data on system approach

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What is System approach theory of Management?A system is a set of inter-connected and inter-related elements directed to achieve certain

goals.

This theory views organisation as an organic and open system composed of many sub-

systems. As a system organisation is composed of a number of sub-systems viz. production,

supportive, maintenance, adaptive managerial, individuals and informal groups.

All these sub-systems operate in an interdependent and interactional relationship. The

various subsystems or parts of an organisation are linked with each other through

communication, decisions,authority responsibility relationships, objectives, policies,

procedures and other aspects of coordinating mechanism. Organisations as systems have a

variety of goals. The important among them are survival, integration and adaptation with

environment and growth.

The major features of the approach to the study of management may be summed up as

under:

1. A system consists of inter-related and interdependent parts.

(2) The approach emphasises the study of the various parts in their inter-relationships

rather than in isolation from each other.

(3) The approach brings out the complexity of a real life management problem much more

sharply than any of other approaches.

(4) The approach may be utilised by any of the other approaches.

(5) The approach has been utilised in studying the function of complex organisations and

has been utilised as the base for new kinds of organisation.

The Systems Approach has an edge over the other approaches insofar as its closeness to

reality is concerned. However the problem with the approach is its utter complexity

particularly when it comes to a study of large and complex organisations. The conceptual

framework of management provided by this approach is too abstract to be useful to

practising managers. The approach recognises the input of environment but does not

functionally relate it to management concepts and techniques.

Differentiate between Open and Closed Systems

An open system is one that interacts with its environment and thus exchanges information,material, or energy with the environment, including random and undefined inputs. Open

systems are adaptive in nature as they tend to react with the environment in such a way

organizing', in the sense that they change their continued existence. Such systems are self

organizing, because they change their organization in response to changing conditions. A

closed system is one, which doesnt interact with its environment. Such systems, in business
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world, are rare. Thus the systems that are relatively isolated from the environment but not

completely closed are termed closed systems.

Socio-Technical System

Sociotechnical systems (STS) inorganizational developmentis an approach to complex

organizationalwork designthat recognizes the interaction

betweenpeopleandtechnologyinworkplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between

society's complex infrastructures and human behaviour. In this sense, society itself, and most of its

substructures, are complex sociotechnical systems. The term sociotechnical systems was coined

byEric Trist, Ken Bamforth andFred Emery, World War II era, based on their work with workers in

English coal minesTavistock InstituteinLondon.[1]

Sociotechnical systems pertains to theory regarding the social aspects ofpeopleandsocietyand

technical aspects of organizational structure and processes. Here, technical does not necessarily

imply material technology. The focus is on procedures and related knowledge, i.e. it refers to the

ancient Greek termlogos. "Technical" is a term used to refer to structure and a broader sense of

technicalities. Sociotechnical refers to the interrelatedness ofsocialand technicalaspects of

anorganizationor thesocietyas a whole.[2]

Sociotechnical theory therefore is aboutjoint

optimization, with a shared emphasis on achievement of both excellence in technical performance

and quality in people's work lives. Sociotechnical theory, as distinct from sociotechnical systems,

proposes a number of different ways of achieving joint optimisation. They are usually based on

designing different kinds of organisation, ones in which the relationships between socio and

technical elements lead to the emergence of productivity and wellbeing.

The idea of a socio-technical system (abbreviated as STS) is an intellectual tool to

help us recognize patterns in the way technology is used and produced. Identification

of these patterns will help us to analyze the ethical issues associated with the

technology-and-its-social-system. Lets take as an example a relatively simple

technology: a set of 10 microcomputers connected to by a network. The social and

ethical issues associated with these networked computers will change dramatically

depending upon the socio-technical system in which they are embedded. For instance,

are the networked computers:

part of the intake unit of an emergency room

a small, public lab at a university

the computing lab of an elementary school

a risk analysis office in an insurance firm

a military supplier testing manufactured parts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_developmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_developmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_developmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_designhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_designhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_designhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technologyhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Workplacehttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Workplacehttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Workplacehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Tristhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Tristhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Tristhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Emeryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Emeryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Emeryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock_Institutehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock_Institutehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock_Institutehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logoshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logoshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logoshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logoshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock_Institutehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Emeryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Tristhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Workplacehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_designhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_development


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The networked computers in each of these different circumstances are part of different

socio-technical systems. The "ethical issues in computing" arise because of the nature

of specific socio-technical systems, not because of the computers in isolation. Many

of these ethical issues are intimately related, however, to the technology: issues of

reliability of the system in the emergency room, data privacy in the insurance

company, free speech and misuse in the public university lab. These are not just socialsystems, they are socio-technical systems, and the ethical issues associated with them

are based in the particular combination of technology and social system. It is the

technology, embedded in the social system that shapes the ethical issues

A socio-technical system is a mixture of people and technology. It is, in fact, a much

more complex mixture.

Socio-technical systems include:

HardwareMainframes, workstations, peripheral, connecting networks. This is

the classic meaning of technology. It is hard to imagine a socio-technical

system without some hardware component (though we welcome suggestions).

In our above examples, the hardware is the microcomputers and their

connecting wires, hubs, routers, etc.

SoftwareOperating systems, utilities, application programs, specialized code.

It is getting increasingly hard to tell the difference between software and

hardware, but we expect that software is likely to be an integral part of any

socio-technical system. Software (and by implication, hardware too) oftenincorporates social rules and organizational procedures as part of its design

(e.g. optimize these parameters, ask for these data, store the data in these

formats, etc.). Thus, software can serve as a stand-in for some of the factors

listed below, and the incorporation of social rules into the technology can make

these rules harder to see and harder to change. In the examples above, much of

the software is likely to change from the emergency room to the elementary

school. The software that does not change (e.g. the operating system) may have

been designed more with one socio-technical system in mind (e.g. Unix was

designed with an academic socio-technical system in mind). The re-use of this

software in a different socio-technical system may cause problems ofmismatch.

Physical surroundings. Buildings also influence and embody social rules, and

their design can effect the ways that a technology is used. The manager's office

that is protected by a secretary's office is one example; the large office suite

with no walls is another. The physical environment of the military supplier and


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the elementary school are likely to be quite different, and some security issues

may be handled by this physical environment rather than by the technology.

Moving a technology that assumes one physical environment into a different

environment one may cause mismatch problems.

PeopleIndividuals, groups, roles (support, training, management, linepersonnel, engineer, etc.), agencies. Note that we list here not just people (e.g.

Mr. Jones) but roles (Mr. Jones, head of quality assurance), groups

(Management staff in Quality Assurance) and agencies (The Department of

Defense). In addition to his role as head of quality assurance, Mr. Jones may

also have other roles (e.g. a teacher, a professional electrical engineer, etc.).

The person in charge of the microcomputers in our example above may have

very different roles in the different socio-technical systems, and these different

roles will bring with them different responsibilities and ethical issues. Software

and hardware designed assuming the kind of support one would find in a

university environment may not match well with an elementary school or

emergency room environment.

Proceduresboth official and actual, management models, reporting

relationships, documentation requirements, data flow, rules & norms.

Procedures describe the way things are done in an organization (or at least the

official line regarding how they ought to be done). Both the official rules and

their actual implementation are important in understanding a socio-technical

system. In addition, there are norms about how things are done that allow

organizations to work. These norms may not be specified (indeed, it might be

counter-productive to specify them). But those who understand them know how

to, for instance, make complaints, get a questionable part passed, and find

answers to technical questions. Procedures are prime candidates to be encoded

in software design.

Laws and regulations. These also are procedures like those above, but they

carry special societal sanctions if the violators are caught. They might be laws

regarding the protection of privacy, or regulations about the testing of chips in

military use. These societal laws and regulations might be in conflict with

internal procedures and rules. For instance, some companies have implicit

expectations that employees will share (and probably copy) commercial

software. Obviously these illegal expectations cannot be made explicit, but they

can be made known.

Data and data structures. What data are collected, how they are archived, to

whom they are made available, and the formats in which they are stored are all

decisions that go into the design of a socio-technical system. Data archiving in


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an emergency room it will be quite different from that in an insurance

company, and will be subject to different ethical issues too.

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