Reference:Evolution of socio-technical systems/Developments at the mactosocial level

In the socio-technical field as a whole, the knowledge base is unevenly distributed. Most is known about primary work systems and a good deal about modeling new plants. Far less is known about transforming existing work establishments. Even less, however, is known about socio-technical processes at the macrosocial level. The payoff from directing research attention to this level would be considerable.

The microprocessor revolution

As regards macrotechnological trends, the advent of the microprocessor and related electronic technologies may be regarded as an event of prime consequence. Many think that a fifth Krondradieff cycle has now started. A lead technology has been associated with each of these cycles since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Microprocessors are the lead technology of the new cycle (Emery. 1978b). The French have introduced the word télématique to denote the link with communications.

A number of questions and issues arise:

1. This family of technologies has applications in all industries, whether manufacturing or service. It is a 'universal' with consequences which are pervasive. Its possible impact over the whole field has to be examined, choices made and policies worked out. Otherwise the process will run blind.
2. Mass unemployment is likely unless offsetting measures are drawn up in advance. Simplifications and cost reduction are possible in some sections of the engineering industry where layoffs have been estimated at 80 percent (Emery, 1978b). Word processing is likely to occasion similar personnel shrinkages in many white collar occupations, which will not be able to absorb those made redundant from manufacturing as they did during the first round of automation. Jenkins and Sherman (1979) forecast an overall reduction of 23.2% in the British labor force by the year 2000 and identify high-risk job functions and sectors.^[1]
3. The opportunities for decentralization are unprecedented, provided they are taken. According to the value choices made, they could lead in the opposite direction.
4. The opportunities are not only for decentralization, but for democratization. Since a step-function increase in two-way communication is now becoming possible, large-scale dialogue will be feasible. Public learning systems, as imagined by Schon (1971), especially in relation to government, could be created (if people want them - and are not stopped from developing them).
5. The socio-technical systems involved are not confined to work organizations. They include the built environment - the urban scene, the home - and travel, leisure, etc. Proactive consumer linkage with selling organizations represents another new field.
6. The designers of new technologies dependent on computers and telecommunications belong.fo engineering disciplines far removed from socio-technical considerations. Unless educated to the con~ trary, they will follow the technological imperative and mortgage a good deal of the future. As with the industrial engineer, the strategy of choice would be to open up collaborative projects with them. A colleague of mine, formerly at York University, Toronto, himself a computer scientist, has begun a project with system builders on the hypothesis that if they will look at the quality of their own worklife, this will be a step towards inducing them to look at that of users.^[1]

Advanced Western societies are on the threshold of a profound change in the texture of their socio-technical relations. This entails a change not only in quantity but in quality. It represents a discontinuity, as witness the opportunities for scaling down rather than up, dispersal rather than concentration, and self-management rather than external control. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, a major class of technological forces is supportive (in potentia) of efforts to countervail some of the main negative impacts of that revolution. on society.

The meaning of work and alternatives to employment. Simply to shorten the work week by a day or to propose some equivalent device is unlikely to provide a solution to unemployment on the scale anticipated in the eighties and nineties, particularly when, in addition to microprocessors and industrial robots, further displacement of industry to the Third World is taken into account. The meaning of work itself will need reconsideration. Sachs (1978) has suggested that work in the sense of paid employment will have to be rationed - though it would presumably be possible for the work addicted to purchase work stamps from the less addicted! In addition to his paid work, an individual would have an occupation in the 'civil society,' i.e., the community. This concept is consonant with that of the dual economy (Robertson, 1978) in which gift and barter arrangements grow up in a 'social economy' which exists in parallel with the market economy. The social economy includes activities which people undertake for themselves by way of self-reliance. These various activities comprise socio-technical systems that merit research as well as those connected with what conventionally passes as the world of work. They may involve community workshops and many new types of social arrangement. 'Jobs' in this area tend to be of high quality and to promote personal growth. They may, as a trade off, increase the tolerance for restricted jobs in employment, or they may increase the demand for more interesting jobs. They may be hypothesized to make the ordinary world of work less central and to make ambition or status in it less preoccupying than it is at present - at least for some kinds of people. There will be more choices in lifestyles, more types of career path open. Allied to this is a reassessment of the household as a work field that reflects the changing roles of men and women in the domestic socio-technical system and the links of this system with outside employment. The divorce between home and work, which has been so complete in industrial societies, may be less complete in the postindustrial order.

Decentralization. The logic of production since the Industrial Revolution has concentrated the employee in a large workplace and the citizen in a large urban area. The new information technologies can radically offset this pattern. Several possibilities may be noted:

1. The scaling down of particular work establishments in large organizations - the attainment of small in large. These establishments will tend to take on the character of self-regulating primary work systems only loosely attached to the larger entity.
2. Increasing numbers of primary work systems will become independent businesses linked to others in a network rather than contained within an organizational boundary.
3. Much more work will be done at home rather than in a separate place of work. This trend is likely to be linked to life phases (as regards the presence of young children and the elderly), to serial careers, and to the greater plasticity of sex roles. Again, more diversity becomes possible.
4. The effect of these trends on urbanization, the types of houses built, schools, the journey to work, etc., is likely to be far-reaching. Once again, more choices become possible than the continuation of current patterns.

Socio-technical research needs to monitor emergent alternatives, establish criteria for making choices more explicit and participate in action-research in selected projects.

Technological choice

Appropriate technology. The appearance of the appropriate technology movement has widened the scope of socio-technical studies by bringing in the question of choice of technology in a new way. The appropriate technology is that which best fits the total circumstances which are the case: those indirectly as well as those directly affected, the long term as well as the short term, and the physical in addition to the social environment. This movement began with an analysis of the 'appropriateness' of what Schumacher (1973) called intermediate technology for the Third World. New arguments have since been raised concerning the elitism of high technology in the First and Second Worlds (Henderson, 1978). So far as a few only can understand a particular technology, there is danger of too great a concentration of expert power. If the technologies in question require very large capital inputs, there is the danger of too great a concentration of financial power, whether in the hands of corporations or governments. These are valid questions. To raise them, however, does not preclude the possibility of developing mechanisms of democratic control over high technology. This is an area of institution-building which socio-technical studies should enter. Similarly, questions of hard versus soft energy paths (Lovins, 1976) or mixes of these should be investigated from a socio-technical point of view.

End product use. This is another area the appearance of which issues a new challenge to socio-technical studies. A signal of social significance was given by the Lucas Aerospace Combined Shop Stewards Committee in Britain (Cooley, 1977), who proposed the manufacture of alternative product lines to those currently being produced by their management. The reasons were vintage union arguments - the stewards had concluded that the current lines were unlikely to survive in the marketplace and that their jobs were at risk. The alternatives proposed were of an appropriate technology type which provided an insight into the values of the workforce. Though at frrst rejected by management, the Committee sold several of its ideas to other companies-one to Volkswagen. In a recent report (Coates and Topham, 1980), an account is given of the feelings of joy experienced by workers who had designed and made an improved wheelchair for paraplegics. Worker initiatives of this kind have been taken in several companies following the Lucas example. One of the six criteria of psychological satisfaction at work is the worker's feelings concerning the end-use of the product to which he contributes. If he perceives it as trivial, harmful or as a loser, he is likely to be negatively affected. These concerns may be expected to rise in the next two decades. Sachs (1978) has distinguished between pseudo-value and value in end-use. Chevalier (1978) has elaborated this notion in his concept of demand innovation. Those organizations sensed by their members at all levels to have the capability of contributing to some kind of desirable social future are the most likely to secure their commitment and to engage their effort. This is a break with the traditional market concept which, as Chevalier says, has been promoted from the supply side. This break may be postulated as likely to become wider in the decades ahead. Sociotechnical studies should monitor it.

Systems larger than the single organization

The industry level. I have argued elsewhere (Trist, 1976) that Western industrial societies are weak in the middle. Too little effective social structuring is available between institutions concerned with the management of the overall societal aggregate and the single organization. This deficiency puts excessive stress on both government and the corporation. The intermediate level consists of what I have called 'domains', one example of which would be an industrial sector. Special interest attaches to any work which has been done at this level. One example is that which Thorsrud and his colleagues have for some years been engaged in - a collaborative project with the Norwegian Shipping Industry (Herbst, 1976) which had entered critical conditions in a number of respects. An industry such as this comprises a system of 'organizational ecology' (Trist, 1977a).^[1] Though all the organizations belonging to the system are closely independent, no single one is in overall control. If the bureaucratic paradigm were followed, the danger is that a form of corporatism might emerge which would lead in a totalitarian direction. The new institution-building task is to discover an alternative route based on participative and democratic principles which can secure interorganizational collaboration.

In the Norwegian shipping industry, an experiment was carried out in the design and trial of sophisticated bulk carriers. This has led to a further innovative step; for, though many technological alternatives were available, the chosen design was that which met most fully the needs of the small shipboard community which had to live together under isolated conditions 24 hours a day for considerable periods of time, while simultaneously undertaking all the work tasks. A common recreation room - as well as mess - was established where all ranks could socialize (and drink together rather than be isolated with a bottle in the cabin). Deck and engine room crews were integrated and status differences between officers and men were reduced, or even eliminated, through the development of open career lines on one or two 'all officer' ships. Serial career structures also have been accepted, and training for a future job on shore can now be begun at sea.

Without these steps, not enough Norwegians would have gone to sea to sustain the Norwegian Merchant Navy, which is critical for the balance of payments (even since the discovery of North Sea oil). Poorly educated and transient Southern European crews could not cope with technically sophisticated ships, and alcoholism, even among officers, was dangerously high. These problems could not be effectively tackled at the level of the single company. Moreover, competition was not so much between Norwegian companies as with foreign fleets. Several critical issues had to be taken up at the level of the industry concerning the types of decision to be left to those at sea and the types to bring ashore to headquarters and dockyard establishments. The technology was available to go either way. In the end, a very great deal was left to those manning the ships. The several seafaring unions, as well as the companies and various maritime regulatory organizations, took part in the discussions; these have produced a continuous learning process. The Norwegian experience was presented to the Maritime Commission of the Academy of Sciences (Davis, et aI., 1972) when the question arose of re-expanding the U.S. Merchant Navy. To secure the collaboration of the many interest groups involved has proved difficult but some progress has been made (Cohen-Rosenthal, 1980). There are several industries and also social sectors where pervasive 'problematiques' in the socio-technical field and other fields would benefit by being treated at the domain level- or else little reduction can be expected in their turbulence.

Community-based socio-technical endeavors. A distinctively American innovation above the level of the single organization has been the appearance of socio-technical projects on a community-wide basis and in a framework of economic and social development (Trist, 1977b). The pioneer has been the Jamestown Area Labor-Management Committee created by the unions and management of a small manufacturing town in Western New York State in 1972, when the largest local plant went bankrupt and unemployment rose above 10%. A young and able Mayor, elected with bi-partisan support, succeeded in getting labor and management, who had been in bitter dispute, to cooperate in arresting industrial decline and steering the community toward a viable future.

My own research team began work in Jamestown in 1973. An early study showed that the stock of key in-house skills in the dominant industries - sheet metal work and furniture making - was becoming seriously depleted. These skills were carried by the older workers. There were no systematic training schemes in the small plants concerned, and many of the young workers were leaving the area. The Committee sponsored a skills development program in which all members could share. They drew on the local community college which had previously had little connection with local industries. Needed courses (for blueprint reading, welding, etc.) were offered on any shift, including hoot owl, in the plants concerned. Some of the most skilled older workers were trained to be instructors.

Next, in-plant labor-management committees were formed in most of the member plants, where we helped to develop programs based on participation and job redesign. By 1976 there were more than 40 such projects (a number of them still ongoing) of 10 different kinds in 12 plants. Most of these plants are job-shops. Workermanagement teams have found new ways of winning contracts by bidding lower than the competition. Layouts have been jointly redesigned and product planning jointly undertaken. These activities saved a number of jobs during the recession. Joint sharing of productivity gains has been tried out with some success in plants which had become marginal and seemed too conflict-ridden to survive. While many of the individual projects have had a limited life, others have arisen to take their place- not so much in the same plant as in different plants. These projects have generated 'themes' which have been taken up by various plants, often with no reference back to the research team (Keidel, 1978). A community-wide learning process in terms of this 'theme set' has been sustained at the community level over a period of seven years (at the time of this writing) despite 'casualties' at the level of particular organizations. This process cannot be seen if one is working exclusively at the organizational level. Keidel has referred to the coming into existence (through the emerging theme set) of an organizational c'ommunity between individual organizations and the overall milieu of the city.

As the result of these developments, a major engineering company, Cummins Engines, has been attracted to the town. This will eventually employ 2,000-3,000 people. One or two small companies have followed, and a new hotel has been built in the city center.

Recently attention has been turned to the public sector, where greater job security and higher wages had caused resentment in the industrial sector. Productivity was unacceptably low. Though faced with the difficulties inherent in civil service procedures, labor-management committees are beginning to make headway. in one or two departments of the publicly owned electricity plant. The public school system and the local hospital have been successfully included. There are now multiple points of initiative. These become connected. There was a good deal of overlap among key individuals. Active networks were formed.

Networks. The study of networks, processes which are fluid and unbounded (as contrasted to bounded and hierarchically arranged organizational systems), seems to offer one of the most promising ways of increasing our understanding of diffusion processes. During the last two years, my research center at the University of Pennsylvania has been involved in collaborative research into a networkbuilding effort in labor management and work innovation in the public sector in ten American cities (MBSC, 1980). This project is remarkable for the fact that the federal agency concerned (the National Center for Productivity and the Quality of Working Life) did not attempt to develop a central model but sought to elicit the ideas of the periphery and to encourage the various cities to learn from each other. It is also remarkable for the fact that the agency accepted a new methodology of evaluation based on developing the learning capability of the sites through what has been called 'thematic facilitation,' rather than depending on a set of externally contrived, preprogrammed criteria. The research team worked in a participant mode with the sites, repeatedly feeding back material. The most advanced sites have certain common features: they proceed in terms of a programmatic theme as contrasted with single projects with a beginning, a middle, and an end; the overall labor-management steering committee decentralizes responsibility for projects to an evolving set of subcommittees, which draw in an increasing number of people; these committees are empowered to implement - they are not restricted to making recommendations; the overall committee is outward-oriented to the wider organization, whose general policies it seeks to influence; there is no attempt to interfere with the existing adversarial machinery but rather an attempt to build a parallel organization in the collaborative mode. Though this project was undertaken during the period when the Proposition 13 mentality was spreading throughout the country, all the committees have (with whatever vicissitudes) survived. This may be interpreted as a sign that an authentic collaborative process is beginning to emerge in the U. S. public sector. Analysis of the material has led to the first steps being taken towards formulating a theory of 'normative incrementalism' (Pava, 1980) as a new strategy for organizational change and 'continuous adaptive planning' under conditions when divergent factions are present.

In Canada, .with a number of colleagues, I have become engaged in the nurture of a nationwide socio-technical network with nodes in almost all provinces.

The Canadian project began in terms of the center-periphery model (Schon, 1971). Much was learned from the ensuing failure. The then Federal Minister of Labour included QWL in a wider political program of formal tripartism involving management, labor and government. This program was rejected by the Canadian Labour Congress, which vetoed collaboration with government while price controls remained in force, and it was vetoed by the provinces because labor relations, apart from residual federal responsibilities, were a provincial jurisdiction. This attempt at 'instant institutionalization' foundered. The setback provided an opportunity to foster network building in the periphery, and this has accelerated developments in the last three years. Rarely has the policy of a central department been so rapidly and effectively altered.

It may be asked what the criteria may be for assuming that a nationwide process in favor of QWL is underway. In Canada, a number of signs may serve as pointers. The projects undertaken are not only numerous but constitute a series of multiple, independent initiatives. These initiatives are cross-sectoral- representing resource, manufacturing and service industries - and cross-regional; almost all provinces are included. The Ontario government has set up a QWL centre with a joint labour-management advisory committee of prominent individuals. Dr. Hans van Beinum, formerly of the Tavistock Institute, gave up a university chair in Holland to come to Canada to direct it. It now has some ten strategic projects in unionized companies. The business school in the French University in Montreal has taken a lead in stimulating developments in Quebec. Some Canadian projects are of an advanced kind and represent the state of the art in QWL. Some are enduring innovations and have been going on for several years in companies such as Alcan and Steinbergs. In the west, several large companies in the energy industry are seeking to design new installations along socio-technical lines. In the public sector, the Treasury Board has initiated a series of experiments in the federal public service and has reached the point of no longer calling them experiments. At Dr. William Westley's QWL Centre at McGill University, projects have been undertaken in hospitals and schools. Meanwhile, the Federal Department of Labor has held national workshops to identify and develop facilitators, made a set of five documentary films on QWL, arranged a large number of introductory presentations, and published a newsletter. Though these activities have suffered from severe budget cutbacks in Ottawa, they have survived when others have not.

A future research task will be to monitor and analyze such developments to discover what the patterns may be in the early stages of moving towards the new paradigm in a country as a whole, including the nature of the principal obstacles, which in the Canadian scene are still numerous. Further research will also be required to establish which are likely to be the most effective ways of using the electronic technologies of communication now available for purposes of rapid and widespread diffusion to large organizational populations.

This section has touched on a few of the macrosocial processes relevant to socio-technical studies. More attention needs to be paid to the domain level. Complex processes of interorganizational relations are involved, whether in industrial sectors or in communities. Collaboration at this level has not been encouraged by the competitive traditions of industrial societies, moulded as these have been by the disturbed-reactive environment. Now that the salient environment is becoming that of a turbulent field, a greater emphasis on collaboration is mandatory, and relevant changes need to be fostered in large-scale social systems as well as within organizations.

The oncoming information technologies, especially those concerned with the microprocessor and telecommunication, give immense scope for solving many current problems - if the right value choices can be made.

The field has reached a stage where a new attempt at repunctuation is required. To achieve this, an international conference on 'The Quality of Work Life and the Eighties' is being planned to take place (in Toronto) in the fall of 1981.

Notes