ABSTRACT
The term sociotechnical systems (STS) dates back to work carried out in the 1950s by a group of researchers at the London Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. The work of Eric Trist and Fred Emery initially focused on understanding the role of human skill and methods of working (e.g. team working) on productivity within coal mines (Trist and Bamforth, 1951; Emery and Trist, 1960). The primary motivation for the term sociotechnical system was to underscore the role of choice and organisational design in the interaction between people (the social systems) and tools, technologies and techniques (the technical system – Weisbord, 2012). A core value of the STS approach is that given the right choices, social and technical systems could be harmonised and balanced such that productivity, worker satisfaction and safety could be optimised in parallel (Cherns, 1976, 1987).
