Sociotechnical Systems: A North American Reflection on Empirical Studies of the Seventies
回顾社会技术系统理论30年发展，总结134个实验，发现设计特征与生产率、成本、质量等成果的关联，指出技术创新实验较少且技术系统联合优化仍需探索。
This paper reviews the development of sociotechnical systems theory and research over the past 30 years, paying particular attention to the evolution of the paradigm in North America during the past decade. Elements of sociotechnical systems theory discussed here include the conceptualization of social systems, technical systems, and open systems, joint optimization, organizational choice, variance control, boundary location, support congruence, quality of work life, and continuous learning. A review of 134 experiments is then summarized, indicating which features of sociotechnical systems design are used most frequently, and which in turn are associated with reported success on a number of critical outcome dimensions such as productivity, costs, quality, and satisfaction. An unexpected finding of this review was that while sociotechnical system experiments have been extremely successful overall, the number of experiments involving technological innovation or change is relatively small; moreover, from the results achieved in these experiments, it is obvious that we still have much to learn regarding the design of technical systems for joint optimization. Methodological issues and areas in need of further research are explored.