#ISSS2016 Boulder

2889 Socio- technical systems are systems where humans interact with technology (hardware or software) towards the achievement of a goal. Because of the presence of the human behavior and the constant change and evolution of technology, such systems are constantly changing and are difficult to define. Various approaches exist to analyze and understand socio-technical systems’ behaviors, however many of these approaches analyze socio-technical systems from a certain discipline’s weltanschauung, problem context, and purpose of the system. Therefore, the proposed approaches only provide partial definitions that are difficult to generalize. The objective of this research is to provide a categorization of socio-technical systems based on their context and purpose, within the functionalist systems paradigm(s). The resulting categorization will serve as a foundation for a socio-technical systems framework to assist analysis select and/or design the right socio-technical intervention approach based on context and purpose. Keywords: Socio-Technical systems, Critical Systems Thinking, Problem Context, Methodological Purpose, Systems Thinking