Sociotechnical Systems and Management Styles
In today’s advanced technological workplace, companies are looking into several new management styles and concepts. Among them is a theory called sociotechnical systems (STS). This is a theory that has been around for about 50 years and is still being attempted for use today. Many managers along with one member of the STS founding team, Fred Emery, argue that STS is obsolete; other managers have implemented STS with great success. With this new style of management practice, several changes will have to take place. These changes along with several examples of both positive and negative effects will be examined throughout this essay.
To introduce the STS theory and let the reader get an understanding of just what is involved in STS, it is imperative to list several changes that must take place for an effective STS strategy to work. A few changes in the old management style in comparison with STS are listed below: 1
Old
-Technology first
-People as extensions of machines
-Maximum task breakdown, simple, narrow skills
-External controls: procedures, supervisors, specialist staffs
-More organization levels, autocratic style: unilateral goal setting, assignment of workers
-Frequent alienation: “It’s only a job”
-Less individual development opportunity and employment security STS
-Joint optimization of systems
-People as complements to machines
-Optimal task grouping, multiple, broad skills
-Internal controls: self-regulating subsystems
-Fewer levels, participative style: Bilateral goal setting
-Commitment: “It’s my job, group, and organization”
-More individual development opportunity and employment security
As seen above, many changes are nece...
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...John Hoerr and Michael Pollock. “Management Discovers the Human Side of Automation.” Taken from Business Week. (1986), p. 1
http://organizationdesign.com/pages/articles2/auto.html
10 John Hoerr and Michael Pollock. “Management Discovers the Human Side of Automation.” Taken from Business Week. (1986), p. 2 http://organizationdesign.com/pages/articles2/auto.html
11 John Hoerr and Michael Pollock. “Management Discovers the Human Side of Automation.” Taken from Business Week. (1986), p. 1 http://organizationdesign.com/pages/articles2/auto.html
12 Pasmore, William. Designing Effective Organizations: The Sociotechnical Systems Perspective. New York: 1998.
13 Jacobs, D.A. and Keating C.B. “Process Analysis and Personnel Development Program. Jefferson Lab, Newport News, VA, April 1998.
14 Zell, Deone. Changing by Design. Cornell University Press, 2000.
Both of these two chapters analyze the effects of automation on two different types of professions. I found it interesting that individuals working as reservation agents find it easier to cope with automation than McDonald's employees. I guess this is due to the fact that reservation agents are allowed to practice a little more individual thinking than someone waiting for a buzzer telling him or her when to flip a meat patty.
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Krill, Paul. "The Age of the Sentient Machine Is upon Us." InfoWorld. 14 Mar. 2013. Web.
Brooks, R. A. 2003. Prologue, In: Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, Vintage.
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Papazian, Dennis R. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Technology: Master or Slave?. University of Michigan-Dearborn, 1992. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. .
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Partridge, Derek and K. M. Hussain. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and BUSINESS MANAGMENT. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corparation, 1992.
"The human aspiration to create intelligent machines has appeared in myth and literature for thousands of years, from stories of Pygmalion to the tales of the Jewish Golem." Anat Treister-Goren, Ph.D. (http://www.a-i.com/)
Williams, Gray ?Robots and Automation.? The new book of popular science. Grolier Inc., 1996, 186-94.
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