Libro en PDF - DIT - Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

An integrated framework for office information system design and managementmanager -- who has to choose an approach that is relevant to the needs. In manycases, technology models the user's needs and not the other way around. Themanager lacks the conceptual tools to evaluate technology, its potential and itssubjective value, established according to the needs. To fill this gap we proposethe first distinction: a hierarchy of levels of complexity.SOCIOTECHNICALCOMPLEXITYSYSTEMICCOMPLEXITYISOLATEDOBJECTSCOMPLEXITYFig. 1. 3L complexity modelThe first level deals with isolated objects. Considered separately, programs andcomputers, oriented to a narrow application such as text processors, calculators,electronic agendas or electronic sheets, comprise the first level of complexity. Asfar as the manager is concerned, these are applications with well defined goals.When those isolated objects are linked together to build a system whose goal isnot just text processing, for example, but to give support to some organizationalfunctions, then systemic complexity arises. At this second level, we are dealingwith a great number of technical connections and group activities. One examplewould be a set of computers running first level applications connected through alocal network.The last level stems from the interaction between technological systems andsociety, the sociotechnical complexity level. It is mainly at this level that themanager works, and it has many characteristics that differ radically from those ofthe others. Here, all the fuzziness, lack of definition, incongruence and irrationalityintroduced by human factors appears. Although strictly sociological in origin, thisis the highest level and it includes the other two.333