The impetus for the research reported in this thesis came after reflection on my career in engineering which led to the observation that descriptions of what engineers do, or should do, when they work on projects, do not address the social aspects of their interactions with other people, both engineers and non-engineers, who are involved with the project. Teams of engineers can be viewed as social systems and I believed that it should be possible to describe their activities using social theories, as distinct from descriptions which focus on the application of technology and the management of resources to meet clients' requirements. The research followed a heuristic methodology. There was no initial theory. Theory emerged from the data. As a preliminary step, I examined documents prescribing the way engineering work is done and compared them with accounts of successful projects. The comparison shows that the prescriptive documentation overlooks the interaction between people, which however features prominently in the accounts of successful projects. As well, examination of the systems representation widely employed throughout projects shows that it can lead to oversimplification, when it is used to model socio-technical and social systems. / In the first iteration of this research, social theories relating to individual and collaborative learning, and the life-cycle of teams were examined. From the very large field of sociology, I used my own experience to select those theories that explained the interactions between people engaged in engineering projects. As a reality check on the applicability of the selected theories, I interviewed four successful engineer/managers, now retired. The first three confirmed the relevance of those theories. In addition, their interviews pointed to other factors requiring a second iteration of researching social theories that centred on forms of capital, leadership styles, and the interdependence of formal and informal organizational structures to management and problem-solving practices. The suite of social theories from the first and second iterations of research is integrated into a Social Systems Evaluation Framework (SSEF) that encompasses the four forms of capital, Embodied, Social, Institutionalised and Economic, and facilitates an evaluation of the social systems associated with a project. The use of the SSEF at any stage of a project life cycle is explained. Finally, it was applied successfully to the fourth interview as a “trial fit”. The thesis concludes with suggestions for further work in validating the SSEF and extending its application to other domains and cultures. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2005.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267426 |
| Creators | Lawson, Errol C. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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