Organizational Change As An Example Of Socio-Technical Design

This study focuses on Organizational Change as an example of Socio-Technical Design (STD). STD is an approach that aims to give equal weight to social and technical issues when new work systems are being designed [8]. It is widely acknowledged that implementing a socio-technical design approach leads to systems that are more acceptable by stakeholders during organizational change. Despite this, STD is not often used or not correctly practiced in organizations. Baxter and Sommerville noted that even though many managers realize that socio-technical issues are important, socio-technical design methods are rarely used [1]. The study data was derived from the preliminary work done on the case study in a telecommunication company adopting an Action Research (AR) approach. It is based on the researcher and participants' experience together with reflection, a collaboration between the researcher and the employees’. Action research in an organizational setting draws the researcher and the employees involved into a joint process aimed at solving organizational problems and creating new ideas. According to Schurman et al action research is a co-learning process, employees’ are involved in most aspects of the research and action, and the problems addressed are generated by the employees themselves and not theories by the researcher [2]. This study recommends that to realize the goals of organizational changes, the objective of socio-technical which has always been joint optimization of the social and technical systems should be observed. The technical system covering technology and the social system covering the individuals in the chosen boundary.