Socio-technical Perspective Research Articles

Centering the Rule of Law in the Digital State

Driven by the promise of increased efficiencies and cost-savings, the public sector has shown much interest in Automated Decision-Making (ADM) technologies. But the rule of law, human rights, and principles of good government – fundamental in the public sector – are given insufficient priority. This article argues that public sector ADM must recentre these considerations. While attention has been paid to the technology itself, greater focus should be on public-sector oversight, responsibility, and the broader contexts and implications of ADM’s deployment and use. We highlight some of the transparency issues that prevent effective investigation of public-sector ADM and indicate the relevant legal frameworks and their limitations. We explore ways forward, from both a regulatory and sociotechnical systems perspectives, highlighting the need for mechanisms that facilitate reviewability, to enable better governance and oversight of the adoption and use of ADM for public administration. Effectively managing the potential risks by prioritising public sector values would give confidence to the sector to leverage new technologies while maintaining public trust.

Sociotechnical service quality for students and academics at private higher education institutions in South Africa

ABSTRACT The need for private higher education in South Africa is reflected by the explosive growth of newly registered private higher education institutions. This is coupled with a need for corporate quality management of service quality for students and academics. This article elaborates on service quality from a corporate sociotechnical perspective. The research was part of the development of a framework for the holistic management of service quality by means of a corporate total quality service approach. The total quality service framework was developed following a comprehensive sequential research process. This article focuses on the final part of the process: a qualitative open-ended question to identify additional service-quality needs, utilising 499 responses from 647 students and academics. It is concluded that a holistic approach to service quality and the total quality service framework includes quality of work life as a performance objective based on sociotechnical needs beyond the traditional dimensions.

A Socio-Technical Perspective on Urban Analytics: The Case of City-Scale Digital Twins

ABSTRACT This paper demonstrates that a shift from a purely technical to a more socio-technical perspective has significant implications for the conceptualization, design, and implementation of smart city technologies. Such implications are discussed and illustrated through the case of an emerging urban analytics tool, the City-scale Digital Twin. Based on interdisciplinary insights and a participatory knowledge co-production and tool co-development process, including both researchers and prospective users, we conclude that in order to move beyond a mere “hype technology,” City-Scale Digital Twins must reflect the specifics of the urban and socio-political context.

Digitally enabled advanced services: a socio-technical perspective on the role of the internet of things (IoT)

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate how the internet of things (IoT) contributes to manufacturers' advanced services development and delivery. To better understand the creation of these IoT contributions, the study adopts a socio-technical research perspective, which expands the scope of the investigation and integrates the technological, information and social factors that enable these IoT contributions.Design/methodology/approachA multiple-case research method was employed to investigate the IoT contribution scenarios of 15 manufacturers who offer advanced services and to examine their dependence on other non-IoT factors, using thematic analysis.FindingsThe analysis identified five advanced services value propositions, which are enabled by nine “IoT-enabled information systems (IS) artefacts” that specify the distinct interactions between the technological, information and social subsystems supporting the manufacturers' advanced services value propositions.Originality/valueThe study advances the servitisation research by demonstrating that IoT technology on its own is insufficient for the creation of the IoT contributions. It shows, instead, the need for close interactions with a diverse range of other factors, which are often not considered when developing an IoT strategy. The study also introduces the IS artefact notion as a unit of analysis that constitutes an alternative to the commonly adopted techno-centric perspective used to conceptualise IoT contributions. The study and its findings add to the development of a socio-technical perspective on the IoT in advanced services and thereby suggests a number of theoretical and practical implications.

The interconnectedness between efforts to reduce the risk related to accidents and attacks - naval examples

Fatalities on board military vessels are the result of different types of incidents, including both accidents and antagonistic attacks. The aim of this study is to identify aspects that determine the safety and operability of military vessels from a sociotechnical perspective. Safety is studied in relation to four different types of operations: the Falklands War in 1982, antagonistic attacks in situations other than war from 2000 to 2012, submarine incidents from 2000 to 2015, and severe accidents involving military vessels in Norway and Sweden from 1990 to 2015. For the incidents analyzed, the study identifies qualitative aspects that contributed to the outcome and consequences of the incident and, if possible, the risk level. The importance of organizational and management safety issues, personnel safety issues and design safety issues are analyzed. The study shows that different operational types have different risk levels but, to some extent, the same types of safety issues. In general, risk is high when the ship is not prepared and managed for war; the recoverability, i.e., the ability to limit consequences, is an important safety factor in all of the operational types studied. The probability of an incident occurring is governed by management decisions, and the recoverability is governed by the capacity for effective crew actions despite limited management. The presence of external threats leads to a need for extra levels of system understanding, for management and for personnel.

A systematic review on unmanned aerial vehicles in Sub-Saharan Africa: A socio-technical perspective

In recent times, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) popularly known as drone technology have gradually gained widespread adoption all over the world. UAVs’ relevance within modern society stems from it being able to solve socio-economic issues as well as improve productivity. Sub-Saharan Africa has become a region of global interest with regards to technological development, leapfrogging and foreign investment, despite the lag in socio-economic development in comparison with other regions. Backed by socio-technical theory, the aim of this paper is to investigate UAV adoption and its usage in Sub-Saharan Africa by means of a systematic literature review methodology. Selected papers were reviewed, assessed and results were categorized according to the domain within which UAVs have been and are being deployed in Sub-Saharan Africa. We also determined whether the research reported on existing projects or rather made proposals on the use of UAVs.Our results reveal that UAV adoption in the sub-region is still in its early phase, with a number of implemented cases primarily focusing on healthcare and crop farming. The study makes theoretical and practical contributions to the topic of UAVs/drone technology within the sphere of Sub-Saharan Africa from a socio-technical perspective.

Smart Stadium as a Laboratory of Innovation: Technology, Sport, and Datafied Normalization of the Fans

This article addresses the relationship between the contemporary development of the “smart” stadium and changing norms of innovation in sports. Given the evolving forms of smart technologies blurring the boundaries between the actual and mediated domains of sports, an approach that grapples with the broad sociotechnical dynamics within and around sport is necessary. Drawing from critical studies on big data, innovation, and smart cities, this study adopts a sociotechnical perspective to approach Arizona State University’s Sun Devil Stadium, known as one of the first smart stadiums in the United States. This study examines how the smart stadium employs a range of techniques and technologies to engage with and influence broader sociocultural themes in society: the prevalent imperative of innovation and the hyperdigitalization of sport through which bodies in space are becoming knowable and governable in new ways. We conclude that the smart stadium, articulated both literally and figuratively as a “living laboratory of innovation,” appropriates sport as a useful motif to affect broader cultural debates around big data and spatializes new techniques of social ordering through a parametric and processual definition of normalcy.

Digital contact-tracing and pandemics: Institutional and technological preparedness in Africa.

Several countries in Africa have either deployed or considering using digital contact-tracing (DCT) as part of their Covid-19 containment strategy, amidst calls for the use of technology to improve the efficiency of traditional contact-tracing. We discuss some of the complexities entailed in using DCT in Africa. Adopting a socio-technical perspective, we argue that if DCT design and deployment are not well thought out, it can lead to unintended consequences, particularly in a continent like Africa with disproportionate levels of digital divides and other structural inequalities. We suggest that any adoption of DCT by African countries must take account of their compatibility with local resources, values, social structure, and domestic political factors. Accordingly, we propose a process of translation whereby DCT adaptation is made to accommodate the unique institutional and technological characteristics of African countries by leveraging local practices learned from previous pandemics like Ebola to develop a blended epidemiological approach to (digital) contact-tracing.

A Socio-Technical Perspective on the Internet of Things: The Case of Advanced Services

The purpose of the study is to investigate how the Internet of Things (IoT) contributes to the manufacturers’ advanced service development and delivery. In order to better understand the creation of these IoT contributions, the study adopts a socio-technical research perspective which expands the scope of the investigation and integrates the technological, information and social factors that enable these IoT contributions. A multiple-case research method was employed to investigate the IoT contribution scenarios of 15 manufacturers offering advanced services, and to examine their dependence on other non-IoT factors using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. The analysis identified five advanced service value propositions which are enabled by ten ‘IoT-enabled IS artefacts’ which specify the distinct interactions between the technological, information and social subsystems that support the manufacturers’ advanced service value propositions. This study advances servitization research by showing that the IoT technology on its own is not sufficient for the creation of the IoT contributions. It shows instead the need for close interactions with a diverse range of other factors which are often not considered when developing the IoT strategy. The study further introduces the IS artefact notion as a unit of analysis that is an alternative to the commonly adopted techno-centric perspective used to conceptualise the IoT contributions. The study and its findings add to the development of a socio-technical perspective on the IoT in advanced services and generates a number of theoretical and practical implications.

Blockchain: A Panacea for Trust Challenges In Public Services? A Socio-technical Perspective

Article published in The Journal of The British Blockchain Association available open access at https://doi.org/10.31585/jbba-3-2-(6)2020

Integrating molecular point-of-care testing for influenza into primary care: a mixed-methods feasibility study.

BackgroundMolecular point-of-care testing (POCT) for influenza in primary care could influence clinical care and patient outcomes.AimTo assess the feasibility of incorporating influenza POCT into general practice in England.Design and settingA mixed-methods study conducted in six general practices that had not previously participated in respiratory virology sampling, which are part of the Royal College of General Practitioners Research and Surveillance Centre English sentinel surveillance network, from February 2019 to May 2019.MethodA sociotechnical perspective was adopted using the Public Health England POCT implementation toolkit and business process modelling notation to inform qualitative analysis. Quantitative data were collected about the number of samples taken, their representativeness, and the virology results obtained, comparing them with the rest of the sentinel system over the same weeks.ResultsA total of 312 POCTs were performed; 276 were used for quantitative analysis, of which 60 were positive for influenza and 216 were negative. The average swabbing rate was 0.4 per 1000 population and swab positivity was between 16.7% (n = 14/84) and 41.4% (n = 12/29). Given a positive influenza POCT result, the odds ratio of receiving an antiviral was 14.1 (95% confidence intervals [CI] = 2.9 to 70.0, P<0.001) and of receiving an antibiotic was 0.4 (95% CI = 0.2 to 0.8, P = 0.01), compared with patients with a negative result. Qualitative analysis showed that it was feasible for practices to implement POCT, but there is considerable variation in the processes used.ConclusionTesting for influenza using POCT is feasible in primary care and may improve antimicrobial use. However, further evidence from randomised trials of influenza POCT in general practice is needed.

Health Professionals Knowledge of Hospital Waste Sorting and Storage

The nature, diversity, and hazardousness of hospital waste (HW) require specific management procedures. Specific interventions on HW are imperative for modern societies, imposed by public and environmental health policies. The health institutions strategic management plan integrates HW management policies considering a social technic perspective process in their institutional strategic management plan, taking into account a sociotechnical perspective, based on related good practices. Sorting is one of the most critical phases for effective management in reducing risks of generated hospital waste, more specifically at the generation site. Health professionals play an important role in this process since they participate in sorting in different contexts of clinical practice. This research aimed to identify the periodicity of contact of different health professionals such as nurses, doctors and medical assistants (MA) with HW, and their knowledge regarding the practices of sorting and storing of HW. An observational, descriptive, and correlational cross-sectional study was developed. Data were gathered through a questionnaire applied to a sample of 1800 health professionals recruited from a Hospital Center in Porto ( Portugal). Results showed that from the 79% of health professionals who were in contact with HW, 68.7% had adequate knowledge about sorting practices. Health professionals presented more doubts in sorting and storing wastes from Groups III (Biological Hazard HW) and IV (HW of obligatory incineration).

Social capital, employees' well-being and knowledge sharing: does enterprise social networks use matter? Case of Tunisian knowledge-intensive firms

PurposeThe objective of this research is to examine the mediating role of employees' well-being in the workplace in the relationship between the dimensions of social capital, namely structural, relational and cognitive social capital and knowledge sharing, as well as the moderating role of enterprise social networks between knowledge sharing and employees' well-being.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative approach was performed within a sample of 168 middle managers working in knowledge-intensive firms in Tunisia. The Partial Least Squares method was used to analyze the data collected.FindingsResults highlight the importance of the dimensions of social capital as a lever for boosting knowledge sharing. It also reveals that employees' well-being plays a mediating role in the link between structural and relational social capital and knowledge sharing. Moreover, findings show that while enterprise social networks use does not moderate the relationship between employees' well-being and knowledge sharing, it has a positive and significant effect on knowledge sharing.Originality/valueOn the basis of a socio-technical perspective of knowledge management, this research pioneers the examination of the mediating effect of employees' well-being in the link between dimensions of social capital and knowledge sharing and the moderating role of enterprise social networks use within knowledge-intensive firms. Findings of this study may help managers of knowledge-intensive firms in boosting knowledge sharing within organizations, in improving knowledge workers' well-being and thus in motivating and retaining these talented employees.

Data science in the design of public policies: dispelling the obscurity in matching policy demand and data offer

Data Science (DS) is expected to deliver value for public governance. In a number of studies, strong claims have been made about the potential of big data and data analytics and there are now several cases showing their application in areas such as service delivery and organizational administration. The role of DS in policy-making has, on the contrary, still been explored only marginally, but it is clear that there is the need for greater investigation because of its greater complexity and its distinctive inter-organizational boundaries. In this paper, we have investigated how DS can contribute to the policy definition process, endorsing a socio-technical perspective. This exploration has addressed the technical elements of DS - data and processes - as well as the social aspects surrounding the actors’ interaction within the definition process. Three action research cases are presented in the paper, lifting the veil of obscurity from how DS can support policy-making in practice. The findings highlight the importance of a new role, here defined as that of a translator, who can provide clarity and understanding of policy needs, assess whether data-driven results fit the legislative setting to be addressed, and become the junction point between data scientists and policy-makers. The three cases and their different achievements make it possible to draw attention to the enabling and inhibiting factors in the application of DS.

Assistive Technologies: Social Barriers and Socio-Technical Pathways

Against the background of recent international regulation, the role of assistive technologies in the fields of independent living, education, and employment is analyzed in this article to propose a future strategy for a socio-technical perspective on their further development processes. Based on qualitative expert interviews at the European level, the role and scope of ATs in these fields are described for three types of disabilities: visual impairment, hearing impairment, and autism spectrum disorder. The findings show that digitalization processes entail major opportunities and challenges for ATs in all three fields and that further measures are needed to bring technical opportunities to their full potential in adverse social contexts. Regarding future technology development, the authors propose a development strategy focusing strongly on the social context of the devices. Only in this manner, relevant “unintended consequences”, as well as social or ethical concerns, can be identified and addressed.

La efectividad puesta a prueba. Funciones y limitaciones de la videovigilancia del espacio público

La videovigilancia urbana creció exponencialmente en Argentina en los últimos diez años como resultado de la articulación de dos procesos simultáneos: un afianzamiento de políticas orientadas a la prevención situacional del delito y la incorporación de los municipios como actores relevantes en el gobierno de la seguridad. El creciente número de cámaras de seguridad y la disponibilidad de grabaciones de video en la vía pública ha generado debates y controversias en torno a los usos potenciales de estas tecnologías, su efectividad en la reducción del delito y los riesgos para la privacidad. El artículo presenta resultados de una investigación empírica sobre el uso de la videovigilancia en un municipio de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Desde una perspectiva socio-técnica, se indaga en los modos en que las tecnologías interactúan con los actores humanos delineando posibilidades y límites en los usos y funciones de estos sistemas de monitoreo urbano.

Energy Modelling as a Trigger for Energy Communities: A Joint Socio-Technical Perspective

Mainstreaming energy communities has been one of the main challenges in the low-carbon transition of cities. In this sense, urban building energy modelling (UBEM) has an untapped role in enabling energy communities, as simulations on urban models provide evidence-based decision support to reduce risks, engage, motivate and guide actors, assert wider policy goals and regulatory requirements. This accelerating role and the potential of UBEM is not sufficiently understood, as research into energy community focuses on its barriers and impacts, while the research of UBEM is mainly technologically oriented. This review takes a sociotechnical approach to explore whether UBEM is a technological trigger for energy communities, furthering the conceptual framework of transition management. factors influencing energy community progression in different use-cases and stages of their lifecycle are compiled to assess the affordances of distinct capabilities of prevalent UBEM tools. The study provides a guide for energy community planners to UBEM. It matches different tool capabilities to the various stages of the project lifecycle for the different use-cases, equipping them with the means to accelerate the low-carbon transition of cities from the bottom-up. Finally, the study defines a development trajectory oriented towards application in urban sustainability to a rather new UBEM field.

Selected Topics on Socio-technical Perspective in Information Systems: Editorial Introduction to Issue 22 of CSIMQ

This thematic issue of the Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly (CSIMQ) journal is dedicated to fostering a socio-technical perspective in the Information Systems (IS) field. The contemporary perspective has developed a lot over the years and the socio-technical agenda continues to be relevant. The issue contains a selection of extended papers presented at STPIS’19 – 5th International Workshop on Socio-Technical Perspective in IS Development held on June 10, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden in conjunction with the 27th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). The workshop featured presentations of 13 papers and 3 posters and was attended by more than 30 participants from 8 different countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the US). Four of the presented papers were extended for publication in this special issue. The articles presented in this thematic issue contain at least 30% new material compared to the papers initially submitted for the workshop. The last included article was submitted as a regular contribution to the CSIMQ journal and was selected to be included into this thematic issue because of its close connection to the topic of socio-technical systems.

Symbiotic types of systems thinking with systematic management in occupational health & safety

A systems approach to Occupational Health & Safety Management (OHSM) acknowledges that entities of people, equipment, tools, processes and policies are all interconnected and interrelated, and in conjunction affect the outcomes and achievements of any business undertaking. Although several internationally recognised standards for OHSM systems draw on the synergy between systematic management, which reflects the degree of system control, and systems thinking, which represents the degree of system knowledge, the different levels of application of these two approaches during their symbiosis within a given system has not been visibly articulated. In our work, we reviewed relevant literature and reflected on the possible combinations of systematic management practice with the knowledge generated through systems thinking from a sociotechnical perspective. Based on the degree to which any variability is seen as inevitable and the extent to which the organisation aims to control it, we translated the various blends of the two paradigms into the ways an organisation generates and establishes objectives and procedures. Our premise is that there is no golden rule and that systems thinking and systematic management must be combined with caution and an understanding of the inherent limitations of each approach and the context in which they are introduced.

How do industry 4.0 technologies influence organisational change? An empirical analysis of Italian SMEs

PurposeThis article aims to investigate the organisational implications of adopting Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies, giving specific attention to operations. The paper addresses these implications in two directions: organisational prerequisites for, and consequences of, I4.0 technologies.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a multiple case study of Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing. Ten case studies have been developed through interviews, company visits and secondary data collection.FindingsThe multiple case study results show that: (1) a lean organisational structure supports effective adoption of I4.0 technologies; (2) introducing such technologies is linked to developing a new kind of job profile (i.e. the “Autonomous Operative Job Profile”); and (3) higher levels of technology adoption create a higher need for non-technical competences.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of this research relates to the highly heterogeneous maturity levels of the sampled companies, due to the relative newness of the I4.0 paradigm. Future research could, therefore, longitudinally analyse the technology integration process within organisations.Practical implicationsThis research provides preliminary evidence about how organisations and technologies co-evolve, thus suggesting that managers should co-design these areas. It also demonstrates the extreme importance of designing a structured process and a clear set of human resource management tools to favour SME organisational development.Originality/valueThe study is built upon a conceptual framework derived from the sociotechnical perspective that analyses the interconnections between technology implementation and organisational change. From the results, three research propositions are derived to be tested on a larger scale.