OR42

Keynote paper OR 42

(ed Steve Clarke)

12-14 Sep 2000

ISBN 0 90344022 9

pp14-28

Knowledge management : a sociotechnical perspective

Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers

Tennyson 1842

INTRODUCTION

This paper takes a sociotechnical perspective on the organisational issue of knowledge management.

Sociotechnical perspectives can be characterised as holistic, and whilst not being panoptic in character, take a more encompassing view of the organisation, its stakeholders in knowledge and the environment in which it operates, than many other organisational views which are limited by their origins and paradigms.

The word sociotechnical, in its origins, is a combination of two paradigms - the social and the technical. It was thus intended to describe a broader view of the role of technology in an organisation than either paradigm could offer on its own. Technology, it was argued, should be seen, discussed and developed not just as a technical artefact but in the light of the social environment in which it operated.

Thus it is acknowledged by many writers that strategies today should optimise the contribution of both people and information through technology support. The 'real' information system is the system built on organisational culture and interpersonal communication [Liebenau and Backhouse 1990]; this 'real' information system contains the rich and dynamic tacit knowledge that when harnessed effectively, can give organisations sector and market advantage.

This keynote paper discusses the social and technical issues relating to harnessing this knowledge. An overview of the origins of the sociotechnical paradigm is first given, drawing out the common principles that enlighten this paradigm. This is followed by a discussion of knowledge and the management of knowledge, showing this author's argument of where and how these principles are applicable. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the author's research in progress and where future research may lead.

THE SOCIOTECHNICAL PARADIGM

The term 'sociotechnical' is commonly applied to the study of systems particularly within organisations. The sociotechnical paradigm is now over fifty years old in its application to organisational design, although it is possible to trace the origins of the paradigm back to earlier writers on philosophy such as Edmund Burke and writers on the Industrial Revolution [Mumford 1996], and also theorists such as Mary Parker Follett [1920, 1924].

In its best known incarnation, the paradigm can be located in the work of Fred Emery and Eric Trist at the Tavistock Institute, London, and in particular, in the now seminal Longwall Mining Study of Trist and Bamford [1951] where the researchers identified the need for a sociotechnical approach in which an appropriate social system could be developed in keeping with the new technical system. One definition of the term sociotechnical therefore is the study of the relationships and inter-relationships between the social and technical parts of any system.

The sociotechnical perspective was frequently found during the 1950s and later in many Scandinavian Industrial Democracy studies [Bjerknes and Brattenberg 1995, Eldon 1979, Larsen 1979], as well as other European and British studies where the issues of the social systems' relationships to the technical systems within a manufacturing environment were of concern [Cooper and Mumford 1979, Mumford 1997]. A number of local variants of sociotechnical systems (STS) have been produced in Europe, North America and Australia over the fifty years since the work of the Tavistock Institute has become well known, but with all, the idea of changing the division of labour within firms to achieve a participatory democracy, is a main focus [Eijnatten 1993].

In the discussions of the applicability of the sociotechnical principles, it is generally considered that these principles and the methods of application associated with them, help organisations to explore conflicts and complexity in the human, organisational, and technical aspects of change. They relate to how to jointly optimise people and technology within a clear ethical principle - that the individual's participation in decision-making and control over their immediate wok environment is enabled and increased.

Sociotechnical principles, therefore, have been discussed and applied to organisational change for the following purposes:

	The joint optimisation of technology and people to introduce improvement within the organisation;
	The improvement of the quality of products and services;
	The improvement of communications and the relationships amongst organisational stakeholders;
	The improvement of the organisational sensitivity and responsiveness to change in complex environments;
	The enhancement of aspects of individual work such as performance levels, involvement, skill levels, job satisfaction and reward structures;
	The creation of a culture and structure which encourages continuous improvements in effectiveness.

There are a number of generic principles applied across all STS variants and initiatives. Cherns [1976] expressed the underlying assumptions of sociotechnical design for organisational change to have nine key principles. In his later work [1987] where he revisited his earlier article and commented on the increasing divergence between the Scandinavian and North American approaches and applications, he also revisited his original principles and added a tenth. Table 1 below shows the original nine principles and their revised order and content from the later paper.

Table 1 - Cherns Principles from 1976 and 1987 with comments

1976 Principles and order	Brief explanation	1987 principles and order	Further comments
1. Compatibility	'the process of design must be compatible with its objectives' [pp785]	1. Compatibility	'Design is an arena for conflict' [pp154] Design has to satisfy an array of objectives which may conflict and therefore decisions must be reached by consensus and not by power plays.
2. Minimal Critical Specification	'no more should be specified than is absolutely essential … requires that we identify what is essential.' [pp786] What is done not how it is done is important.	2. Minimal Critical Specification	'premature closure of options is a pervasive fault in design; it arises, not only because of the desire to reduce uncertainty, but also because it helps the designer to get his own way.' [pp155] Success is measured less by design quality than by the quantity of own ideas and preferences that are incorporated. Assumptions should be challenged.
3. The Sociotechnical Criterion	'variances, if they cannot be eliminated, must be controlled as near to their point of origin as possible' [pp787] Variances here meaning an unprogrammed event, a key variance being one that critically affects outcome. People should be allowed to inspect and challenge their own quality of work and make their own judgements and decisions as to how to improve - to continuously learn.	3. Variance Control	'sociotechnical analysis does not end with the variance control table. The social system is more than an effective system for the control of technical and raw materials variances.' [pp156]
4. The Multifunctional Principle - organism vs mechanism	'there are several routes to the same goal – the principle sometimes described as equifinality'. [pp788] The same function can be performed in different ways by using different combinations of elements.	7. The Multifunction Principle	'organisations need to adapt to their environments; elements of organisations need to adapt to their environments of which the most important are usually other organisational elements.' [pp158]
5. Boundary Location	'the more the control of activities within the department becomes the responsibility of the members, the more the role of the supervisor/foreman/manager is concentrated on the boundary activities - ensuring that the team has adequate resources to carry out its activities, co-ordinating activities with those of other departments and foreseeing the changes likely to impinge upon them' [pp789] Boundaries should not interfere with the sharing of knowledge and experience.	4. Boundary Location	'its essential feature is that boundaries should not be drawn so as to impede the sharing of knowledge and learning' [pp156]
6. Information Flow	'information systems should be designed to provide information in the first place to the point where action on the basis of it will be needed.' [pp789] These systems should provide sufficient feedback and information to permit the teams to control and anticipate the variances that will/might affect their work.	5. Information flow	'the principle of boundary location counsels against, if it cannot absolutely prohibit, the interruption of information or the insertion of loops by misplaced organisational boundaries.' [pp157] Cherns comments here on the information associated with power games that are rife in organisations and the temptation to intervene, harass and usurp control that is offered by the provision of indiscriminate and unnecessary information to management.
7. Support Congruence	'the systems of social support should be designed so as to reinforce the behaviours which the organisation structure is designed to elicit.' [pp790] These systems of social support would include procedures for selection, training, conflict resolution, work measurement, performance assessment, timekeeping, leave allocation, promotion and separation.	8. Support Congruence	'support of production teams implies significant and far-reaching changes in reward and information systems, in financial control, and in marketing, sales, purchasing, and planning.' [pp158] Pay people for what they know not what they do. ‘their value is what is in their heads'. [pp159]
8. Design and Human Values	'an objective of organisational design should be to provide a high quality of work'. [pp790] To provide, for those who want them, responsibility, variety, involvement, and growth in their work.	6. Power and Authority	'the power and authority that accompanies knowledge and expertise'. [pp157] Also people require the power and authority to command the necessary resources for their work and should take the concomitant responsibility for them.
9. Incompletion	'As soon as design is implemented, its consequences indicate the need for redesign.' [pp791] A constant process of evaluation and review is required.	10. Incompletion	Cherns also calls this here the Forth Bridge principle. 'back to the drawing board'. [pp159] He emphasises that all periods of stability are in effect only temporary periods of transition between one state and another. Redesign should be a continuous process and is the function of the self-regulating teams through review, evaluation and negotiation.
		9. Transitional Organisation	'managing the stress of start-up and shut-down can be prepared for.' [pp159] The transitional organisation is both different and also more complex than either the old organisation was, or the new organisation will be, in either situation. The manner of the treatment of staff in selection for either incorporation into the new organisation or in separation from the old, demonstrates very clearly the adherence to the sociotechnical principles.

Thus the goal of sociotechnical design is to produce a system capable of self-modification, of adapting to change, and of making the most of the creative capacities of the individual for the benefit of the organisation.

It also evident from the comments shown in the table that much of Chern's work on the sociotechnical principles has a direct impact on our discussion about knowledge management.

KNOWLEDGE AND THE MANAGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE

A Sociotechnical view of knowledge

It has been said [Roth 1999] that most of our knowledge management efforts have been focused on the codifying, archiving an retrieving of information. Thinking of knowledge as something that can be stored and retrieved confuses it with information. Knowledge is the capacity of an organisation and its staff to act effectively as shown above in Chern’s principles – a sociotechnical perspective.

Nurminen [1987] classifies the sociotechnical perspective for information systems into seven aspects: knowledge, users, actors in information tasks, communication tasks, Information Technology (IT) system in organisation, IT system and organisation and systems development. In this classification, the IT system interfaces between the social and technical systems for the users (by using user-friendly means of communication and action in information tasks), and knowledge is considered to be objective but instrumental. The social system in sociotechnical terms is here usually considered to be the attributes of people (attitudes, skills, values etc), the relationship amongst them, the reward systems and the authority structures. The technical systems in these terms includes the processes, tasks and technology needed to perform the organisation’s operations.

A four component model of the sociotechnical perspective has been developed which relates the technology to task, people and organisational structure. [Fig 1]

Figure 1 - the four component sociotechnical model [based on Laudon and Laudon 2000]

This paper would argue, that when considering knowledge management for an organisation there is a fifth component that must also be considered – the environment within which an organisation operates. The environment affects how an organisation can be structured and of what value the technology can be to that organisation. The tasks and technology today are inextricably linked, through processes supported by such technology as Intranets, Extranets, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management to the external world. The environment is encompassing and the diamond thus is enclosed within the environment as shown in Fig 2 below.

Figure 2 The five component sociotechnical model

Managing knowledge, therefore, with a sociotechnical perspective, has a wide ranging necessity to manage the organisation through continuous change and a process of continuous learning supported, where appropriate, by technology. In the next section I discuss the management of knowledge in more depth and show the sociotechnical perspective in more detail.

Managing Knowledge

Knowledge management has often been treated as an issue for IT and Information Systems (IS) specialists alone, and the efforts of many of these have focused on data and communication systems. This is witnessed by the name changes of many existing software applications or Information Communication Systems (ICT) to include the ‘word’ knowledge. This can be seen as part of the bandwagon effect whereby the word knowledge, when linked to any systems, apparently increases the value of the systems in the minds of those viewing it, and thus increasing the likelihood of sales (and often prices!).

When considering organisational knowledge and the management of this knowledge, what we need to ensure is that this is not seen simply as the acquisition of more data and information [Coakes and Sugden 1999]. Effective knowledge management is more about managing the human resource than about managing the technology. ‘People will be the biggest factor in determining the success of failure of knowledge management by the quality of their decisions’. [Taylor 1998]. In Garvin’s [1993] terms, the ‘transformation of knowledge’ is the most essential activity of a learning organisation, and only an organisation that learns is one that truly manages its knowledge.

Pan and Scarbrough [1999] discuss the processual and emergent qualities of the interplay between the technology and the organisation. they emphasise that 'the social aspect of socio-technical needs to be able to embrace the socially constructed aspects of knowledge within organisations.' [pp362] . Lisl Klein [1999] also emphasises the interdependencies of both technical and social factors, with writers such as Nonaka & Takeuchi [1995] emphasising the social aspects of knowledge management such as teamwork and organisational culture as being critical for such management. 'Motivation is ruled by the soft areas whereas technology rules the ability'. [Tiwana 1998] or one could say that technology provides the capability. Allee [1997] would also tells us that in a quantum worldview, with new thinking, motivation is from intrinsic creativity where knowledge is collective, life thrives on co-operation with workers being multi-faceted, always learning, and being managed through insight and participation. In other words through sociotechnical principles.

In the table 2 below I take Cherns 1987 principles in his order of importance, and explain them in terms of knowledge management. This perspective on knowledge management differs from the perspective that is given by Pan and Scarbrough [ibid] and is intended to align the seminal principles against current organisational requirements.

Principle

Knowledge management explanation

Compatibility

	Design for knowledge management has to account for the social construction of knowledge within an organisation. Conflicts may occur as organisational cultures may not be compatible with the sharing of knowledge [Coakes and Sugden 1999].
	The objectives of the workers may not be aligned with the objectives of the organisation. Knowledge management does not however, demand consensus, although power plays are anti-organisational knowledge management, but these objectives may be individually appropriate depending on the organisational culture.

Minimal Critical Specification

	Knowledge is fluid and changing.
	The technology utilised and the design of such systems for assistance should also be fluid and capable of change. Any rigidity will stifle the necessary creativity. Rules of what should be done and how, should be minimal.
	Systems should be permissive as opposed to mandatory.

Variance Control

	Knowledge management requires that the social system is the controlling factor in deciding what work should be done, how and by whom according to their requisite knowledge.
	Decisions to a high level of independence and self-management of tasks etc should be devolved to the knowledge workers.

Boundary Location

One can only repeat here what Cherns said in 1987 that boundaries should not impede the sharing of knowledge.

The organisation structure should be such that knowledge can flow freely and easily as required, to where required.

Information Flow

	For knowledge management to truly work there must needs be no organisational barriers to sharing of information and knowledge. This would include the breakdown of power plays and resistance to knowledge sharing.
	It would also imply a minimum level of checks and balances by management and especially of 'checking up'.

Power and authority

Again this repeats Cherns views that people require the necessary power and authority, aligned with the required responsibility, to decide what resources they need to undertake their work.

The Multi-function Principle

	A knowledge-based organisation needs to be fluid and adaptable to change, especially in relation to the external and internal environment. It would seem that a flat structure with people working in teams across projects/processes might be more appropriate.
	The management of knowledge means looking at an organisation from a cognitive perspective, with the organisation seen as a knowing sentient organism and using its resources, both human and technological, to make sense of its environment.

Support Congruence

The element of reward systems is discussed by Cherns, suggesting that we pay people for their scarce knowledge, not what they do. This obviously will have repercussions when organisations manage this knowledge. Who decides who knows most? How can one judge? Is one type of knowledge more useful to the organisation than another? How should the reward system be devised to be fair and equitable?

Transitional Organisation

Taking into account the above comments about the fluidity of the organisation that manages its knowledge in relation to the environment, it follows that the organisation is constantly in a state of transition. Management of staff in such a state of constant flux, and management of their knowledge, is clearly a challenging task.

Incompletion

As discussed in the transitional organisation above, redesign is continually happening as knowledge is constantly changing and the resources that people require to perform their work activities is also in a state of flux. It is important to recognise this, and if at all possible, to embrace this state of flux as being the norm rather than the exception.

This sociotechnical perspective shows clearly that in order for organisations to manage and share their knowledge effectively they must first consider, and then organise for, the following:

	Aligning the organisational culture for easy sharing of knowledge and information;
	Aligning the organisational structure and form to minimise checks and barriers to the sharing of knowledge and information;
	Aligning the organisational management to permit a maximum devolution of responsibility and decision-making. Managers should become facilitators and holders of wisdom [Coakes and Sugden 2000];
	Aligning the organisational structure and form to permit fluidity of this structure and form as change impacts both the organisational knowledge and the required organisational output;
	Aligning the organisational reward system to encourage the development of learning and knowledge;
	And finally aligning the organisational technology infrastructure to permit all of the above.

FUTURE RESEARCH

The discussion above shows quite clearly that it is not only possible but also desirable to take a sociotechnical view on knowledge in the organisation. It also shows how we can manage this knowledge. Knowledge should be strategically valued and the knowledge strategy needs to be future oriented, with strategies optimising the contribution of both people and technology. The development of innovative and creative knowledge requires the culture to support knowledge creation, sharing and learning. The organisation needs a leadership style that is conducive to permittance and acceptance allowing self-organisation around competencies or expertise.

Future research must take the theoretical into the field of the practical. We need to discover whether what we postulate can translate into actuality. The author is currently engaged in a number of research projects looking at how organisations are currently utilising their technology for knowledge management and how organisational cultures impact the sharing of knowledge. In addition a number of proposals are being developed where organisational change is taking place in order to undertake knowledge management, and the researchers can participate and/or observe the progress of the projects through action research or ethnographic studies.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper set out to discuss a sociotechnical perspective on knowledge management. It first discussed the origins of the principles that drive the paradigm and analysed these principles as expressed by Cherns in his seminal papers of 1976 and 1987. It then applied these principles to the concept of knowledge management, taking into consideration the idea of a five component sociotechnical model. In particular, the paper highlights six steps of alignment that an organisation needs to undertake for knowledge management. A sociotechnical perspective is holistic and encompassing and these steps of alignment reflect this viewpoint, showing how the paradigm can effectively assist our understanding of how knowledge can be managed.

Knowledge alone, however, is insufficient, wisdom is the ultimate goal. For with wisdom comes understanding, and understanding is the necessary prerequisite to creative thought and action.

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