L’approccio sociotecnico

Sociotechnical approach is commonly known as one of the most important research streams in organizational literature due to its contribution to theoretical development as well as to action-research methods. This paper depicts the history of STS approach from its origins, traceable in founding works of researchers at Tavistock Institute in 1946, to our days. It aims highlighting the different kinds of STS studies and explaining the main changes in their conceptual basis and in methods of analysis. The paper argues that STS approach is a theory in evolution from the beginning due to the need to address new research issues. Between the 1970s and the 1980s STS knows its greatest expansion since it is applied by academic researchers working on both side of Atlantic for studying old and new fields of inquiry (manufacturing and intellectual work, complex system, information system, ergonomics, knowledge management). In the 1990s STS approach looses ground to emerging managerial practices like BPR, TQM, lean production. This has caused someone to talk of “decline” of the STS approach. In the essay we discuss the opportunity to talk about loss of “visibility” rather than of decline and we argue the current relevance of STS since many of its theoretical concepts and key ideas continue to be at the basis of many disciplines of work studies and even of latest managerial practices of work organization.