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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
A Socio-Technical Perspective on the Design of IT Architectures: The Lowlands Lens
Author(s)
Govers Mark
Van Amelsvoort Pierre
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2185/2018.03.003
Affiliation(s)
Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
Catholic University Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
ABSTRACT
The paper aims at developing a
more comprehensive design theory for designing effective IT architectures based
on organizational design principles. It
builds on the sociotechnical systems design theory (STS-D) for the design of
work, workplaces,
and organizations as developed in the Lowlands (The Netherlands and Belgium).
Traditional sociotechnical approaches study the effects of the technical system
on the social system and try to jointly optimize both systems by end-users’
participation. The Lowlands STS-D approach focuses on creating organizational
conditions for developing humane and productive organizations. Organizations
are considered as social systems. Technical systems need to support the
effective functioning of work and control of work within that social system.
Therefore, the division of labour is central in the Lowlands STS-D approach. It
is articulated in designing the execution tasks (production structure) and
control tasks (control structure). Furthermore, it claims that the design of IT
architecture follows after organizational design of the production and control
structure. This boils down to the design of provisioning of information needed
at workplaces and between workplaces. To understand the Lowlands approach for
designing IT architecture, called archipelago, we will first in-depth explain
its organizational design principles and sequence, and its application for
designing IT architecture, which is becoming ever more feasible with new technologies. Furthermore, with
this paper we attempt to bridge the different languages used by organizational
and IT designers as they should jointly work on the same
outcome: humane and productive organizations.
KEYWORDS
sociotechnical design, IT architecture, humane and innovative organisations
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