ETHICS: The Past, Present and Future of Socio-Technical Systems Design - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 190

concerned with mental health and individual development and this was also the initial
focus of the members of the Institute, although they were applying their ideas to
workers in industry. In 1949, the Tavistock Institute made its first major contribution
to the theory of Socio-Technical design with a number of field projects in the British
coal industry.
Mumford and Beekman (1994) identified that the major outcome of the early
Socio-Technical research was:
“If a technical system is created at the expense of a social system, the results
obtained will be sub-optimal.”
3 Development of ETHICS
Based upon Mumford's Socio-Technical experiences she developed the the participa-
tional method known as ETHICS ( E ffective T echnical and H uman I mplementation of
C omputer based S y stem). The work on ETHICS was undertaken by Professor Enid
Mumford during her time at Manchester Business School, UK (Mumford, 1983a).
ETHICS is a participational (also referred to as a Socio-Technical approach) ap-
proach that focuses upon people and procedures. This Socio-Technical approach is
defined by Mumford as "one which recognises the interaction of technology and peo-
ple and produces work systems which are both technically efficient and have social
characteristics which lead to high job satisfaction" (Mumford, 1983b).
The ETHICS approach was based on the observation of failure of many systems
which followed more traditional route of considering technical and economic factors
(Davis et al, 1992). One of the key motivating questions was whether or not analysts
and designers held a view of users that was different from that held by the users of
information systems. From these observations, Mumford concluded that the develop-
ment of information systems is not a purely technical issue, but an organisational is-
sue which is fundamentally concerned with the process of change (Mumford and
Weir, 1979; Mumford, 1995).
The use of participation allows users to have some level of contribution in the sys-
tem development life cycle, this participation often take the form of single representa-
tives. The user participant is often called upon after the major decisions have been
taken; this limits the user participation of involvement within the system development
(Nurminen, 1988).
The original ETHICS methods were developed in the UK in the late 1960's to deal
with the impending information revolution (Mumford and Ward, 1968) of the 1970's.
The early conceptual models of ETHICS were concerned with: ensuring users were
satisfied with their jobs and trying to determine the impact that computers could have
upon their job; and the perception that computers were perceived as agents of change
within organisations.
These principles were used as the foundation of the formalised ETHICS method.
Around this time Mumford (1969) examined the impact of implementing computers
within organisations, and determined that the successful introduction of technical
changes required: the use of interdisciplinary planning teams, particularly when goals
and objectives are being defined; awareness of the fact that technical changes have
secondary as well as primary consequences; and planning does not take place in a
static situation.