,

Scmax – maximum system score (social, technical & environmental)

Scmin – minimum system score (social, technical & environmental)

Scavg – average system score (social, technical & environmental)

The above formula can measure the system equivalence based on the three socio-technical system and these measurement will be used for

Client to understand the change implemented in the system and measure the improvement.

Detect the area to be improved (social, technical and environmental).

Improvement in System Equivalence

System equivalence is endeavoring to maintain the balance between three subsystems. However, centering on individual systems in order to maintain system equivalence seems counter instinctive. Development of the subsystem will increase the focus on scales and will give high system score for an organization.

Figure 2 shows the formation of subsystem from the linkage of three socio-technical systems. The strategic planning lies between the technical system and environmental system and it focus on major capabilities and the environmental variable of the organization. The External relationship lies between social system and environmental system which deals with the relationship with clients and reporting structure of the people in organization. Such as, the management system forms by the linkage of social system and technical system and it deals with the maintenance, learning, rolls and marketing of an organization.

ImageLinkages between the socio-technical subsystems

Conclusion

So far in the STS the join optimization only centers on the blending of social system with technical system .This paper includes the environmental system in to the analysis and methodology which improves the focus of the organization change in socio-technical system. If the System equivalence is used correctly it can improve all the organization efficiency. This paper provides one possible solution to assessing an organization’s current level of system equivalence as well as an alternative approach to traditional socio-technical change methodologies.

The current socio-technical system states that the social technical system should consider only the organization change. However, the modern STS system will introduced the system with gives more clear perspective about the organization change and where we need to focus. The future research should address whether the three system can have same system score and how to prioritize and balance them.