The Social Engagement of Social Science, a Tavistock Anthology, Volume 2 A Tavistock Anthology--The Socio-Technical Perspective

World War II brought together a group of psychiatrists and clinical and social psychologists in the British Army where they developed radical, action-oriented innovations in social psychiatry. They became known as the "Tavistock Group" since the core members had been at the pre-war Tavistock Clinic. They created the post-war Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and expanded on their wartime achievements by pioneering a new mode of relating theory and practice, called in these volumes, "The Social Engagement of Social Science." There are three perspectives: the socio-psychological, the socio-technical, and the socio-ecological. These perspectives are interdependent, yet each has its own focus and is represented in a separate volume. The Institute's dynamic social science approach to industrial problems, presented in this second volume, began with Eric Trist's coal-mining program for the development of more productive and personally satisfying self-regulating forms of work organization. The whole "Quality of Life" movement owes its theoretical and empirical basis to this pathfinding endeavor. Volume I, __The Socio-Psychological Perspective__, extended the object-relations approach in psychoanalysis to group, organizational, and wider social life. This extension is related to field theory, the personality/culture approach, and open systems theory. Action-oriented papers deal with key ideas in social psychiatry, varieties of group process, new paths in family studies, the dynamics of organizational change, and the unconscious in culture and society. Volume III will focus on non-hierarchical forms of organization facilitating inter-organizational relations in complex and rapidly changing environments—the socio-ecological perspective. This perspective is offered as a guide to institution building for the future. Contents Preface Historical Overview: The Foundation and Development of the Tavistock Institute Volume II: The Socio-Technical Perspective Introduction to Volume II Shaping a New Field The Stress of Isolated Dependence: The Filling Shift in the Semi-Mechanized Longwall Three-Shift Mining Cycle Alternative Work Organizations: An Exact Comparison Productivity and Social Organization: An Indian Automated Weaving Shed The Ahmedabad Experiment Revisited: Work Organization in an Indian Weaving Shed, 1953–70 Characteristics of Socio-Technical Systems Conceptual Developments Designing Socio-Technical Systems for Greenfield Sites The Assembly Line: Its Logic and Our Future The Second Design Principle: Participation and the Democratization of Work Socio-Technical Foundations for a New Social Order? The Historical Validity of the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project Toward a New Philosophy of Management Alternatives to Hierarchies Designing with Minimal Critical Specifications The Coming Crisis for Production Management Principles of Socio-Technical Design Socio-Technical Ideas at the End of the ’70s QWL and the ’80s Associated Studies Organizational Choice and the New Technology On the Collaboration Between Social Scientists and Engineers Technology, Territory and Time: The Internal Differentiation of Complex Production Systems Strategic Projects A Learning Organization in Practice: M/S Balao Action Research in an American Underground Coal Mine The Limits of Laissez-Faire as a Socio-Technical Change Strategy Socio-Technical Projects in the Canadian Federal Public Service The Norskhydro Fertilizer Plant Visual Display Technology, Worker Disablement and Work Organization A New Type of Labor-Management Contract Involving the Quality of Working Life Collaborative Action Research Socio-Technical Unit Operations Analysis The Nine-Step Model A Socio-Technical Critique of Scientific Management The Participative Design Workshop Legislating for Quality of Work Life Socio-Technical Action Simulations for Engaging with Engineering Designers Work Improvement and Organizational Democracy Nonroutine Office Work Pava's Extension of Socio-Technical Theory to Advanced Information Technologies A Brief Introduction to the Emerys' "Search Conference" Contributors Subject Index Name Index

World War II brought together a group of psychiatrists and clinical and social psychologists in the British Army where they developed radical, action-oriented innovations in social psychiatry. They became known as the "Tavistock Group" since the core members had been at the pre-war Tavistock Clinic. They created the post-war Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and expanded on their wartime achievements by pioneering a new mode of relating theory and practice, called in these volumes, "The Social Engagement of Social Science."

There are three perspectives: the socio-psychological, the socio-technical, and the socio-ecological. These perspectives are interdependent, yet each has its own focus and is represented in a separate volume.

The Institute's dynamic social science approach to industrial problems, presented in this second volume, began with Eric Trist's coal-mining program for the development of more productive and personally satisfying self-regulating forms of work organization. The whole "Quality of Life" movement owes its theoretical and empirical basis to this pathfinding endeavor.

Volume I, The Socio-Psychological Perspective, extended the object-relations approach in psychoanalysis to group, organizational, and wider social life. This extension is related to field theory, the personality/culture approach, and open systems theory. Action-oriented papers deal with key ideas in social psychiatry, varieties of group process, new paths in family studies, the dynamics of organizational change, and the unconscious in culture and society.

Volume III will focus on non-hierarchical forms of organization facilitating inter-organizational relations in complex and rapidly changing environments—the socio-ecological perspective. This perspective is offered as a guide to institution building for the future.