Many organizations, in the profit as well as the not-for-profit sector, strive for higher degrees of autonomy at the shop floor. As a result, they design team based organization structures, using various types of teams such as relatively autonomous teams, whole task groups, or self-directed teams. Our experience within an organization with relatively autonomous teams learnt that these teams vary in their degree of autonomy even within one organization. Also, the implementation of the teams was a difficult process. These observations turn out to be common to many organizations; under comparable circumstances the degree of autonomy of teams varies and the implementation process appears to be troublesome. Apparently, organizational theory does not provide sufficient direction for the design and implementation of self-directed teams. The Modern Sociotechnical Approach is one of the theories for designing and operating these types of teams. The Modern Sociotechnical Approach is well-known as a structural approach. If an organization is no longer capable to meet the demands of its environment, it needs to conduct an integrated (re)design of its organization structure. The Modern Sociotechnical Approach provides the principles and concepts for the integrated structural redesign. The variation in autonomy of teams under similar conditions and the difficulties with the implementation of teams seem to related to the concept of control. The sociotechnical literature is relatively vague on the concepts of control and control structures. The literature provides some insights in issues of control within teams and the control of individual teams, but is seriously lacking in the outlining of control issues between teams or hierarchical control over teams. In other words, sociotechnical theory lacks insights between the parts and the whole. Systems Theory, however, can provide just those insights. Therefore, this study uses the Systems Theory as the foundation to analyze control issues in sociotechnical organizations. The purpose of this study is to gain insight in the application of Systems Theory and Control Theory in the areas of sociotechnical control issues and to develop tools for analysis and design of sociotechnical control structures.
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