Sociotechnical Resilience: A Preliminary Concept

This article presents the concept of sociotechnical resilience by employing an interdisciplinary perspective derived from the fields of science and technology studies, human factors, safety science, organizational studies, and systems engineering. Highlighting the hybrid nature of sociotechnical systems, we identify three main constituents that characterize sociotechnical resilience: informational relations, sociomaterial structures, and anticipatory practices. Further, we frame sociotechnical resilience as undergirded by the notion of transformability with an emphasis on intentional activities, focusing on the ability of sociotechnical systems to shift from one form to another in the aftermath of shock and disturbance. We propose that the triad of relations, structures, and practices are fundamental aspects required to comprehend the resilience of sociotechnical systems during times of crisis.     

A Simplified Approach to Risk Assessment Based on System Dynamics: An Industrial Case Study

Seveso plants are complex sociotechnical systems, which makes it appropriate to support any risk assessment with a model of the system. However, more often than not, this step is only partially addressed, simplified, or avoided in safety reports. At the same time, investigations have shown that the complexity of industrial systems is frequently a factor in accidents, due to interactions between their technical, human, and organizational dimensions. In order to handle both this complexity and changes in the system over time, this article proposes an original and simplified qualitative risk evaluation method based on the system dynamics theory developed by Forrester in the early 1960s. The methodology supports the development of a dynamic risk assessment framework dedicated to industrial activities. It consists of 10 complementary steps grouped into two main activities: system dynamics modeling of the sociotechnical system and risk analysis. This system dynamics risk analysis is applied to a case study of a chemical plant and provides a way to assess the technological and organizational components of safety.     

AbSRiM: An Agent‐Based Security Risk Management Approach for Airport Operations

Security risk management is essential for ensuring effective airport operations. This article introduces AbSRiM, a novel agent‐based modeling and simulation approach to perform security risk management for airport operations that uses formal sociotechnical models that include temporal and spatial aspects. The approach contains four main steps: scope selection, agent‐based model definition, risk assessment, and risk mitigation. The approach is based on traditional security risk management methodologies, but uses agent‐based modeling and Monte Carlo simulation at its core. Agent‐based modeling is used to model threat scenarios, and Monte Carlo simulations are then performed with this model to estimate security risks. The use of the AbSRiM approach is demonstrated with an illustrative case study. This case study includes a threat scenario in which an adversary attacks an airport terminal with an improvised explosive device. The approach provides a promising way to include important elements, such as human aspects and spatiotemporal aspects, in the assessment of risk. More research is still needed to better identify the strengths and weaknesses of the AbSRiM approach in different case studies, but results demonstrate the feasibility of the approach and its potential.     

Planning for profit: the commercialization of European airports

This paper examines the main factors that lie behind the expansion of commercial activities in European airports. It maintains that airport authorities have been forced to react to a variety of external pressures over which they have no control. This has led to a number of airports reassessing their strategic priorities in favour of a more commercially orientated approach. The paper highlights how this re-focusing has manifested itself in terms of the design, layout and allocation of commercial space within an airport. In addition it examines how this change has increased the role and prominence of commercial management.     

Assessment of airport performance using the SBM-NDEA model

This paper presents a slacks-based measure network data envelopment analysis (SBM-NDEA) model of performance measurement under series productions with quasi-fixed inputs of runway, terminal and apron areas as well as free linking capacity provisions. Airport operations efficiency is decomposed into production and service efficiency. Service efficiency can then be further decomposed into airside and landside aspects. Our empirical findings suggest that efficiency in airport production may not guarantee efficiency in the service process of domestic airports in Taiwan, and vice versa. This study also estimates the input excess and output shortfalls with respect to production and service processes, respectively.     

Out of machine age?: complexity, sociotechnical systems and actor network theory

This paper compares sociotechnical systems (STS) theory and actor network theory (ANT) as developed by Latour, Callon and Law. We examine how STS and ANT can be viewed as responses to rationalist/functionalist research on large sociotechnical systems and as extensions and elaborations of pragmatist/culturalist frameworks developed in sociology and anthropology. We reexamine, from an actor network perspective, Trist and Bamforth’s seminal article in which the concept of a sociotechnical system was introduced. We also discuss how STS ideas on interactive planning can be combined with concepts from ANT to investigate interdependent processes of invention and innovation in large sociotechnical networks.     

A Comprehensive Model for Measuring the Potential Impact of Information Technology on Organizational Strategic Variables*

The existing literature on the impact of information technology (IT) does not include rigorous theory building or empirical studies. This research seems to be the first comprehensive investigation towards the development of an empirically validated comprehensive model for understanding the potential impact of IT on organizational strategic variables. More specifically, organizational and industrial variables that appeared to be affected by IT are identified, measured, and operationalized in the form of a comprehensive model. This study is based on structured interviews with a carefully selected sample of 31 strategic managers who had experience using IT for strategic decisions. In addition, the variables included in the model are well grounded in the information systems literature. The variables are then empirically validated and their reliabilities critically tested. A comprehensive model is derived from these validated variables. The model is a first step towards measuring the overall potential impact of IT on an organization. The model can also be used to gauge IT's potential impact on individual strategic variables. A set of hypotheses is also presented for future research. The hypotheses primarily relate to the impact of IT on organizational strategic performance. The model provides an empirically validated foundation for testing of such hypotheses.     

The impact of emotion on organizational learning

This paper addresses an aspect of organizational learning that has not been extensively developed - the impact of emotion on organizational learning. The study of emotion in organizations is seen as an important part of the development of organizational learning. The paper argues that attention to the emotional dynamics of organizing, and to the links between emotion and organizational politics, will increase the possibilities for understanding organizational learning. Awareness of the impact of emotion on organizational learning can be developed through an investigation of two areas. First, organizational learning is more than a product of organizational responses to individual learning. Emotion contributes to a broader understanding of systemic learning. Second, emotion is important to strategic aspects of organizational learning. There is a link between the emotional and the political within organizations. The paper contains a discussion of these themes using brief case examples to illustrate and develop the issues.     

On Determining Specifications and Selections of Alternative Technologies for Airport Checked-Baggage Security Screening

Federal law mandates that every checked bag at all commercial airports be screened by explosive detection systems (EDS), explosive trace detection systems (ETD), or alternative technologies. These technologies serve as critical components of airport security systems that strive to reduce security risks at both national and global levels. To improve the operational efficiency and airport security, emerging image-based technologies have been developed, such as dual-energy X-ray (DX), backscatter X-ray (BX), and multiview tomography (MVT). These technologies differ widely in purchasing cost, maintenance cost, operating cost, processing rate, and accuracy. Based on a mathematical framework that takes into account all these factors, this article investigates two critical issues for operating screening devices: setting specifications for continuous security responses by different technologies; and selecting technology or combination of technologies for efficient 100% baggage screening. For continuous security responses, specifications or thresholds are used for classifying threat items from nonthreat items. By investigating the setting of specifications on system security responses, this article assesses the risk and cost effectiveness of various technologies for both single-device and two-device systems. The findings provide the best selection of image-based technologies for both single-device and two-device systems. Our study suggests that two-device systems outperform single-device systems in terms of both cost effectiveness and accuracy. The model can be readily extended to evaluate risk and cost effectiveness of multiple-device systems for airport checked-baggage security screening.     

Quality Management and Cooperative Values: Investigation of Multilevel Influences on Workgroup Performance

Unsuccessful quality initiatives often are attributed to an organizational culture that does not recognize the importance of the cooperative values that underlie “soft” quality management practices, like customer focus and empowerment. Yet, the literature remains unclear as to how quality management and cooperative values interrelate by failing to incorporate the multilevel influences on this relationship in organizations. This research analyzes a multilevel model based on sociotechnical systems and quality management theories. Secondary data are used to test an explanation of how organizational‐level and workgroup‐level quality management practices relate to cooperative cultural values and workgroup performance. A single‐level model is also tested to demonstrate its inadequacies. Based upon the support for a multilevel model, managerial insights are provided that aid in deciding where resources should be allocated during a quality initiative.     

A Heuristic Risk Assessment Technique for Birdstrike Management at Airports

Collisions between birds and aircraft (birdstrikes) have caused the loss of at least 88 aircraft and 243 lives in world civil aviation. Conservative estimates suggest that more routine damage and delays following birdstrikes cost the industry and its insurers US$1.2-1.5 billion per year. The majority of strikes happen close to airports and most countries have regulations that require airport managers to control the birdstrike risk on their property. Birdstrike prevention has, however, lagged behind other aspects of flight safety in the development and implementation of risk assessment protocols, possibly because of the inherent difficulty in quantifying the variability in the populations and behavior of the various bird species involved. This article presents a technique that uses both national and airport-specific data to evaluate risk by creating a simple probability-times-severity matrix. It uses the frequency of strikes reported for different bird species at a given airport over the preceding five years as a measure of strike probability, and the proportion of strikes with each species that result in damage to aircraft, in the national birdstrike database, as a measure of likely severity. Action thresholds for risk levels for particular bird species are then defined, above which the airport should take action to reduce the risk further. The assessment is designed for airports where the reporting and collation of birdstrike events is reasonably consistent over time and where a bird hazard management program of some sort is already in place. This risk assessment is designed to measure risk to the airport as a business rather than risk to the traveling passenger individually. It therefore takes no account of aircraft movement rate in the calculations and is aimed at minimizing the number of damaging incidents rather than concentrating on catastrophic events. Once set up at an airport, the technique is simple to implement for nonexperts, and it allows managers to focus bird control resources on the species causing the greatest risk, hence maximizing the return on investment. This protocol is now being successfully used at major airports in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world.     

Participatory Organizational Research: Examining Voice in the Co‐production of Knowledge

This paper advances participatory methods in management research. We propose the term participatory organizational research to describe this adjunct to action research. We illustrate the potential of the method to allow sometimes unheard organizational members to generate alternative perspectives that can offer the potential for the co‐production of new forms of knowledge that are locally relevant. Participatory methods originate from work with marginalized groups and have been used more commonly in community and organizational development. The aim of such research is, generally, to change the social and organizational conditions within which participants operate by using their perspectives as active participants to develop alternative possibilities. As such, this research method has significant potential for management researchers in providing the means for unheard organizational members to voice their perspectives: a central component, we argue, in knowledge co‐production. Based on a participatory study of care quality in elder care institutions, we examine in detail how participatory organizational research can enable voice and explore some of the structural limitations particularly in respect of research ethics.     

Organizational cloud service adoption: a scientometric and content-based literature analysis

This paper takes a scientometric research approach and undertakes a categorized literature analysis to provide a comprehensive and systemic overview of the current status of research on cloud services and their adoption by organizations. We review 52 journals and proceedings of the information systems field to identify and systematically categorize 36 articles on the topic. Our content-based analysis shows that the scarce theoretical and empirical work on organizational cloud service adoption has developed and explored factors that directly or indirectly drive organizations to adopt or inhibit them from adopting cloud services from different perspectives and dimensions. We classify these driving and inhibiting determinants based on the technology organization environment framework Tornatzky and Fleischer (The process of technological innovation. Lexington Books, Lexington, 1990) to provide a structured summary. Based on our analysis and recent cloud evolution in practice, we identify five new research areas, including theoretical and practical phenomena describing determinants and consequences of cloud service adoption in organizations: information technology (IT) related public threat appeals, trust in the technology versus trust in the vendor, bring your own cloud, transformation of organizational identity, and intelligent clusters of IT initiatives. For each phenomenon we provide relevant research questions, potential theoretical foundations, and methodologies to guide future research endeavors in this field.     

Sustaining the Benefits of a Quality Initiative through Cooperative Values: A Longitudinal Study

Although research has shown that organizational cultural values influence the success of quality initiatives, how and when cultural values are influential is unclear. This longitudinal study asserts that quality management should be viewed from a dynamic perspective to better understand the role of cooperative cultural values in a quality initiative. We use a multilevel model of quality management, and develop time‐oriented hypotheses using a sociotechnical systems perspective to examine the role of cooperative values. Our analysis uses longitudinal data from over 30 U.S. federal government agencies, collected during an enterprise‐wide quality initiative. We find that, over time, the influence of organization‐level quality practices diminishes, but the influence of cooperative values increases; workgroup‐level quality practices remain consistently important. Our findings reveal the unexplored influences of cooperative values to sustain the benefits of quality management.     

Foot-and-Mouth Disease Entrance Assessment Model Through Air Passenger Violations

This article aims to construct a risk model for the prediction of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) entrance caused by passengers who illegally carry meat products of cloven-hoofed animals through international airports into a country. The risk that meat contaminated with the FMD virus is formulated as the probabilities of FMD factor events (the prevalence of FMD), the commodity factor event (the transportation, storage, and distribution (TSD) factor event), and the passenger event. Data used for analysis were records of illegal meat product carriers from areas A and B intercepted at an international airport in Taiwan. A risk model was proposed to simulate the probability distributions in disease prevalence, probability of FMD virus existing in the meat products after meat processing, and estimation of survival of virus and time period for TSD. The probability of the passenger event was hypothesized with the odds of intercepted passengers and estimated via logistic regression. The results showed that the odds of passengers being intercepted by beagles were higher than those intercepted by Customs. By conducting Monte Carlo simulations, the probability of FMD virus risk caused by FMD factors from area A was 149 times lower than that from area B. The probability of FMD virus risk caused by the passenger event from area A was four times lower than the corresponding probability from area B. The model provides a contribution to FMD prevention and can be a reference for developing models of other diseases.     

Exploring the Career Capital Impact of International Assignments within Distinct Organizational Contexts

The existing expatriation literature concentrates on what individuals need to perform in an international assignment (IA) but neglects what they gain from their foreign work experience. Using a dual‐dependency perspective this study presents results from 26 in‐depth interviews with international secondees within two UK‐based organizational contexts. The paper explores the perceived impact of an IA on the career capital of individuals, showing that the outcomes of IAs can be equivocal for expatriates. Each firm concentrated their human resource mechanisms on developing different types of career capital and this focused individual behaviour on diverse career capital activities. In one of the organizations there was an internal misalignment between organizational and individual assignee focus. Based on the research a number of propositions were developed. This study provided an exploratory insight into points of departure rather than complementarity in individuals' international careers in organizations, which has been at the core of much recent research and writing. A more complex, contextualized picture of the effects of IAs on the careers of individuals emerged.     

Multidimensional Approach for Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment: Framing the Territorial Impacts in Two Municipalities in Portugal

This study presents a new multidimensional methodology for tsunami vulnerability assessment that combines the morphological, structural, social, and tax component of vulnerability. This new approach can be distinguished from previous methodologies that focused primarily on the evaluation of potentially affected buildings and did not use tsunami numerical modeling. The methodology was applied to the Figueira da Foz and Vila do Bispo municipalities in Portugal. For each area, the potential tsunami‐inundated areas were calculated considering the 1755 Lisbon tsunami, which is the greatest disaster caused by natural hazards that ever occurred in Portugal. Furthermore, the four components of the vulnerability were calculated to obtain a composite vulnerability index. This methodology enables us to differentiate the two areas in their vulnerability, highlighting the characteristics of the territory components. This methodology can be a starting point for the creation of a local assessment framework at the municipal scale related to tsunami risk. In addition, the methodology is an important support for the different local stakeholders.     

More (new) products,more problems? A systems perspective on increased capability deployment and organizational errors

The capabilities-based view postulates that organizational capabilities are a key driver of competitive advantage. However, while increasing the pace of deploying organizational capabilities, such as new product development (NPD), may enable alignment with changing environments, it may also have unintended consequences. In this study, we advance theory on these unintended consequences by investigating how the increased deployment of NPD capability leads to organizational errors. Borrowing from organizational research employing systems theory, we argue that an increase in NPD deployment may increase the likelihood of routine discoordination and, thus, the incidence of intra-firm and interfirm errors. However, we also proffer that firms can mitigate errors from increases in NPD capability deployment by engaging in distinct internal and external activities that enable the accumulation of knowledge on how to coordinate systemic change. We distinguish between internal and external errors, demonstrating that in the context of increased NPD deployments, internal voluntary investigations ameliorate internal manufacturing errors, while supplier alliances mitigate outsourced component errors. We find support for our predictions using data from new product introductions and recalls in the U.S. automotive industry. This study sheds light on the tension inherent to accelerating the deployment of patterned organizational activities and suggests that the outcomes of deploying an organizational capability are best viewed holistically within the milieu of organizational systems the capability spans.     

Extending the Cognitive Approach to Strategic Change in Organizations: Some Theory

This paper claims that organizational cognitions are manifested as argumentation. Such argumentation can be represented as organizational construct systems (systems of constructs shared by important organization members). Such organizational construct systems enable us to detect structural features of an organization's cognition which indicate its chances of survival or failure.