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Improvisation represents the spontaneous and real-time conception and execution of a novel response to an unanticipated situation. In order to benefit from the positive safety potential of this phenomenon, it is necessary to understand what influences its appropriateness and effectiveness. This study has applied the system-based methodology Impromaps to analysing accounts of improvisation aimed at mitigating adverse safety outcomes. These accounts were obtained from led outdoor activity (LOA) leaders through critical decision method interviews. Influencing factors and interactions have been identified across all system levels. The factors most influential to leaders' ability to improvise are 'Policy, procedures and rules', 'Organisation culture', 'Training', 'Role responsibilities', 'Communication/instruction/demonstration', 'Situation awareness', 'Leader experience', 'Mental simulation', 'Equipment, clothing & PPE' and 'Terrain/physical environment'. To enhance the likelihood of effective, appropriate improvisation, LOA providers are recommended to focus on higher level factors over which they are able to exert greater control. Practitioner Summary: To enhance resilience in safety-critical situations, organisations need to understand what influences appropriate, effective improvisation. To elucidate this, the Impromaps methodology is applied to in-depth interview data. The Impromap affords a graphical depiction of the influencing factors and interactions across the system, providing a basis for the development of interventions.

How do communications and decisions impact the safety of sociotechnical systems? This paper frames this question in the context of a dynamic system of nested sub-systems. Communications are related to the construct of observability (i.e. how components integrate information to assess the state with respect to local and global constraints). Decisions are related to the construct of controllability (i.e. how component sub-systems act to meet local and global safety goals). The safety dynamics of sociotechnical systems are evaluated as a function of the coupling between observability and controllability across multiple closed-loop components. Two very different domains (nuclear power and the limited service food industry) provide examples to illustrate how this framework might be applied. While the dynamical systems framework does not offer simple prescriptions for achieving safety, it does provide guides for exploring specific systems to consider the potential fit between organisational structures and work demands, and for generalising across different systems regarding how safety can be managed., Practitioner Summary: While offering no simple prescriptions about how to achieve safety in sociotechnical systems, this paper develops a theoretical framework based on dynamical systems theory as a practical guide for generalising from basic research to work domains and for generalising across alternative work domains to better understand how patterns of communication and decision-making impact system safety.

Human-computer interaction as a coordinating element between human and machine is used in many different ways. Due to their digital processes, countless industries are dependent on an effective intermeshing of humans and machines. This often involves preparatory work or sub-processes being carried out by machines, which humans initiate, take up, continue, finalise or check. Tasks are broken down into sub-steps and completed by humans or machines. Aggregated cooperation conceals the numerous challenges of hybrid cooperation in which communication and coordination must be mastered in favour of joint decision-making. However, research into human-computer interaction can also be thought of differently than a mere aggregation of humans and machines. We want to propose a nature-inspired possibility that has been successfully practising the complex challenges of joint decision-making as proof of successful communication and coordination for millions of years. Collective intelligence and the processes of self-organisation offer biomimetic concepts that can be used to rethink socio-technical systems as a symbiosis in the form of a human-computer organism. For example, the effects of self-organisation such as emergence could be used to exceed the result of an aggregation of humans and machines as a future social anthropology 4.0 many times over.

The objective of this study was to investigate factors influencing one's decision to become a live kidney donor under the framework of sociotechnical systems, by expanding the focus to include larger organizational influences and technological considerations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with live kidney donors who donated through University of Louisville Health, Trager Transplant Center, a mid-scale transplant program, in the years 2017 through 2019. The interview transcripts were analyzed for barriers and facilitators to live kidney donation within a sociotechnical system. The most salient facilitators included: having an informative, caring, and available care team; the absence of any negative external pressure toward donating; donating to a family or friend; and the ability to take extra time off work for recovery. The most recurrent barriers included: short/medium-term (<1 year) negative health impacts because of donation; the need to make minor lifestyle changes (e.g., less alcohol consumption) after donation; and mental health deterioration stemming from the donation process. The sociotechnical systems framework promotes a balanced system comprised of social, technical, and environmental subsystems. Assessing the facilitators and barriers from the sociotechnical system perspective revealed the importance of and opportunities for developing strategies to promote integration of technical subsystem, such as social media apps and interactive AI platforms, with social and environmental subsystems to enable facilitators and reduce barriers effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores memory mechanisms in complex socio-technical systems, using a mobility demand model as an example case. We simplify a large-scale agent-based mobility model, formulate the corresponding stochastic process, and observe that the mobility decision process is non-Markovian. This is due to its dependence on the system's history, including social structure and local infrastructure, which evolve based on prior mobility decisions. Complementing the mobility process with two history-determined components leads to an extended mobility process that is Markovian. Although our model is a very much reduced version of the original one, it remains too complex for the application of usual analytic methods. Instead, we employ simulations to examine the functionalities of the two history-determined components. We think that the structure of the analyzed stochastic process is exemplary for many socio-technical, -economic, -ecological systems. Additionally, it exhibits analogies with the framework of extended evolution, which has previously been used to study cultural evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military decision-making institutions are sociotechnical systems. They feature interactions among people applying technologies to enact roles within mission-oriented collectives. As sociotechnical systems, military institutions can be examined through the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory. This discussion applies the CAS perspective to reveal implications of integrating newer artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into military decision-making institutions. I begin by arguing that military adoption of AI is well-incentivised by the current defence landscape. Given these incentives, it would be useful to try to understand the likely effects of AI integration into military decision-making. Direct examinations of the new affordances and risks of new AI models is a natural mode of analysis for this. I discuss some low-hanging fruit in this tradition. However, I also maintain that such examinations can miss systemic impacts of AI reliance in decision-making workflows. By taking a complex systems view of AI integration, it is possible to glean non-intuitive insights, including, for example, that common policy concerns like preventing human deskilling or requiring algorithmic transparency may be overblown or counterproductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we change social orders to deliver a sustainable future? A growing literature in organization studies argues that meta-organizations are part of the answer. Meta-organizations have been shown to be well equipped for tackling grand challenges, yet paradoxically they also tend to resist change due to their inertia. In this paper, we move beyond the question of whether and how meta-organizations act as vectors of transition to address the question of how some of the defining organizational attributes of meta-organizations – which we call 'meta-organizationality' – create tensions for sustainability transitions. We argue that these tensions result from frictions between the imperatives of transitions, i.e. conditions for achieving broad socio-technical transformations for sustainability, and the imperatives of meta-organizations, i.e. the implications resulting specifically from their meta-organizationality. We unpack four tensions, which we frame as 'multi-referentiality–directionality', 'layering–diffusion', 'dialectical actorhood–coordination', and 'multi-level decidedness–reflexivity'. We argue that transformative meta-organizations are those that successfully navigate these tensions to produce sociotechnical system changes. This work has several implications for organization studies, meta-organization studies and transition studies, and offers several avenues for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing digitalization of our social systems has led to the development of agentic computational artifacts. If socio-technical systems (STSs) fit for purpose in the digital society are to be designed and operationalized, the theory of polycentric governance (which traditionally considers the interdependency of interactions between the autonomous centers of decision-making within a social system) must be enriched to reflect this digitalization. In this article, we consider the extension of polycentricity to include “the digital” by viewing the concept through four “lenses” (interactional, governmental, architectural, and axiological), which are then synthesized to conclude with a research program for value-sensitive operationalization (VSO). This opens the potential to develop technologies and foster human relationships with these technologies that aim to optimize the human quality of experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into real-time simulation applications outside of manufacturing environments has extended to sociotechnical systems such as healthcare over the past decade, where a number of published studies have demonstrated proof-of-concept models for near-future resource planning. Using real-time decision-support systems, people take decisions supported by the output of simulations. However real-time simulation frameworks abstract human intervention to an "external decision-maker," with little regard to the complexities of underlying decision-making constructs, and how design and development decisions can impact the quality of decision-support. One such construct is situation awareness (SA), which is a precursor to decision-making. It is a dynamic state of knowledge about how a situation is unfolding; one approach to enhancing situation awareness is the provision of appropriate real-time information. We argue that design, development and implementation decisions should be focused at the interface between decision-making and decision-support. This integrative literature review proposes a SA framework integrating models of SA with a technical perspective for real-time simulation, to support an understanding of the cognitive needs of users alongside technical details during the development process. The implications for the usefulness and usability of real-time decision-support tools are discussed with application to Emergency Departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous systems, such as drones, are critical for emergency mitigation, management, and recovery. They provide situational awareness and deliver communication services which effectively guide emergency responders' decision making. This combination of technology and people comprises a socio-technical system. Yet, focusing on the use of drone technology as a solely operational tool, underplays its potential to enhance coordination between the different agents involved in mass emergencies, both human and non-human. This paper proposes a new methodological approach that capitalizes on social identity principles to enable this coordination in an evacuation operation. In the proposed approach, an adaptive drone uses sensor data to infer the group membership of the survivors it encounters during the operation. A corpus of 200 interactions of survivors' talk during real-life emergencies was computationally classified as being indicative of a shared identity or personal/no identity. This classification model, then, informed a game-theoretic model of human-robot interactions. Bayesian Nash Equilibrium analysis determined the predicted behavior for the human agent and the strategy that the drone needs to adopt to help with survivor evacuation. Using linguistic and synthetic data, we show that the identity-adaptive architecture outperformed two non-adaptive architectures in the number of successful evacuations. The identity-adaptive drone can infer which victims are likely to be helped by survivors and where help from emergency teams is needed. This facilitates effective coordination and adaptive performance. This study shows decision-making can be an emergent capacity that arises from the interactions of both human and non-human agents in a socio-technical system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of automated decision-making systems is increasing in education. While the potential impacts of ADM are becoming widely known amongst experts, the perspectives of those impacted by ADM remain peripheral. To broaden expertise and participation, this paper proposes that ADM needs to be considered as a sociotechnical controversy, as part of a technical democracy approach that utilises hybrid forums. Following Callon and colleagues, in this paper, technical democracy refers to the process of learning through uncertainty about sociotechnical controversies, and hybrid forums refer to the specific sites of democratisation. This paper first identifies key uses and concerns with ADM in education. Second, it proposes that restricted capacity for participation can be addressed through technical democracy. Last, it proposes that hybrid forums can create moments of democratisation through shared uncertainty, material politics, and collective experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent systems that are capable of making autonomous decisions based on input from their environment have great potential to do good, but they also raise significant social and ethical concerns. The discourse on ethics and artificial intelligence (AI) has covered these concerns in depth and developed an array of possible ways of addressing them. This article argues that a shortcoming of this discourse is that it concentrates on specific issues and their mitigation but neglects the nature of intelligent systems as socio-technical systems of systems that are often described as ecosystems. Building on the discussion of ethics and AI, the article suggests that it would be beneficial to come to an understanding of what would constitute responsible AI ecosystems. By introducing the concept of meta-responsibility or higher-level responsibility, the article proposes characteristics that an ecosystem would have to fulfil, in order to be considered a responsible ecosystem. This perspective is theoretically interesting because it extends the current AI ethics discourse. It furthermore offers a novel perspective for researchers and developers of intelligent system and helps them reflect on the way they relate to ethical issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injustice in energy transitions is a problem perceived in the inequity of participation in decision-making among the actors that shape socio-technical energy systems, where society usually plays the role of end user within the system network. The importance of taking it into consideration lies in the fact that this inequity can contribute to low social acceptance and lack of public confidence in the energy transition process, which is essential to define the course of the process. Through a qualitative study with an exploratory scope, the objective of this article is to study the perception of citizens as actors in the energy transition process from a procedural justice approach, and to contribute to the research of social study of energy through the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organisations increasingly use automated decision-making systems (ADMS) to inform decisions that affect humans and their environment. While the use of ADMS can improve the accuracy and efficiency of decision-making processes, it is also coupled with ethical challenges. Unfortunately, the governance mechanisms currently used to oversee human decision-making often fail when applied to ADMS. In previous work, we proposed that ethics-based auditing (EBA)—that is, a structured process by which ADMS are assessed for consistency with relevant principles or norms—can (a) help organisations verify claims about their ADMS and (b) provide decision-subjects with justifications for the outputs produced by ADMS. In this article, we outline the conditions under which EBA procedures can be feasible and effective in practice. First, we argue that EBA is best understood as a 'soft' yet 'formal' governance mechanism. This implies that the main responsibility of auditors should be to spark ethical deliberation at key intervention points throughout the software development process and ensure that there is sufficient documentation to respond to potential inquiries. Second, we frame AMDS as parts of larger sociotechnical systems to demonstrate that to be feasible and effective, EBA procedures must link to intervention points that span all levels of organisational governance and all phases of the software lifecycle. The main function of EBA should, therefore, be to inform, formalise, assess, and interlink existing governance structures. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our findings. To support the emergence of feasible and effective EBA procedures, policymakers and regulators could provide standardised reporting formats, facilitate knowledge exchange, provide guidance on how to resolve normative tensions, and create an independent body to oversee EBA of ADMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following contribution presents a standardized, multi-layered framework to analyse technical and societal aspects of automated decision-making (ADM) among private entities. It relies on the premise that in the context of technology, it is useful to shift the legal perspective towards sociotechnical practices. The taxonomy starts with the basic structure of the decision, its subject and the parties involved, then touches upon the relationship between the parties involved. Next, the taxonomy focuses on sociotechnical aspects, the optimization promises embodied in ADM and the application parameters of automated decision systems. Finally, it contains an analytical vocabulary for dysfunctionalities in ADM. As an example, the taxonomy is used to analyse and discuss the practice of robot recruiting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploitation of so-called insiders is increasingly recognised as a common vector for cyberattacks. Emerging work in this area has considered the phenomenon from various perspectives including the technological, the psychological and the sociotechnical. We extend this work by specifically examining unintentional forms of insider threat and report the outcomes of a series of detailed Critical Decision Method (CDM) led interviews with those who have experienced various forms of unwitting cybersecurity breaches. We also articulate factors likely to contribute firmly in the context of everyday work-as-done. CDM's probing questions were used to elicit expert knowledge around how decision making occurred prior, during and post an unintentional cyber breach whilst participants were engaged in the delivery of cognitive tasks. Through the application of grounded theory to data, emerging results included themes of decision making, task factors, accidents and organisational factors. These results are utilised to inform an Epidemiological Triangle to represent the dynamic relationship between three vectors of exploit, user and the work environment that can in turn affect the resilience of cyber defences. We conclude by presenting a simple framework, which for the purposes of this work is a set of recommendations applicable in specific scenarios to reduce negative impact for understanding unintentional insider threats. We also suggest practical means to counteract such threats rooted in the lived experience of those who have fallen prey to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithms are an integral part of our everyday lives and shape the selection and presentation of information and communication on the internet. At the same time, media users are faced with a lack of control and transparency when interacting with these systems because algorithms largely remain black boxes to end users. Relying on the notion that algorithms are socio-technical systems that comprise both technical and human components, this paper examines internet users' awareness of algorithms in different areas of internet use and inquires into users' perceptions of the impact of algorithms on their autonomy when interacting online. Empirically, we rely on qualitative interviews with 30 German internet users. Findings indicate that users in general are aware of algorithms operating in a wide range of applications and demonstrate a basic understanding of how these systems work. In line with the third-person effect, users perceive algorithms to have a stronger impact on others' internet use than on their own. Further, users' awareness of algorithms was found to be closely related to their perceived autonomy. When users feel in control of their interactions online, they are less aware of the impact of algorithms governing their interactions. Based on these results, we discuss the implications for transparency measures in algorithm regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review the main ideas and elements of Interaction-Oriented Software Engineering (IOSE), a program of research that we have pursued for the last two decades, a span of time in which it has grown from philosophy to practical programming abstractions. What distinguishes IOSE from any other program of research is its emphasis on supporting autonomy by modeling the meaning of communication and using that as the basis for engineering decentralized sociotechnical systems. Meaning sounds esoteric but is the basis for practical decision making and a holy grail for the field of distributed systems. We describe our contributions so far, directions for research, and the potential for broad impact on computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this work has been to propose a framework that will aid governments with the development of more coherent and effective infrastructure planning and resilience policies through a system-of-systems approach that is grounded in theory for complex sociotechnical systems. The framework has been developed by using a work domain analysis (WDA). The WDA consists of an abstraction hierarchy analysis and a part-whole decomposition. Together, the abstraction hierarchy and the part-whole description form the abstraction-decomposition space (ADS) for which the system constraints apply. By imposing constraints, the WDA promotes design for adaptation where actors within the system are allowed to adapt their behaviour as they find appropriate without violating the system’s constraints. The proposed ADS consists of five levels of abstraction and four levels of decomposition. By applying the ADS, it will aid decision making related to the overall purposes of the critical infrastructure system, the values and priority measures that are used to assess the system’s progress towards the functional purposes, as well as formulation of infrastructure needs that are necessary to achieve the functional purposes. The framework is formative in the sense that it reveals how work can be done in the critical infrastructure system. This is important because it is not feasible to prescribe, describe and risk assess all possibilities for action that are available in complex sociotechnical systems, especially when dealing with unforeseen events. Future research should focus on finding science-based yet useful in practice ways for establishing values and priority measures that encompass sustainability issues and resilience standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel approach, underpinned by systems thinking, to structure requirements and support front-end design decision-making around the performance in-use of developments within highly complex environments, with diverse stakeholders and users, such as the case of learning spaces in higher education (HE). Design/methodology/approach: Work domain analysis (WDA), a sociotechnical systems design framework, is first used to model the constraints that shape the expected performance of an informal learning space (ILS). Based on the model, the following stage involved a sector-wide survey questionnaire (n = 175) to appraise the views of different stakeholder groups in relation to ILS. These were analysed using the analytical network process (ANP). Findings: This study provides a novel approach, using WDA, to conceptualise the constraints shaping the performance in-use, integrating the perspectives of different stakeholder groups. Furthermore, it provides a structured approach to establish priorities that can serve as the basis to support complex decision-making during early design stages. The findings and proposed WDA–ANP approach aim to support HE estate managers on better understanding and integrating perspectives in relation to campus developments. Originality/value: In this paper, a novel systems-based approach is proposed as an alternative to conceptualise ILS. Furthermore, the approach is combined with ANP, a multi-criteria decision-making approach, to develop a novel tool to derive priorities and support front-end design decision-making in learning space design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consumer sector represents one of the key players in the diffusion of M-commerce in contemporary societies. Consumers' traditionalism has a significant impact in determining the appropriate products to offer electronically, as well as in determining the functions and information that should be offered to enable them to make the right decisions at the right time. Many characteristics and requirements in general-use commercial applications cannot be acceptable for more targeted release if they are not compatible with the target population's traditional requirements, and therefore, the M-commerce applications go to complexity level in design because of the socio-technical systems. This study is conducted in three GCC countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar on 799 participant consumers. This study focuses to determine the basic requirements for smartphones' commercial applications, including the requirements affected by different traditionalism in the studied communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With automation of routine decisions coupled with more intricate and complex information architecture operating this automation, concerns are increasing about the trustworthiness of these systems. These concerns are exacerbated by a class of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses deep learning (DL), an algorithmic system of deep neural networks, which on the whole remain opaque or hidden from human comprehension. This situation is commonly referred to as the black box problem in AI. Without understanding how AI reaches its conclusions, it is an open question to what extent we can trust these systems. The question of trust becomes more urgent as we delegate more and more decision-making to and increasingly rely on AI to safeguard significant human goods, such as security, healthcare, and safety. Models that "open the black box" by making the non-linear and complex decision process understandable by human observers are promising solutions to the black box problem in AI but are limited, at least in their current state, in their ability to make these processes less opaque to most observers. A philosophical analysis of trust will show why transparency is a necessary condition for trust and eventually for judging AI to be trustworthy. A more fruitful route for establishing trust in AI is to acknowledge that AI is situated within a socio-technical system that mediates trust, and by increasing the trustworthiness of these systems, we thereby increase trust in AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From innovations such as virtual fit through 3D body scanning, smart clothes, wearable technology and virtual styling assistants to more mundane capabilities such as digital photography and social media, deciding what to wear and how to wear an item is now accompanied by a range of new information and perspectives. This article examines the sociotechnical systems that support everyday decisions about what to wear, and how this decision-making process is being re-imagined in response to technology. Drawing upon closet ethnographies with women in the USA and Australia, we focus upon the ways in which women make decisions about what will help them to 'look professional'. Specifically, we attend to two key dimensions of the decision-making process – visions and validations – to understand the ways in which women weigh the opinion of other people, media and technologies, and the real and imagined role of how new technologies such as the Amazon Echo Look may be integrated into this process. Through fine-grained analysis of the ways that women receive, reject or ignore information about their performance of looking professional, we reflect upon the relative importance of different technologies in the process of decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of autonomous vehicles (AV) are widely anticipated to be socially, economically, and ethically significant. A reliable assessment of the harms and benefits of their large-scale deployment requires a multi-disciplinary approach. To that end, we employed Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to make such an assessment. We obtained opinions from 19 disciplinary experts to assess the significance of 13 potential harms and eight potential benefits that might arise under four deployments schemes. Specifically, we considered: (1) the status quo, i.e., no AVs are deployed; (2) unfettered assimilation, i.e., no regulatory control would be exercised and commercial entities would "push" the development and deployment; (3) regulated introduction, i.e., regulatory control would be applied and either private individuals or commercial fleet operators could own the AVs; and (4) fleets only, i.e., regulatory control would be applied and only commercial fleet operators could own the AVs. Our results suggest that two of these scenarios, (3) and (4), namely regulated privately-owned introduction or fleet ownership or autonomous vehicles would be less likely to cause harm than either the status quo or the unfettered options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online communities, socio-technical systems where people interact with others, depend on new members coming to the community. While the majority of research in online communities relation to the recruitment of new members has focused on new members' socialization and retention, little work has focused on how potential new members who are not yet a member of the community make the decision on whether they are willing to join in the online community. To understand this initial decision process, we investigated how potential new members build mental models of the online community from their first experience within the community, and how this process impacts the decision to continue participating in the community. We interviewed 31 potential new members of the online communities, Quora and Reddit, to better understand how they evaluate a new community. We found that the process of understanding a community involves orienting toward multiple different aspects of the community, including the content available on the community, the people who are already part of the community, and the technology interface and mechanisms that control the community. Participants who focused on consuming and enjoying content were much more likely to express an interest in future participation in these communities than participants who just evaluated the community, looking at the people in the community or the technology of the community. This extends previous considerations for recruiting new members in online communities. We conclude by discussing how our findings can have broad implications in developing successful online communities and suggesting future research efforts that could help understand potential new members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network theory has been widely used to describe many complex systems belonging to several fields from physics to sociology. Particularly interesting are multilayer networks which concurrently account for several types of relationships, without necessarily aggregating them. The functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) is an agnostic method (i.e., not making modeling assumptions) allowing semantically rich descriptions of the relationships among functions constituting a socio-technical system. This richness may soon become overwhelming in case of not trivial FRAM models. A multilayer network represents a promising choice for combining the long-proven experience in network theory with the FRAM's agnosticism. On these observations, this article shows how a FRAM model can be reinterpreted as a five-layer multilayer-directed network without any loss of information, even reducing the cognitive workload required for the analysts. This paper defines a methodology able to prioritize potentially critical functions through dedicated network centrality descriptors, and to generate instantiations for comparison and benchmarking of scenario-based envisioned solutions. A walk-through application in industrial operations management confirms the feasibility and validity of the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Analysts of the spatial dynamics of energy transition have given insufficient attention to the obduracy of fossil fuel-based energy systems, and understanding such persistence requires greater analytical attention to the role of place. This paper responds to these concerns through a distinctive longitudinal, whole sector analysis of the siting decisions of 111 gas-fired power station projects in England and Wales, from 1988 to 2019. Evidence shows that over 67,000 MW of new capacity has been consented, with few insurmountable siting problems, with place providing an important explanatory element. The fact that many projects were able to re-inhabit sites of former coal- and oil-fired power stations enabled developers successfully to mobilise arguments that gas power was a net environmental improvement, while obviating or deflecting objections based on place and landscape. The combination of site choice and consenting rules also helped gas-fired power stations nullify challenges based on the systemic risks of burning gas, and negotiate climate change policy constraints. Researchers need to theorise how 'systems of places' shape the reproduction of dominant socio-technical systems for energy, by mediating the extent and efficacy of public engagement in decision-making and problematising political challenges to the social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) are often used by organisations to automate and integrate their business processes to create value and efficiency. However, the majority of EIS research is centred on the implementation phase with relatively little work on the pre-implementation phase. Another gap in the existing literature is that it usually ignores the wider institutional context when determining the generalisability of research findings. This study focuses on the procurement process and analyses three instances of EIS procurement in a public service organisation. The data collection is conducted using a socio-technical systems framework embedded within a case study methodology. Narrative analysis with a processual lens is used as an analytical tool in this study. In contrast to the existing conception of the procurement process as a completely rational and linear decision-making process, our findings explain it as a multi-level process where factors from the work-system and the macrosocial level play a crucial role in influencing the decisions at the organisational level. Technological imperative (work-system level) and business case (organisational level) are found to be critical factors in EIS procurement, in line with previous findings. However, the findings suggest a greater role of the macrosocial factors - EIS market, EIS vendor, and the institutional context. This study also notes the demonstrative nature of certain elements of the EIS procurement process in public service organisations. Thus, this study brings out the complexity and contextual nature of EIS procurement in public service organisations by demonstrating the interplay of factors operating at the worksystem, organisational, and macrosocial levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops connections between design thinking and social practice theories, presenting a toolkit intended to support the development of sustainability interventions and policies capable of encouraging sustainable practices. Key developments in design thinking and social practice theories are critically examined, and a toolkit is presented that sensitively combines their conceptual and methodological insights. The toolkit is one of the first resources that enables practitioners to operationalise social practice theories without substantial prior engagement or training. It thereby offers an accessible resource to support the design of initiatives that could disrupt resource intensive practices and support the emergence and normalisation of less resource intensive alternatives. This paper specifically addresses the contribution the toolkit makes to advancing discussions regarding practice-oriented design. • Connections between social practice theories and design thinking are developed. • Social Practice Theories extend focus towards a socio-technical system focus. • Design Thinking provides immersive participatory methods for intervention planning. • We present a toolkit to aid creation of practice-based sustainability interventions. • A co-productive approach is outlined to enable others to develop practicable outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen science (CS) is increasingly becoming a focal point for public policy to provide data for decisionmaking and to widen access to science. Yet beyond these two understandings, CS engages with political processes in a number of other ways. To develop a more nuanced understanding of governance in relation to CS, this paper brings together theoretical analysis by social science researchers and reflections from CS practice. It draws on concepts from Science and Technology Studies and political sciences as well as examples from the "Doing-It-Together Science" (DITOs) project. The paper develops a heuristic of how CS feeds into, is affected by, forms part of, and exercises governance. These four governance modes are (1) Source of information for policy-making, (2) object of research policy, (3) policy instrument, and (4) socio-technical governance. Our analysis suggests that these four dimensions represent different conceptions of how science and technology governance takes place that have not yet been articulated in the CS literature. By reflecting on the DITOs project, the paper shows how this heuristic can enrich CS. Benefits include project organisers better communicating their work and impacts. In its conclusion, the paper argues that focusing on the complexity of governance relations opens up new ways of doing CS regarding engagement methodologies and evaluation. The paper recommends foregrounding the broad range of governance impacts of CS and reflecting on them in cooperation between researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology (IT) investment decisions have traditionally focused on financial or technological issues. Responding to what appears to be a lack of payoff in IT investments, researchers as well as practitioners recently have suggested that traditional valuation analyses are incomplete and have called for additional work to identify "hidden" or seldom-considered costs and benefits. The present paper attempts to improve understanding of a chief source of these hidden costs and benefits: those changes in the social subsystem brought about by a new IT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic strained health care organizations to their limits, and sometimes beyond. Different countries took different approaches to minimize the effects of the pandemic, both to protect public health and to safeguard the capability of the health care system. A collaborative project between Sweden and Bosnia-Hercegovina with the aim to share and learn from experiences of managing the COVID-19 pandemic from a medical command and control perspective, initiated in 2021. The project departed from three theoretical stances: sociotechnical systems perspective, experiential learning theory, and organizational learning theory. Framing the problem using a holistic systems approach, compared to focusing on individual experts, allows for understanding interactions on a system level. Hence, could these theories contribute to supporting individuals' learning and organizational change? Method: A two-day workshop involving participants from both Swedish and Bosnian (N=21) medical command and control allowed for the exchange of experiences and another's perspective on similar challenges. During the workshop, two themes were addressed: common operational picture and evaluation. First, an introductory presentation was held, then the theme was discussed and reflected upon in small groups. After this, the groups presented their conclusions, and a full group discussion was moderated. Results: The discussions resulted in participants sharing perspectives on the selected themes, providing personal insights and experience, allowing for deepened and increased understanding of the theme. In spite of major differences between the Swedish and the Bosnian health care systems and Covid-19 approaches, several shared conclusions were identified. For example, reflections on decision processes and strategies, as well as interest in improving the crisis organization. Conclusion: Exposing participants to different views on well-known processes and challenges allows for reflecting, verbalizing, and reaching a deeper understanding. By displaying a culturally differently organized way of approaching the challenges the contrast is even more evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railways are classic instances of complex socio-technical systems, whose defining characteristic is that they exist and function by integrating (continuous-time) interactions among technical components and human elements. Typically, unlike physical systems, there are no governing laws for describing their dynamics. Based purely on micro-unit data, here we present a data-driven framework to analyze macro-dynamics in such systems, leading us to the identification of specific states and prediction of transitions across them. It consists of three steps, which we elucidate using data from the Dutch railways. First, we form a dimensionally reduced phase-space by extracting a few relevant components, wherein relevance is proxied by dominance in terms of explained variance, as well as by persistence in time. Secondly, we apply a clustering algorithm to the reduced phase-space, resulting in the revelation of states of the system. Specifically, we identify 'rest' and 'disrupted' states, for which the system operations deviates respectively little and strongly from the planned timetable. Third, we define an early-warning metric based on the probability of transitions across states, predict whether the system is likely to transit from one state to another within a given time-frame and evaluate the performance of this metric using the Peirce skill score. Interestingly, using case studies, we demonstrate that the framework is able to predict large-scale disruptions up to 90 minutes beforehand with significant skill, demonstrating, for the railway companies, its potential to better track the evolution of large-scale disruptions in their networks. We discuss that the applicability of the three-step framework stretches to other systems as well—i.e., not only socio-technical ones—wherein real-time monitoring can help to prevent macro-scale state transitions, albeit the methods chosen to execute each step may depend on specific system-details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision making subject to uncertain information, whether fake or factual, in the context of management of socio-technical systems, is critically discussed from both philosophical and operational perspectives. In dealing with possible fake, incorrect and/or factual information we take the perspective that any information utilised as basis for supporting decisions, has to be dealt with in exactly the same manner – in accordance with Bayesian decision analysis. The important issue is to identify and model the scenarios through which information may cause adverse consequences and to account for their potential effects. To this end we first provide a mapping of how information affects the decision making context and a categorisation of causes for information leading to adverse consequences. Secondly, we introduce a decision analytical framework aiming to optimise decision alternatives for managing systems including not only one possible system model but a set of different possible system models. As a means for assessing the benefit of collecting additional information, we utilise Value of Information analysis from Bayesian decision analysis. Finally, a principal example is provided which illustrates selected aspects of how possibly fake information affects decision making and how it might be dealt with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry takes an orthodox approach to safety: Finding root causes, quantifying risk, and often blaming frontline workers. However, safety has reached a plateau and the limitations of this approach are starting to be acknowledged. A sociotechnical systems approach (as applied in the ConCA model) presents new opportunities to understand accident causation by linking immediate accident circumstances with the distal shaping and originating influences. 32 construction safety managers, consultants, and experts contributed their views regarding the hazards of construction (both human and physical) and the difficulties managing these. The findings provide an insight into the work of construction safety managers and their decision making which is influenced by industry-wide pressures and worker attributes over physical hazards. Construction suffers from a wide range of pressures; a combination of both top-down, from the client, and bottom-up challenges from the workforce it attracts. The original ConCA model has been revised to reflect the findings. By applying systems thinking, the relationships between negative perceptions of workers' risk-taking and these challenges can be crystallised. The results support integrating safety into primary activities to increase engagement, learning legacies to transfer knowledge between projects, multi-disciplinary teams to raise risk awareness, empowerment to combat their feelings of dissatisfaction and disloyalty, and collaboration in risk management to incorporate workers' expertise and ensure they feel valued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]