Socio-technical Systems Analysis: Which approach should be followed?

The aim of the present paper is to contribute to the debate in the cognitive ergonomics community as for the adequacy of different approaches for the analysis of socio-technical systems in view of designing artifacts facilitating human work. Using a taxonomy of sociotechnical systems as frame of reference, the theoretical origins and the main application domains of three wellknown approaches are examined. This permits to extract useful conclusions as to their appropriateness and effectiveness for the ergonomic analysis and design.

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