Legal Compatibility as a Characteristic of Sociotechnical Systems

Legal compatibility as a characteristic of sociotechnical systems aims at the greatest possible compliance with higher-order legal goals for minimizing social risks of technical systems and extends legality, which refers to the prevention of lawlessness. The paper analyzes the criteria for legal compatibility by reviewing specifications of legally compatible systems and shows goals and resulting requirements to foster legal compatibility. These comprise the following areas: avoiding personal reference in data, ensuring information security, enabling freedom of decision, increasing transparency, ensuring traceability, and increasing usability, whereby traceability and the avoidance of personal reference pursue conflicting goals. The presentation of the goals including their dependencies, relationships, and conflicts in form of standardized requirements explains legal compatibility and summarizes the requirements necessary for the development of legally compatible Systems

Reflections on the concept of interoperability in information systems

Information systems interoperability is one of the main concerns and challenges of information systems managers and researchers, most of whom perceive and approach it on a pure or predominantly technological perspective. In this paper, we argue that a sociotechnical perspective of information systems interoperability should be adopted and we set out seven assertions that, if taken into consideration, may improve the understanding, management, and study of the information systems interoperability phenomenon.(undefined

UNDERSTANDING THE DRIVERS AND CONSEQUENCES OF INTERACTIVE INNOVATION ADOPTION IN HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Providing technologies and services to enable collaboration and communication is a vital concern for information scientists and organizational leaders supporting communities of professionals in research-intensive health care environments. Innovative information practices and technologies—which may include mobile and social-media based technologies, new electronic records systems, new data management practices, and new communication procedures—are developed and introduced, often at considerable cost, with the goal of supporting and enhancing information sharing. However, at times these innovations fail to be adopted by their intended user communities, or adoption leads to unforeseen negative consequences for information sharing within the social environment. The health care sector in particular, while often characterized as generally innovative, has at times been slow to adopt new information innovations. This is a seeming paradox for innovation adoption studies, in which innovativeness is typically treated as synonymous with being among the first to adopt an innovation. This research was conducted in order to better understand the factors that influence or impede interactive innovation adoption in research-intensive health care environments. A four quadrant model, the Pollock Model of Interactive Innovation Adoption (PMIIA) was created and tested in a study of innovation adoption among physicians in training at an academic medical center in the southern United States. Factors from all four quadrants of the model were found to be related to either adoption decisions or perceptions of innovations. Additionally, both personal and professional values were found to play a role in participants\u27 adoption and use of the innovations

LEAN MANUFACTURING - AN INTEGRATED SOCIO-TECHNICAL SYSTEMS APPROACH TO WORK DESIGN

Over the years, the manufacturing industry has witnessed a number of work design practices, based on different principles, which have significantly shaped the nature of work and have affected employees\u27 behavior and performance. This study compares the socio-technical systems (STS) principles and lean production (LP) principles in to explore the potential for synergistic integration between the two. They are categorized according to the common overarching goals of these principles, and through a process of theoretical rationalization, these categories are operationalized into the work design practices of middle management support, social practices usage, and technical practices usage. A model of work design is proposed to test the relationships between these work practices and to understand their effect on employees\u27 quality of work life and performance. The effect of task interdependence is also examined since teams are the basic unit of analysis in STS and LP approaches to work design. This model is tested with a cross-sectional survey research in which team leaders in manufacturing plants in the United States were the key respondents. Statistical analyses of survey data yielded three key findings. Middle management support has a positive direct and indirect effect on improved employee performance, a positive direct effect on social practices usage, and a positive indirect effect on technical practices usage and on employees\u27 quality of work life. Social practices usage has a total positive direct effect on technical practices usage, and a positive indirect effect on employees\u27 quality of work life and their performance. Technical practices usage has a direct effect on both quality of work life and employee performance. This study provides empirical support for the definition of lean production posited by Shah and Ward (2007). Results indicate that middle management is crucial for the implementation and sustainability of a lean system because it offers the support necessary for the usage of social and technical practices. Applications for manufacturing organizations and suggestions for future research are presented