Eric Trist

"The advantage of placing responsibility for the complete coal-getting task squarely on the shoulders of a single, small, face-to-face group which experiences the entire cycle of operations within the …"

"This paper introduces a concept of organizational ecology. This refers to the organizational field created by a number of organizations, whose interrelations compose a system at the level of the field…"

"The socio-technical concept arose in conjunction with the first of several field projects undertaken by the Tavistock Institute in the coal-mining industry in Britain. The time was that of the postwar…"

"Primary work systems. These are the systems which carry out the set of' activities involved in an identifiable and bounded subsystem of a whole organization - such as a line department or a service un…"

"Every time the cycle is stopped, some 200 tons of coal are lost. So close is the task interdependence that the system becomes vulnerable from its need for 100 percent performance at each step."

"Considering enterprises as "open socio-technical systems" helps to provide a more realistic picture of how they are both influenced by and able to act back on their environment. It points in particula…"

"Socio-technical studies needed to be carried out at three broad levels - from micro to macro - all of which are interrelated:"

"This principle valued the discretionary rather than the prescribed part of work roles ."