Sociotechnical Theory Research Articles

SOCIAL MEDIA INDUCED TECHNOSTRESSORS AND ITS IMPACT ON PRODUCTIVITY AND WORK/HOME CONFLICT PRE COVID-19

ABSTRACT Digital technologies, in particular social media has rapidly become a major fixture in both our work and personal lives. This study empirically tests new constructs and validates the impact of certain technostressors: information overload, technostress, and the role of presenteeism as key to determining the impact on productivity and conflict (between work-family and technology-family) related to digital technology, social media use. Keywords technostress, work-family conflict, digital technology, social media, sociotechnical theory

The Moderating Effects of Dynamic Capability on Radical Innovation and Incremental Innovation Teams in the Global Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Industry

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a quantitative, integrative and systematic literature review of the moderating effects of dynamic capability associated with radical innovation and incremental innovation teams in the global pharmaceutical biotechnology industry. This paper utilizes a conceptual framework of dynamic capability and socio-technical theory to underpin the study. The study includes 250 articles which were originally surveyed, and then a final selection of 66 articles was based on a structured coding system. The study outcome reveals that knowledge sharing strengthens existing professional knowledge and enhances internal work coordination and consistency in employees’ behavior, and effectively integrates diverse team knowledge and experience. Open innovation has a positive effect on radical innovation and enables knowledge acquisition to form a symbiotic relationship with knowledge sharing. Learning orientation has a stronger effect on incremental innovation than on radical innovation. The limitations of the study are related to a systematic literature review for this research does not establish causality. The mediating effects of dynamic capability on teams are not explored for this research. The implications for management are as follows, teams must be given the autonomy to make decisions from a technical perspective. Tacit knowledge, open innovation, knowledge acquisition and learning orientation are areas in which priority must be given during and after acquisitions in the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry.

School-based telemedicine: Perceptions about a telemedicine model of care.

In New Zealand, a store-and-forward telemedicine programme is implemented in schools to address common health conditions. This study aimed to investigate perceptions of the non-clinical school staff involved on this telemedicine model of care. Interviews and analysis were framed by sociotechnical theory under constructs of identities, affiliations, interactions and environments. Findings show that telemedicine aligned with identities of staff as carers. Affiliations via close relationships with children and community support enabled the programme. Delivering telemedicine enhanced interactions with children. Environments related to practices and physical characteristics of the school were viewed as constrainers and enablers for delivery. School-based telemedicine delivered by school staff is perceived as an acceptable model of care. Benefits include empowerment, school cohesion and potential improvement in health literacy, with no major issues perceived. Telemedicine may be effective for treating common health conditions in school children, with potential for community members to be involved in health care.

ITAIPU TECHNOLOGICAL PARK (ITP) SOCIO-TECHNICAL TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY

Environmental problems arising with uncontrolled growth increased the interest in studies that combine innovation and sustainability. In this sense, eco-innovation is an approach that contributes to the understanding of the relation between society, economy and the environment. Technology parks are considered innovative environments for the new technologies development, which can be explained by the socio-technical transition theory. Thus, the objective of this paper was to analyse the transition from the eco-innovative niche to an eco-innovative regime at the Itaipu Technological Park (ITP), by basing on a socio-technical approach to understand the different co-evolution influences on the social and technical environment. We were able to show that the ITP, with their sponsor support, Itaipu Binacional, created an eco-innovation favourable environment. The infrastructure of its facilities and labs, in addition to its eco-innovative culture turned ITP into an open environment to the development of eco-innovations.

Role of organizational aspects in requirements engineering processes of a socio-technical system: Insights from E-Governance case studies

Requirements engineering (RE) contributes to developing products of a socio-technical system. External triggers cause transitions in socio-technical systems; to manage transitions the products need to form stable designs. During RE and software development, organisations interact with rulesets (interoperations) and the organisational aspects influence interoperations. When we extend interoperations from socio-technical transition theory, it assists product development, including RE, and contributes to the stabilisation of product designs. With an approach that analyses inter-organisational interactions, the author extended one of the existing transition theories and identified improvements to organisational aspects. With diverse heuristics and analytic views, we can examine the phenomenon (interoperations) and requires studying it in its settings; so, used a multi-case study method to represent diverse interoperations. Selected traditional software development cases of e-governance and represented all socio-technical transition trajectories. The author extended socio-technical transition theory and contributes to inter-organisational body-of-knowledge by adding additional categories to inter-organisational approach.

De los silos a la colaboración interprofesional: un estudio de caso de métodos mixtos que utiliza investigación-acción participativa para fomentar equipos multidisciplinarios en un departamento de cirugía de un centro de dí

This single case study reports on the establishment of a multidisciplinary day care surgery at a Norwegian University Hospital utilising participating action research design principles drawn from sociotechnical theory. Data was collected through mixed methods including stakeholder analysis, document studies, observations of meetings, semi-structured interviews and participating group methods. The senior management at the hospital had decided to implement a department that diverged from organising around professional disciplines, and this decision evoked strong resistance among several professional groups in the first phases of this project. This case follows the implications of the decision to establish a multidisciplinary day care surgery through re-organising location, staff and management structures. The findings suggest that the hospital achieved the vision of creating an efficient multidisciplinary work environment, reducing the culture of tribalism between professions, and creating a work environment with a high degree of knowledge transfer. This case describes how action research can be used to reduce organisational silos and to improve multidisciplinary co-operation.

Teaching “Against” Social Media: Confronting Problems of Profit in the Curriculum

Educators increasingly teach with social media in varied ways, but they may do so without considering the ways in which social media corporations profit from their uses or compromise transparency, equity, health, safety, and democracy through the design of platforms. There is a lack of scholarship that addresses the curricular topics that educators might investigate to teach about social media platforms and the potential challenges they pose for education and society. In this article, we draw on sociotechnical theories that conceive of social media as microsystems to understand the relationship between users, education, and social media companies. We identify and describe five topics concerning social media design that educators can consider and investigate with students in a variety of settings: user agreements and use of data; algorithms of oppression, echo, and extremism; distraction, user choice, and access for nonusers; harassment and cyberbullying; and gatekeeping for accurate information. In each case, we suggest curricular possibilities for teaching about social media platforms that draw from intersections of curriculum, media, and educational studies.

Multiple Conjunctural Impact on Digital Social Innovation: Focusing on the OECD Countries

This study aims to explore the influencing factors of multidisciplinary digital social innovation (DSI) in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member countries in light of the socio-technical system transition theory. It sets up the eight variables of the four areas that comprise the DSI, and then identifies the causal conditions (arrangements) based on the empirical findings through the fuzzy-set multi-conjunctural analysis. In short, it concludes that, if OECD member countries have high level of democracy and e-participation, high GDP and business-friendly environment, high social expenditure, and high level of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) development and patent applications, they are highly likely to achieve a sufficient level of digital social innovation. This study underlines that the result of combined arrangement explains that the DSI can be more properly characterized by the multi-level and structured approach of the socio-technical system transition that goes beyond the fragmentary approach of existing innovation theories and the current related academic field. Moreover, this study reveals that the social factors (including the social capital variable) that have attracted attention from previous studies may have little effect on the DSI. In essence, it suggests that citizen interaction and social change can be newly formed through technological innovation in a multi-dimensional way, and that more in-depth discussion regarding the new context of ‘digital citizen’ might be required.

What Makes Hosts Trust Airbnb? Antecedents of Hosts’ Trust toward Airbnb and Its Impact on Continuance Intention

Sharing economy platforms are growing at an unprecedented rate. Travel and tourism scholars have been focusing on customers’ sharing intention, yet the literature has largely overlooked what makes sharing service providers trust a sharing economy platform and decide to continue using it. Drawing on sociotechnical theory and the information systems success model, in conjunction with privacy concerns and economic value perspectives, this study develops an integrated model of antecedents and consequences of trust toward sharing economy platforms. Data from 606 Airbnb hosts were analyzed through structural equation modeling. Our research documents the importance of social antecedents (i.e., social value orientation and social utility), technical antecedents (i.e., system quality, service quality, and information quality), economic antecedents (i.e., monetary rewards) and privacy assurance antecedents (i.e., perceived effectiveness of privacy policy) in shaping hosts’ trust toward Airbnb, thereby enhancing their continuance intention with regard to using the platform.

BARRIERS TO RADICAL INNOVATIONS AS STABLE DESIGNS: INSIGHTS FROM AN IT CASE STUDY

Radical innovations start as product innovations in sub-systems of the socio-technical system. External triggers cause product innovations which in turn influence transitions of a socio-technical system. Socio-technical systems require configurations and/or customisations to multiple sub-systems not necessarily to ICT alone. Expansions to product innovations in the sub-systems are required to provide meaningful designs. Actors combine meaningful designs of various sub-systems and devise solutions and its adoption. Product innovations cumulate as stable designs when solutions meet end-users wants and needs, and require changes to policies, procedures, and methods used during devising and adoption of the solution. In other words, we require process innovations. The author using a single case study examines the above phenomena. The methods and theories towards process innovations assist in expanding the existing socio-technical transition theories, especially Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), thereby assisting actors in analysing, learning, adjusting, and internalise innovations while they navigate, struggle, and negotiate alternatives.

In Sharing Economy We Trust: Examining the Effect of Social and Technical Enablers on Millennials’ Trust in Sharing Commerce

Sharing commerce is an e-commerce business model where service providers (who provide possession of goods) and customers (who acquire temporary ownership for a fee) are connected through commercial networking systems tailored by service enablers. Research on sharing commerce to date investigate key drivers of consumer engagement in sharing commerce platforms, but relatively little attention has been given to the role of trust, and trust formation. Drawing on the socio-technical theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of social and technical enablers on consumer trust and whether trust influences users' continued use and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) in the context of sharing commerce. Results of an empirical study (N = 211 active Airbnb millennial users) indicate that social referrals, information quality and transaction safety positively affect users’ trust, which in turn facilitate their continued intention to use the sharing commerce platform and share positive word-of-mouth testimonials and postings thus sharing positive consumption experiences with other consumers. Results also suggest that transaction security is approximately four times more effective at increasing trust than social referrals and 2.68 times more effective at enhancing trust than information quality.

Electric vehicles in Danish Municipalities: An Understanding of Motivations, Barriers, and the Future of Sustainable Mobility

This paper explores the procurement, use, and experience of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in Danish municipalities in relation to the notion of early adopters and socio-technical theory. Denmark has been one of the most ambitious countries in terms of electric vehicle adoption and use. This study used a combination of in-depth surveys and interviews with all 61 Danish municipalities on their fleet PEV experience and use. By building on the literature, the paper offers a deeper understanding of decision-making pathways for the procurement of PEVs. PEVs were found to be most suited to certain departments and the acceptance and uptake of PEVs was found to be complex and not straightforward.

How One Rural Community in Transition Overcame Its Island Status: The Case of Heckenbeck, Germany

In the public debate, sustainable innovations are mostly associated with urban contexts, whereas rural areas are rarely seen as potentially creative sites. In contrast to this widespread suggestion, however, recent studies show that rural communities can also play a pivotal role in generating sustainable solutions. Yet, the transformative potentials of villages often remain socially limited to pioneers’ personal networks and spatially restricted to insulated places. In this context the question arises of how rural communities in transition to sustainability can overcome their island-status to develop transformative potentials. In order to answer this question, we take the example of Heckenbeck, a village located in southern Lower Saxony (Germany), as a case and examine the social interactions and networks that exist between local sustainability niches and the socio-technical regime. By applying socio-technical transition theory in a multi-scalar perspective, our study illustrates how a group of niche actors has accomplished to effectively transform the local regime by spreading their ideas among their fellow village members and to put pressure on the regional regime by using windows of opportunity created in the socio-technical landscape to build multifaceted social networks to various sectors of society. The case provides lessons learnt and discusses possibilities and limits to transfer these lessons to other contexts.

Behind the scenes: Understanding the socio-technical barriers to BIM adoption through the theoretical lens of information systems research

• A meta-analysis is conducted to summarise the empirical results from 21 studies addressing the barriers to BIM adoption. • The empirical results are presented based on a socio-technical theory framework. • Theoretical foundations from IS research are provided to enhance the understanding of the barriers towards BIM adoption. • The results indicate that social barriers of BIM are the most important barriers to its widespread adoption. • Compared to the social barriers, purely technical rooted adoption barriers are rather rare and less critical.

Revealing the Influential Factors Driving Social Commerce Adoption

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to identify the main factors influencing consumers’ adoption of social commerce (s-commerce). Based on the socio-technical theory, the study suggests a research model that investigates the key social and technical factors driving consumers’ decision to purchase from social commerce websites. In addition, the research model explores the interactive relationship among these factors. Background: The phenomenon of social commerce (s-commerce) has emerged due to the increased penetration of social media and the rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) companies have made significant efforts to shift their operations to s-commerce. Therefore, to facilitate their efforts to transform, various research has been conducted to investigate the main factor influencing the adoption of s-commerce. Most of these studies have emphasised the social aspects related to s-commerce design features to understand how the use of advanced web technologies influence how customers interact with each other in s-commerce environments. However, s-commerce is viewed as a socio-technical system that requires the investigation of both social and technical factors to help in the design of effective s-commerce platforms. Methodology: To validate the proposed research model, 418 paper-based and online questionnaires were collected from online shoppers in Jordan. The Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) approach was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Contribution: This study offers a research model that serves as a theoretical framework for investigating customers’ behaviour in s-commerce environment. It represents a strong context-specific model that includes both the technical and social facilitators of s-commerce. The research model participates in gaining an improved understanding of how customers’ intention, actual purchase and post-purchase experience are formed in the s-commerce environment. Findings: The results of Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) reveal that s-commerce constructs, familiarity and user experience have a positive influence on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of s-commerce. In addition, perceptions of its usefulness and ease of use have a positive influence on trust, which in turn influences the purchase intention and the actual purchase. Finally, the post-purchase experience significantly influences both trust and purchase intention. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study shows that social commerce constructs strengthen customers’ perceptions of usefulness. S-commerce service providers are required to provide their customers with various channels to seek social support. Both familiarity and user experience are key enablers of customers’ perceived ease of use. S-commerce service providers consider the variation in customers’ familiarity and experience with s-commerce websites because this has a significant influence on purchase intentions and behaviour. Consequently, system designers should offer useful and sufficient information and tutorials that effectively guide customers in their searching, decision-making and purchasing activities throughout the shopping process. S-commerce service providers should understand the importance of providing secure payment systems and make their privacy policies clear to customers. Post-purchase experience has an influential role in reinforcing customers’ trust and purchase intention. The findings confirm the important role of post-purchase experience in retaining customers by improving their trust and repurchase intention. Therefore, making a customer’s post-purchase experience pleasant should be a key priority for s-commerce service providers because it has a significant influence on customers’ trust and repurchase intentions. Recommendation for Researchers: This study offers a unidimensional conceptualisation of the design features of s-commerce. These features include three main forms: recommendations and referrals, communities and forums, and reviews and ratings. Such conceptualisation provides additional insights and an understanding of the activities of information sharing in s-commerce. The significance of the technical side of s-commerce is highlighted and empirical proof is provided that social interactions guided by social technologies enhance customers’ perceived usefulness of an s-commerce website, thus increasing their trust and intention to purchase which leads to an actual purchase. This offers insights into the various types of s-commerce characteristics that contribute to facilitating customers’ purchase behaviour on s-commerce websites. Impact on Society: The findings offer insights which have important implications for research and practice to help facilitate the adoption of s-commerce. Future Research: This study considered the s-commerce websites as a homogenous online environment. Additional research could collect data from diverse online communities, such as professional groups, to provide a comprehensive understanding of how a wider variety of user behaviour is affected. Second, this was a quantitative study based on data collected in a questionnaire. Further studies may consider using qualitative or mixed methodologies (i.e. focus groups and interviews) to explore other technical and social factors that influence the use of s-commerce.

Mobile payments: A proposal for a context-oriented approach based on socio-technical theory

A recent review of mobile payment research by Dahlberg et al. (2015) concludes that there is a need to synthesise this research area by studying contexts in which innovation is carried out and to integrate different aspects of research. This article aims to provide a proposal for how to achieve such integration and context orientation by building on previous studies and offering an additional review. Our systematic literature review of mobile payments research is focused on papers published during 2006–2016. The main objective is to examine how mobile payments research has been conducted from the methodological and theoretical perspectives. Our findings show that research on mobile payments is a multidisciplinary research. Three main themes in the research (in line with previous studies) are customer adoption, technological aspects, and business aspects. Moreover, research is mainly analytical based on a deductive approach. To meet the challenge formulated in the previous research, we propose and apply a socio-technical system framework to achieve synthesis and context-specific consideration in future research on mobile payments.

Mobile payments: A proposal for a context-oriented approach based on socio-technical theory

A recent review of mobile payment research by Dahlberg et al. (2015) concludes that there is a need to synthesise this research area by studying contexts in which innovation is carried out and to integrate different aspects of research. This article aims to provide a proposal for how to achieve such integration and context orientation by building on previous studies and offering an additional review. Our systematic literature review of mobile payments research is focused on papers published during 2006–2016. The main objective is to examine how mobile payments research has been conducted from the methodological and theoretical perspectives. Our findings show that research on mobile payments is a multidisciplinary research. Three main themes in the research (in line with previous studies) are customer adoption, technological aspects, and business aspects. Moreover, research is mainly analytical based on a deductive approach. To meet the challenge formulated in the previous research, we propose and apply a socio-technical system framework to achieve synthesis and context-specific consideration in future research on mobile payments.

Análise do efeito das práticas sociotécnicas no desempenho em qualidade e saúde dos colaboradores em empresas com implementação Lean

A utilização de práticas sociotécnicas é mencionada como um direcionador da satisfação dos colaboradores dentro da organização. A implementação de práticas do Lean Manufacturing também é referida como um aspecto importante para a melhoria do desempenho em termos de qualidade e redução de custo. Este artigo tem por objetivo identificar o efeito moderador da aplicação de práticas just-in-time sobre a relação entre as práticas sociotécnicas e o desempenho de qualidade de saúde dos colaboradores em empresas com implementação Lean. Foi desenvolvida uma pesquisa com 144 empresas do sul do Brasil em processo de implementação Lean. Os resultados indicam que as práticas sociotécnicas apresentam relação significativa com o desempenho da empresa em qualidade e saúde dos colaboradores, e a implementação de práticas just-in-time não prejudica o desempenho desses indicadores nas empresas.

A multilevel approach to big data analysis using analytic tools and actor network theory

Background: Over the years, big data analytics has been statically carried out in a programmed way, which does not allow for translation of data sets from a subjective perspective. This approach affects an understanding of why and how data sets manifest themselves into various forms in the way that they do. This has a negative impact on the accuracy, redundancy and usefulness of data sets, which in turn affects the value of operations and the competitive effectiveness of an organisation. Also, the current single approach lacks a detailed examination of data sets, which big data deserve in order to improve purposefulness and usefulness.Objective: The purpose of this study was to propose a multilevel approach to big data analysis. This includes examining how a sociotechnical theory, the actor network theory (ANT), can be complementarily used with analytic tools for big data analysis.Method: In the study, the qualitative methods were employed from the interpretivist approach perspective.Results: From the findings, a framework that offers big data analytics at two levels, micro- (strategic) and macro- (operational) levels, was developed. Based on the framework, a model was developed, which can be used to guide the analysis of heterogeneous data sets that exist within networks.Conclusion: The multilevel approach ensures a fully detailed analysis, which is intended to increase accuracy, reduce redundancy and put the manipulation and manifestation of data sets into perspectives for improved organisations’ competitiveness.

The impact of quality practices and employee empowerment in the performance of hospital units

Healthcare is a unique services environment with increasing demand for services coupled with widely diverse patient needs. In addition, hospitals are under increased pressure to provide quality care yet simultaneously decrease associated costs. This study examines how the use of quality practices and employee empowerment impact hospital unit outcomes. Specifically, the sociotechnical theory is used to explain the relationship of quality practices and employee empowerment in respiratory care services. Utilising data from 101 different hospital units, survey responses from managers and physicians within the same hospital units are used to test the impact on quality and cost of care performance metrics via path modelling. The results show the social side of improvement programs, i.e. employee empowerment, may be a critical component to true quality improvement in hospital units. Furthermore, while respiratory care managers feel that employee empowerment reduces costs of patient care, physicians felt that there was no impact on costs. The implications of these findings and differing perspectives are discussed.