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Purpose – Mainstream science, technology, and society (STS) scholars have shown little interest in engineering ethics, one going so far as to label engineering ethics activists as “shit shovelers.” Detachment from engineering ethics on the part of most STS scholars is related to a broader and long-standing split between the scholar-oriented and activist-oriented wings of STS. This chapter discusses the various STS “subcultures” and argues that the much-maligned activist STS subculture is far more likely than the mainstream scholar subculture to have a significant impact on engineering ethics education and practice.

Approach – The chapter builds on analyses of STS subcultures in research and education from the literature and identifies a similar set of subcultures for engineering ethics research and education.

Findings – Reconciliation of the STS subcultures will tap an activist tradition that already has strong ties (practical, historical, and theoretical) to engineering ethics research and education. Acknowledging that STS and engineering ethics each have legitimate, activist-oriented subcultures will position STS scholars and educators for providing needed insights to engineering activists and the engineering profession as a whole. STSers should recognize and appreciate that many engineering ethicists and engineering activists are concerned both with issues internal to the profession and broader social implications of technology.

Originality/value – The chapter presents an analysis of STS subcultures and their relationship to engineering ethics. As such, it will be of interest to STS scholars and engineering ethicists alike, as well as engineering ethics and STS educators.

The purpose of this chapter is to bring three recent and innovative feminist science and technology studies paradigms into dialogue on the topics of subjectivity and knowledge.

Each of the three frameworks – feminist postcolonial science and technology studies, queer ecologies, and new feminist materialisms – reconceptualizes and expands our understanding of subjectivity and knowledge. As projects invested in identifying and challenging the strategic conferral of subjectivity, they move from subjectivity located in all human life, to subjectivity as indivisible from nature, to a broader notion of subjectivity as both material and discursive. Despite some methodological differences, the three frameworks all broaden feminist conceptions of knowledge production and validation, advocating for increased consideration of scientific practices and material conditions in feminist scholarship.

This chapter examines three feminist science and technology studies paradigms by comparing and contrasting how each addresses notions of subjectivity and knowledge in ways that push us to rethink key epistemological issues.

This chapter identifies similarities and differences in the three frameworks’ discussions of subjectivity and knowledge production. By putting these frameworks into conversation, we identify methodological crossover, capture the coevolution of subjectivity and knowledge production in feminist theory, and emphasize the importance of matter in sociocultural explorations.

The role of social science in the curriculum of technical institutions of higher learning has always represented a series of tradeoff challenges and opportunities. Recently, issues to be addressed by those developing curricula for this audience have received increased attention. The difficulties that social and physical scientists have had collaborating on research projects have also been a matter of increasing attention and concern. Hence, to enrich this discussion we will offer a historical case study covering a 35-year (so far) experiment at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in which both organizational and educational issues had to be addressed as faculty members of both backgrounds worked with technical students on educational projects dealing with social issues.

The digital transformation calls for new thinking about sociotechnical systems design (STSD) because it has enabled new kinds of work systems to proliferate. We identify a new class of sociotechnical system, called the Platform-STS (P-STS), which complements the existing Industrial- and Knowledge-STSs. The P-STS has distinctive characteristics compared to the other classes because it reaches directly into ecosystems and is, therefore, “distributed,” and because it is governed through market mechanisms rather than hierarchy or clan mechanisms. We introduce a new design principle, redundancy of connectivity, to ground design thinking about the P-STS. We demonstrate why fundamental STSD principles need to be reconfigured, suggest how they might do so, and conclude that socioecological designs and interventions may need to supplant sociotechnical ones.

Prior research on the area of internet of things (IoT) development has primarily emphasized the overview descriptions and rarely investigated this area from a socio-technical standpoint. However, IoT development is a socio-technical ensemble, which requires analysis with a simultaneous focus on both technical and non-technical issues. Hence, this paper aims to analyze the development of IoT through the lens of the socio-technical system (STS) theory.

Having reviewed the STS theory, the key components of the IoT development are identified using prior literature review and semi-structured interviews with experts involved in the Iranian IoT development effort.

As a result, this paper provides insight into the key socio-technical issues in the IoT development classified under technology, tasks, structure and actors as four components of STS. Moreover, the close connections between the components are clarified.

This research is among the earliest studies, which use the STS theory to investigate the IoT development. The conducted socio-technical analysis of this study may assist the governments, industries and entrepreneurs as the chief stakeholders of IoT development to better align their actions with each other and achieve a balance between both technical and social sides.

Two elementary teacher educators redesigned a methods course to integrate social studies and science. Using the framework of science-technology-society (STS) literature and the major themes from Paul Hurd, social studies and science content and methodology converge to create an integrated curriculum for preservice teachers. Concepts, processes, content knowledge, skills, and critical issues are among the interrelated themes of the course. This paper describes the design of the course and discusses how preservice teachers internalized the content. In addition, the successes and challenges of creating and teaching the course along with implications for teacher education are discussed.

Smart tourist destinations (STDs) make use of new technologies to facilitate and improve the experience of tourists. So why not use these technologies to efficiently manage the destination? The aim of this work is to define and implement a methodology that provides value to STDs by defining their most important characteristics to monitor and quantify them automatically in real time.

The authors developed a conceptual framework to the smart tourism approach presented in previous studies, the latest technologies and the application of the smart tourism system (STS). Based on the focus group method with stakeholders from the tourism industry of the Spanish tourist municipality of Puerto de la Cruz, they defined the main KPIs for a municipal STD. Likewise, the authors specified the necessary technologies to obtain, manage and represent the data, and the method for quantifying the quality of the STD by using the AHP method. Lastly, they implemented the framework for the aforementioned municipality.

The implementation in a real context of the STS proposed for Puerto de la Cruz demonstrates its validity and the possibility of adapting it to any other municipal destination. In addition, the authors corroborate how this STS improves on other versions.

This paper provides a theoretical methodology to improve STD management and implements it. Other studies have focused only on the theoretical aspect. Moreover, automated management tools are emerging for STDs, but they lack the quality provided by the scientific approach employed herein.

This paper is an empirical response to two of Quattrone’s claims: first, that research in accounting is fragmented; and then that this follows from the blocking of communication by intra‐ and inter‐disciplinary boundaries. Although we agree with much of Quattrone’s argument, and in particular with his problematising of “economic man”, we draw an opposite conclusion. Rather than looking to a trans‐disciplinary removal of boundaries, we use a survey of 30 years of research in corporate annual reports to defend narrowly disciplinary work. We make our case through discussing problems of intra‐ and inter‐disciplinary unity in research, the puzzle of the role of “economic man” in the study of annual reports, and the alternative to him in science and technology studies (STS). Our approach yields a better fit than Quattrone’s own solution with his aims of an evolutionary perspective that allows for historical shifts, and for a reflexivity that includes the inevitable entanglement of researchers in what they study. We conclude by noting that our approach is applicable to the study of corporate communication more generally.