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The socio-technical approach to managing business and organizational change has been around for about half of the 20^th century. Ever since the pioneers of the approach at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations published the outcome of their study of the attempts by the National Coal Board in the UK to improve productivity by the introduction of mechanization (Trist 1981; Trist and Bamforth 1951; Trist et al. 1963), socio-technical methods have been discussed and used in the implementation of change and in particular for the introduction of new technologies. Advocates of the socio-technical approach can be found over the entire industrialized world (Coakes, Lloyd-Jones, and Wills 2000). Indeed, the philosophy that underlies much of the thinking of IFIP's Working Group 8.2 rests firmly on socio-technical foundations.

DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-35505-4_8

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