socio-technical system

Theory suggesting that the organization of work has both an economic and a social element. The theory is based largely on work done by the Tavistock Institute in London, where researchers examined the effects on employees in the mining industry of a shift from team working to mass production. They found that disruption to the social systems had an adverse effect on employee motivation and concluded that companies should take into consideration not only economic but also social factors when implementing change in an organization.