Sociotechnical approaches to workplace safety: Research needs and opportunities

TLDR

The sociotechnical systems perspective, originating in the 1950s, offers valuable insights into workplace safety but its application to designing sustainable, safe work environments remains underdeveloped. This paper reviews the state of knowledge on sociotechnical systems in safety, identifies research priorities, and summarizes conference themes and recommendations. A group of 26 international experts produced collaborative articles for this special issue, each examining key conceptual, methodological, or theoretical issues related to sociotechnical systems and safety. The authors organized six topic areas—concepts and frameworks, research methodologies, modelling and simulation, communications and decision‑making, sociotechnical attributes of safe and unsafe systems, and future research directions—highlighting that sociotechnical complexity poses safety risks beyond traditional approaches.

Abstract

The sociotechnical systems perspective offers intriguing and potentially valuable insights into problems associated with workplace safety. While formal sociotechnical systems thinking originated in the 1950s, its application to the analysis and design of sustainable, safe working environments has not been fully developed. To that end, a Hopkinton Conference was organised to review and summarise the state of knowledge in the area and to identify research priorities. A group of 26 international experts produced collaborative articles for this special issue of Ergonomics, and each focused on examining a key conceptual, methodological and/or theoretical issue associated with sociotechnical systems and safety. In this concluding paper, we describe the major conference themes and recommendations. These are organised into six topic areas: (1) Concepts, definitions and frameworks, (2) defining research methodologies, (3) modelling and simulation, (4) communications and decision-making, (5) sociotechnical attributes of safe and unsafe systems and (6) potential future research directions for sociotechnical systems research.Sociotechnical complexity, a characteristic of many contemporary work environments, presents potential safety risks that traditional approaches to workplace safety may not adequately address. In this paper, we summarise the investigations of a group of international researchers into questions associated with the application of sociotechnical systems thinking to improve worker safety.