Home / Summaries / 1JV10: Organizational behavior for Industrial Engineering / technology-structures-types

Digitization and industry - The design and use of work technologies

4 important questions on Digitization and industry - The design and use of work technologies

The study of technology also cuts across a number of levels of analysis:

Cognitive
Organizational
Social issues

Advantages of the systems approach:

Understanding the demands technology can place on the individual and the impact it can have upon social factors involved in work and the influence it may have upon social factors.
It also has the advantage that it facilitates an interdisciplinary perspective on work technologies
A second advantage is that a systems perspective allow the researcher to examine the different types of interfaces that should be addressed when considering the impact of new technology
Within a system-based framework it is important to bear in mind the stages of initial requirements gathering, through to stages of design, deployment, and redesign

Adaptive structuration theory:

Often used to understand change processes that occur when ISs are implemented and adopted
Examines the types of structures that are provided by IS and the structures that emerge in human action as a result of interaction
The theory describes how a technology’s inherent structural characteristics shape interaction patterns without determining the interaction in a definitive way

Combining STST and AST:

STST examined how work tasks were impacted by a new system and how it changed structures and roles, and AST placed emphasis on the dynamic way in which user attitudes towards the new technology were likely to be shared