No description available.

This dissertation is a historical case study of the payment system designed, built, and operated by Visa International Services Association (VISA, hereafter “Visa”). The system is analyzed as a sociotechnical one, consisting of both social and technical elements that mutually constitute and shape one another. The historical narrative concentrates on the period of 1970 to 1984, which roughly corresponds to the tenure of the system’s founder and first CEO, Dee Ward Hock. It also focuses primarily upon the events that took place within the United States. After establishing a theoretical and historical context, I describe why and how the organization now known as Visa was formed. I then explain how the founder and his staff transformed the disintegrated, paper-based credit card systems of the 1960s into the unified, electronic value exchange system we know today. Special attention is paid throughout this narrative to the ways in which the technologies were shaped by political, legal, economic, and cultural forces, as well as the ways in which the system began to alter those social relations in return. In the final chapter, I offer three small extensions to the literature on payment systems, cooperative networks, and technology and culture.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce / In a rapidly changing world of technological advancement and innovation, academic institutions are propelled to automate manual processes for more efficiency and access to a broader spectrum of applicants. For this reason, universities are investing in online application system to deal with long queues, malpractice, loss of documents, and undue costs incurred by the university. However, online application systems that do not adequately address sociotechnical requirements may result in an unsuccessful implementation, wasteful expenditure and sometimes reputational damage to the university. This research suggests a general sociotechnical conceptual framework which was informed by both the traditional System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Effective Technical & Human Implementation of Computer-based Systems (ETHICS) methodology to understand the development of an online application system using a sociotechnical approach. An exploratory research approach was used on an online application system case study to understand what sociotechnical aspects were considered during the application development and the outcome thereof. Qualitative data sources were examined to understand the context and rationale for any sociotechnical issues incorporated or excluded in the online application system development. Based on new discoveries, the sociotechnical conceptual framework was enhanced to be more relevant for academics, practitioners and organisations to use as a guide for a sociotechnical system development approach. / NG (2020)

Introduction: Internationally, there is increasing interest in the potential of information technology to enhance the quality and efficiency of healthcare. Many countries are currently actively pursuing electronic health record implementations. However, the introduction of such systems often has significant consequences for users’ work practices and organisational functioning due to the complex processes involved in implementing and adopting new technology. Problems may be exacerbated in a national implementation context if users feel that systems are imposed and offer insufficient customisability due to a focus on achieving widespread interoperability. England has embarked on a large-scale national implementation of electronic health records. One of the procured systems was Lorenzo, which was to be built while it was being implemented. Investigating the implementation and adoption of Lorenzo is of particular interest as, in theory, the approach of “co-creating” a system in collaboration with the National Health Service (NHS) should help to increase software usability and thereby facilitate integration with work practices. I sought to understand the views and experiences of users as well as organisational consequences of introducing Lorenzo, and how these evolved over time in the complex environment of a national electronic health record implementation. Methodology and methods: I conducted a qualitative longitudinal investigation in purposefully selected secondary and community care settings which were implementing early Lorenzo functionality. I conceptualised the settings as case studies. Data collection was theory-driven in that it utilised a methodological framework, which was developed specifically for the purposes of my study and based on the existing theoretical and empirical literature. Using this framework with multi-sited ethnography helped me to examine the immediate environment in which Lorenzo was implemented without neglecting the organisational and political context in which local developments were situated. Data collection consisted of interviews with Lorenzo users and managers in case study sites; interviews with external stakeholders (including policy makers, system developers, and independent sector representatives) from outside NHS Trusts; non-participant observation of staff meetings and use of the technology; as well as a combination of field notes, documents pertaining to Trusts and wider political developments, and press statements. Data collection and thematic analysis were informed by a sociotechnical Actor-Network Theory-based approach highlighting the interrelated nature of technical and social dimensions. The study also drew on other related theoretical frameworks that helped to address some of Actor-Network Theory’s theoretical and practical shortcomings. Most helpful in this respect were Strong Structuration Theory, the Social Shaping of Technology, and the Theory of the Diffusion of Innovations (theoretically); and multi-sited ethnography and case studies (practically). I employed inductive and deductive analytical techniques utilising thematic tables for organising and interpreting the data. Individual case studies were analysed first in order to examine local dynamics, before cross-case comparisons were made and findings were integrated with data obtained from outside case study sites. Results: I collected data between 2009 and 2011 in three case study sites. The complete dataset comprised interview data from a total of 66 different participants within Trusts, 14 interviews with stakeholders from outside case study sites, 38.5 hours of non-participant observation, 149 pages of press statements, 31 pages of field notes, and a range of national and local Trust documents. The three sites differed in demographics and local implementation strategies, and hence presented diverse stories of sociotechnical change unfolding over time within their complex individual contexts. However, there were also similarities, not least the fact that all were implementing the same system and that they were operating within constantly evolving political and economic contexts. Users found it difficult to integrate Lorenzo with their everyday work practices as the software was perceived to be not fit-for-purpose. Over time, these difficulties attenuated to some extent, particularly in the smaller-scale deployments in sites that had invested significant time and resources to adapt the software to fit with their everyday practices. Lorenzo implementation also had significant consequences for organisational functioning, which was often hampered by local restrictions in software customisability associated with national arrangements. Conclusion: I have developed a theoretically informed methodological framework and applied this to explore sociotechnical processes involved in the implementation and adoption of Lorenzo. In doing so, I identified potentially transferable theoretical insights into local and national developments over time and based on these proposed mechanisms involved in the implementation and adoption process. Overall, my findings help to explain why the adoption of Lorenzo was much slower and on a smaller scale than originally anticipated. The interplay between social (political, individual and organisational) and technical factors was central to implementation progress. At the root of many problems encountered were difficulties with integrating systems with work practices of users and more general organisational functioning. In relation to Lorenzo, co-creating national software with strong user involvement was hampered due to different requirements in individual settings and wider, political and economic constraints. Based on the English experience, there may be some important transferable lessons for similar ventures in other countries. Most importantly, national implementations need to build on a solid basis of local technology adoption by allocating sufficient time for individual users and organisations to adjust to the complex changes that often accompany such service redesign initiatives.

Healthcare around the world is facing strenuous times, whereby there is a need for reduced costs, improved efficiency, and effectiveness. Digitalization is a transformational phenomenon argued to solve the many problems of healthcare. As of such, this thesis studies digitalization in a healthcare setting - considering how digitalization is achieved in practice, and what elements hamper and enable sociotechnical changes required for digitalization. To study these aspects, a qualitative case study was carried out on the recently implemented mandatory electronic dental card among the dental care professionals from a Baltic country. The study allowed contributions to digitalization research by looking at the phenomenon from industry-level analysis, also revealed the elements that hamper and enable digitalization, outlined the different digitalization patterns, and argued that digitalization relies on the extent by which the new system provides value to the users without interfering with professional expertise and ethics.

To compete in today's global economy, organizations are under pressure to improve their product development processes. The engineering design process is an important component of the overall product development process. This research considers the relationship of both social and technical variables to the engineering design process. The theoretical foundation of this research is sociotechnical systems theory. This theory states that optimum performance is achieved by jointly considering the technical and the social subsystems. The application domain of the theory is called macroergonomics. A technical variable considered by this research was engineering design process methodology. Two methodologies were considered: sequential engineering and concurrent engineering. Another technical construct considered by this research was the use of computer-supported cooperative work technology (CSCW) or groupware. The social variable considered by this research was group size. Two sizes were considered: large groups of six people and small groups of three people. This research sought to determine the optimum combination of technical and social variables that would result in highest performance. There were two phases of this research. In the first phase, a laboratory experiment was conducted using 180 engineering and building construction students as subjects. The experiment required that a system be conceived, designed, manufactured, and tested by student teams. The experimental design was a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial, between subjects design with five teams in each cell. In the second phase, the results of the first phase were provided to recognized industry and academic experts for their critique. This two-phased approach facilitated the identification of causal relationships among social and technical variables with higher external validity. In the laboratory experiment, there was no significant difference in performance between concurrent engineering groups and sequential engineering processes. Small groups significantly outperformed large groups in all conditions. CSCW did not significantly improve the performance of large or small groups. Participants in the experiment were equally satisfied with all conditions. The external survey strongly endorsed the superiority of concurrent engineering as compared to sequential engineering. There was no statistically significant optimal combination of variables that resulted in the highest design performance. / Ph. D.

Current organizational design changes such as restructuring, production advancements, and information technology improvements have caused many organizations to move to flatter management structures. Changes in the organizational structure along with the demand for improved performance have broadened the scope of responsibilities for first-level managers in manufacturing organizations. First-level managers are required to balance their time to meet greater demands. The sociotechnical systems principle of joint optimization states that organizations function optimally when design changes are made to meet the needs of both the social and technical subsystems in the context of the organization's environment. This study uses time allotment at the supervisory level to operationalize the sociotechnical systems principle of joint optimization. Ninety-one first-level managers from both the production and distribution areas of thirteen North American facilities participated in this study. Four survey instruments were used to measure the following dimensions: joint optimization, department performance, time allotment to the social and technical subsystems, and organizational values of appropriate time use. Five time allotment constructs emerged from the data collected on time use in the social and technical subsystems. These were time spent on Participation and Information Sharing, Customer Needs and Strategic Planning, Skill Development and Compensation, Quality, and Department Operational Needs. The results indicated time allotment constructs along with the organization's values on appropriate time use can be used to predict both joint optimization and performance at the department level. The results also indicated a strong relationship (r = .607, p < .05) between level of joint optimization and department performance. / Master of Science

The effect of national culture on the performance of teams is becoming an increasingly important issue in advanced western countries. There are many interlinked reasons for this, including the increasing globalisation of companies and the use of joint ventures for the development of expensive platforms. A further issue relates to the export of complex sociotechnical systems, where a culture clash between designer/manufacturer and user can lead to significant problems. This report describes research work that was carried out to analyse the cultural factors that influence the performance of teams (including researchers, designers, operators and crews), and to determine whether these factors could be captured in a tool to provide assistance to team managers and team builders. The original point of interest related to the development of increasingly complex sociotechnical systems, for example nuclear power stations, oil refineries, offshore oil platforms, hospital systems and large transport aircraft. Answers that might be sought, in particular by the senior managers of global companies, include (1) the best teams (or best national locations) for fundamental research, industrial research & development, product/system improvement and other key activities, and (2) the implications for system performance and, as a result, for system design, of targeting an eastern Asian market, a South-American market, etc. A literature review was carried out of the effects of culture on team performance, of culture measures and tools and of task classifications; in addition, empirical evidence of the validity of measures and tools was sought. Significant evidence was found of the effects of culture on teams and crews, but no national culture-based team performance prediction tools were found. Based on the results of the literature review, Hofstede's original four-dimension cultural framework was selected as the basis for the collection and analysis of empirical data, including the results of studies from the literature and the researcher s own empirical studies. No team or task classification system was found that was suitable for the purposes of linking culture to team performance, so a five-factor task classification was developed, based on the literature review, to form the basis of the initial modelling work. A detailed analysis of results from the literature and from the author s pilot studies revealed additional culture-performance relationships, including those relating to cultural diversity. Three culture-performance models were incorporated into software tools that offered performance prediction capabilities. The first model was primarily a test bed for ideas; the second model incorporated a task/behavioural approach which achieved limited success; the third and final model was evaluated against a range of team and crew performance data before being tested successfully for acceptability by users. The research results included the discovery that the effects of cultural diversity must be sought at the individual cultural dimension level not at the composite level, that the effects of national culture on team performance are consistent and strong enough to be usefully captured in a predictive culture tool and that the relationship between culture and behaviour is moderated by contextual factors.

The goal of my dissertation is to describe the history of the South Korean1 space program and to use it to offer some insights on reframing space history from a global point of view. South Korea is a new player among the space faring nations. While some of the necessary infrastructure was put in place in the 30 years after the launch of Sputnik, the country only really made a commitment space in the 1990s, developing rapidly to become a significant presence today. The launch of KITsat-1 (Uribyul-1, the first Korean satellite) in 1992 marks its first major achievement, after which it built up its technological capabilities in the space sector in a relatively short period. South Korea now has twelve satellites and operates several space projects, and successfully developed its first space launch vehicle, KSLV-1, also known as Naro, in 2013. Although KSLV-1 is derived from the first stage of the Russian Angara rocket, combined with a solid-fueled second stage built by South Korea, its successful launch was the crucial step for the development of the country’s civilian space program. South Korea aims to develop the first wholly Korean-made launch rocket, KSLV-2 by 2020, which will additionally be used to launch a moon orbiter later that year. Korea’s recent aspiration to space exploration can be seen as part of global narrative in which the conquest of space is not dominated by a few superpowers. Our understanding of the past half-century of space development is, however, still firmly rooted in the framework of the old Cold-War-centered approach to space history. Until recently, only large and powerful nations have been able to mobilize the resources necessary for access to space, so the early years of space exploration produced a simple narrative: a fierce space competition between the Soviet Union and the U. S., with a few countries following behind in a struggle to increase their presence in space. Yet emerging powers’ stories of space development were barely noticed in comparison with the abundant literature on the space history of the super-powers and the increasing literature on middle-range space powers. In order to situate the South Korean space program in this evolving global context, this dissertation attempts to answer the following critical questions: What is the origin of Korean space development? Why is South Korea a late-comer in space, and why is it becoming more active today? How have its motivations and rationales evolved in defining relationships with other countries including the U.S., Russia, France, China, Japan, and even North Korea? Why does it continue to emphasize the need for “Korean” technology in space? In essence, what is Korean about the Korean space program? I seek answers to these questions by examining the relationship between a “space program” and “the construction of national identity” in a political, social, and transnational context. Through historical analysis, I will show that South Korea’s space program has been primarily driven by nationalistic rationales implicit in the argument that space development served “modernization,” “self-defense,”, “economic security”, and “national prestige.” By tracing the multiple links between technological prowess and national imagination, I connect these four rationales using to periodization; 1950s~1960s, 1970~1984, 1985~1997, and 1998~2013. A close examination of the history of the development of space exploration in South Korea offers a fertile ground for exploring the question how the rationales of space development have evolved as the Korean state worked on nation-building in a global context.

Prior studies have shown that students who are the first in their families to attend college fail to persist in college more so than their continuing-generation (CG) counterparts do. Prior research on this phenomenon has helped to identify various factors that contribute to the lower college persistence of first-generation (FG) students. For example, social capital has been identified as a factor that improves student persistence in college. Prior studies have shown that FG students tend to enter college with lower social capital than their CG student counterparts do. Additionally, while in school, FG students tend not to engage in behaviors that can help them in the creation of social capital. There has been growing research on how Internet communication technologies (ICTs) may be used as a resource in the creation of social capital. Specifically, there have been several studies that have examined how the Internet has provided opportunities for the creation of both bonding (relationships with persons inside one's cultural network, like family and close friends) and bridging (persons outside one's cultural network) forms of social capital. This study used a non-experimental design approach to compare the differences in technology-enabled bonding (TEBD) and technology-enabled bridging (TEBR) behaviors of FG and CG students. This study also used a predictive design approach aimed at predicting the persistence in college of first-year students based on the contributions of TEBD and TEBR behaviors, as well as socioeconomic status (SES) and high school grade point average (GPA). Finally, this study sought to develop and validate an instrument that could reliably measure the TEBD and TEBR behaviors of college students for use in future studies. A sample of 316 full-time first- to second-year students at a small, private, college in the Midwestern United States were surveyed on the dimensions of their TEBD (emotional support, access to resources, and sociability behavior) and TEBR (involvement in campus activities, contact with others unlike themselves, sociability behaviors, and academic activities) behaviors, as well as three dimensions of SES (parental education, parental income, and parental occupations) and high school GPA. Findings of this study showed there was no significant difference in the TEBD and TEBR behaviors of FG and CG students, which in itself is significant. Additionally, this study found high school GPA and one dimension of SES (parental income) to be positive predictors of student persistence in college. This study also found one dimension of TEBD (access to resources), one dimension of TEBR (contact with others unlike themselves), and one dimension of SES (parental occupation), to be negative predictors of student persistence in college. This study made the following three important contributions: 1) the development of an instrument for measuring TEBD and TEBR behaviors of college students; 2) an investigation of the differences in TEBD and TEBR behaviors of FG and CG students; and, 3) an investigation of key constructs that contribute to student persistence from their first-to-second year of college. Recommendations for future research were made which included extending this research to 1) include other types of technology communication devices, such as cell phones; 2) examine the contributions of TEBD and TEBR to persistence in college between semesters; 3) improve the methodology for collecting survey data; and 4) investigate if there are significant differences between FG and CG students on the amount of time spent online engaged in social and academic activities, as well as examine if time spent online is a predictor of student persistence in college.