Foreword

The beginning of the new millennium is a time to celebrate two more anniversaries. The year 2001 will mark the 50th anniversary of the publication by Trist and Bamford of an account of the historic study and analysis of the National Coal Board's attempt to introduce longwall mining technology to the UK's coal mines. The study was the precursor to what became known as the socio-technical approach to industrial change and organisation. Although the value of the socio-technical approach received widespread recognition, and many derivative approaches were developed, the actual application of these in organisations has been limited.

The second 50th anniversary falling in 2001 is that of the world's first computer application, the use of by J. Lyons, the British food and catering company, of their LEO computer to a business problem, the valuation of the output of their many bakeries. In those 50 years Information Technology has transformed the way organisations administer and carry out their work. Despite the undoubted impact of the use of Information Technology, there is a widespread feeling that too many new systems fail or at least fail to deliver the expected benefits.

The two anniversaries make it opportune to review where we are today in relation to the ideas and values formulated by the pioneers 50 years ago, and how these ideas have impinged and affected the major enabler of change today, the application of information technology. This book, edited by Elayne Coakes, Dianne Willis and Raymond Lloyd-Jones under the auspices of the British Computer Society's Socio-Technical Working Party, has contributors from many countries. It tries to answer some of the questions: How far have the ideas and definitions of the pioneers been accepted as part of the common language related to organisational change? To what extent have those ideas and methodologies been modified in the light of experience and of alternative world views.? How far have the ideas, methods and values been assimilated by other methods, such as BPR or TQM? How relevant are the original ideas and their derivatives applicable to the changing world of global economics in a networked world? Are there new ideas related to those of the socio-technical concepts of the pioneers now being proclaimed and will they overcome the problems of acceptance faced by the older approaches?

The book takes on the concepts developed half a century ago when the analysts of the Tavistock Institute searched for reasons why the new longwall technology failed to deliver the hoped for productivity gains. In doing so it delivers far more than mere graffiti on the longwall.

This book is dedicated to the pioneers both of 50 years ago who recognised the possibilities of information technology to change the world of the organisation, and those who developed this idea that organisational change and values were linked - that effective change required that human values should be regarded as a vital ingredient in the change process.

©Frank Land

Ivybridge, September 1999

ECoakes