The
socio-economic approach emphasizes the need for integrating the social
consequences of work with the traditional cost versus quantity consideration of
production. The concept of sociotechnical system was first elucidated by Eric
Trist and his colleagues at the Tavistock Institute of Social Research in
London. The approach attempts to develop jobs that adjust the need of the
production process technology to the needs of the worker and work group. The
social technical approach has been applied in many countries- often under the
heading of “autonomous work groups”, “Japanese style work groups”, or employee
involvement teams. The American manufacturing companies use work teams as the
building block of employee involvement teams.
