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To explore the value and the case for designing antifragile socio-technical information systems (IS) in an era of big data, moving beyond traditional notions of IS design towards systems that can leverage uncertainty for gains.

A design science research (DSR) approach was adopted, comprising four stages, including problem identification and solutions definition, conceptual artifact or socio-technical system design, preliminary evaluation, and communication and knowledge capture.

A conceptual socio-technical artifact that identifies antecedents to antifragile IS design. When operationalised, the antecedents may produce the desired antifragile outcome. The antecedents are categorised as value propositions, design decisions and system capabilities.

This research is conceptual in nature, applied and evaluated in a single big data analytics case study in Facebook-Cambridge Analytica. Future research should empirically validate across a range of real-world big data contexts, beyond the presented case study.

Uncertainty generally results in socio-technical system failures, impacting individuals, organisations and communities. Conversely, antifragile IS can respond favourably to the shocks and stressors brought forth by periods of elevated uncertainty.

Antifragile IS can drive socio-technical systems to respond favourably to uncertainty and stressors. Typically, these socio-technical systems are large, complex structures, with increased connectivity and the requirement to generate, process, analyse and use large datasets. When these systems fail, it affects individuals, organisations and communities.

Existing IS design methodologies and frameworks largely ignore antifragility as a possible designable outcome. Extant research is limited to abstract architectural design, and approaches based on the proposition of principles. This research contributes to knowledge of antifragile IS design, by deriving a conceptual artifact or socio-technical system based on antecedent-outcome relationships that leverage uncertainty towards performance gains.

This paper sets out to report on research by the authors into the development and application of four extensions to Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (LoRV) that increase its utility in the arena of unplanned changes in hegemonic control of designed complex socio‐technical systems/digital eco‐systems in the built environment that are structurally dynamic or emergent.

Research on which the paper is based focused on exploration of classical systems approaches to the design of complex socio‐technical systems in which ownership, power, control and management of structure and benefit generation and distribution are distributed, dynamic and multi‐constituent. Support for development of these four extensions to Ashby's Law comes from observation of four decades of socio‐technical systems development along with critical thinking that combined systems analysis theories with theories and findings from fields of hegemonic analysis, design research, management, management information systems, behaviour in organisations and sociology.

The paper outlines application of four new extensions to LoRV in relation to unplanned changes in distributions of power, ownership, control, benefit generation and benefit distribution in complex socio‐technical systems/digital eco‐systems in the built environment that are emergent or have changing structures. Three of these extensions have been outlined earlier in relation to the design of learning object‐based e‐learning systems. The fourth extension builds on these via application of Coasian analysis. The paper also describes a suite of five guidelines to assist with the design of complex socio‐technical systems derived from the four extensions to Ashby.

The four extensions of Ashby's Law that underpin the design guidelines in this paper are deduced from observation and critical analysis rather than being “proven” empirically. They are derived from observation of the behaviour of real‐world complex systems together with critical analytical thinking that integrated theory and research findings from a range of disciplines where each informs understanding of hegemonic aspects of emergent complex socio‐technical systems involving multiple, changing constituencies, and evolving system structures.

A design method is derived comprising five design guidelines for use in pre‐design and design of complex socio‐technical systems/digital eco‐systems in the built environment.

The paper describes the application of four new extensions to LoRV that extend the analytical role of Ashby's Law in diagnosis of changes in power relations and unintended design outcomes from changes in the generation and control of variety in complex, multi‐layered and hierarchical socio‐technical systems that have multiple stakeholders and constituencies. From these, a suite of five new design guidelines is proposed.

This paper aims to identify and appropriately respond to any socio-technical gaps within organisational information and cybersecurity practices. This culminates in the equal emphasis of both the social, technical and environmental factors affecting security practices.

The socio-technical systems theory was used to develop a conceptual process model for analysing organisational practices in terms of their social, technical and environmental influence. The conceptual process model was then applied to specifically analyse some selected information and cybersecurity frameworks. The outcome of this exercise culminated in the design of a socio-technical systems cybersecurity framework that can be applied to any new or existing information and cybersecurity solutions in the organisation. A framework parameter to help continuously monitor the mutual alignment of the social, technical and environmental dimensions of the socio-technical systems cybersecurity framework was also introduced.

The results indicate a positive application of the socio-technical systems theory to the information and cybersecurity domain. In particular, the application of the conceptual process model is able to successfully categorise the selected information and cybersecurity practices into either social, technical or environmental practices. However, the validation of the socio-technical systems cybersecurity framework requires time and continuous monitoring in a real-life environment.

This research is beneficial to chief security officers, risk managers, information technology managers, security professionals and academics. They will gain more knowledge and understanding about the need to highlight the equal importance of both the social, technical and environmental dimensions of information and cybersecurity. Further, the less emphasised dimension is posited to open an equal but mutual security vulnerability gap as the more emphasised dimension. Both dimensions must, therefore, equally and jointly be emphasised for optimal security performance in the organisation.

The application of socio-technical systems theory to the information and cybersecurity domain has not received much attention. In this regard, the research adds value to the information and cybersecurity studies where too much emphasis is placed on security software and hardware capabilities.

The study explores how the comparative tourism destination could incorporate the merits of the competitive tourism destination by implementing a socio-technical design application for smart tourism.

To address this issue researchers have conducted a case study in Egypt, because Egypt is one of the most popular tourism comparative destination. It includes two field studies and qualitative interviews conducted in Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt.

Egypt has diverse comparative advantages in terms of touristic features; however, the dysfunctional flow of information among the stakeholders was a hindrance to be a competitive destination. Based on this problem statement, the researchers synthesized “M-Tour” as a new socio-technical design application, moving toward the competitive destination from the comparative ones.

The present study makes two contributions. First, it theoretically conceptualizes an integrated model of how a tourism comparative destination can incorporate the competitive advantages by a socio-technical design application called M-Tour. Second, it empirically explores the tourists' latent requirements in Egypt by two field studies in order to develop a smart tourism design application as a new socio-technology.

Industrial engineers have traditionally made an impact upon the behaviour of people in organizations in two ways. Through the design of technology they have established a technical framework to which the social system has had to adapt. Also because a large proportion of supervisory and managerial positions has been held by engineers, they have often had responsibility for specifying the network of roles and relationships which make up an industrial organization. Usually they have approached this task by taking a technological orientation to human beings and human problems. People have been treated like uniform bits and pieces, capable of being split up and put together at the will of the management. Social systems design has been treated as a one‐off job, such concepts as organizational development or stepwise design have been seldom taken into consideration. The goals of the organization and society have been stated in terms of technology and economy; social and psychological aspects of human behaviour have generally been neglected.

For me, the human side of work is the most important aspect in any consideration of jobs and organizations. Hospital organizations, for example, are made up of people, their jobs are, of course, done by people, and the results of that work are for people — whether they be direct recipients such as patients, or customers; or whether they be the indirect recipients such as the community, or the employees themselves. The dilemma is highlighted by asking, why do we so often separate the effects of work on the humans involved in its production, from the effects on humans as recipients of its end result? I will posit that if work is consciously designed as a meaningful activity for the people involved in its production, then chances are good that its product will also better suit its human users. That is, there is a systemic relationship between the quality of working life and the quality of the product of that work. In so saying however we must likewise acknowledge the importance of the technical requirements of the work — for having meaning to the people involved is not enough. Work that is meaningfully arranged, both for the humans involved in its execution and for its technical requirements, typically results in a higher quality product and, not infrequently, in greater productivity as well. In our experience results are frequently accompanied by lowered absenteeism and turnover and greater feelings of satisfaction with the work activity. Work system design, or socio‐technical system design, is a powerful approach to this human side of work — work that is meaningful in both that human sense, as well as the technical sense.

Integrating organizational development (OD) and technological intervention into a total system is one of the more difficult tasks for an executive or consultant to execute. Organizations are profoundly affected by technological advancements and require a flexible customized change model to fit the social network of the specific organization into which technology is being introduced. Examines sociotechnical systems (STS) theory and presents classical organization theories of Burns and Stalker, Woodward, Perrow, Thompson and Trist to develop a contemporary OD intervention in terms of self‐regulating work groups (self‐leading or self‐managing teams) performing interrelated technological tasks. Finally, presents some pointers for executives and consultants in assessing STS interventions via 31 diagnostic questions intended to identify interactions among elements of the system.

The term ‘digital assistive technology' refers to the use of ICTs for the support of older people's everyday tasks. These tasks could range from online shopping to information seeking and searching the web in a variety of ways eg. by the use of desktop or ubiquitous computing. Currently, research under the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme, funded by the ESRC, EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC and AHRC, and research funded by other bodies, including SPARC, tries to improve older people's quality of life through the exploitation and exploration of new developments in computing and information technology. However, the acceptance rate of digital assistive technology by older people is still low, while the abandonment of already existing technologies increases. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for process requirements to inform the decision‐making of designers and implementers of digital assistive technologies. These process requirements should facilitate the development of more adaptable user‐centred systems that can dynamically accommodate the changing needs of older people and decrease the rate of abandonment of digital assistive technologies.

Discusses the role and problems of the socio‐technical action researcher at different stages of a project. It is based on the author’s personal experience when using action research as a method for assisting the successful democratic design and implementation of information systems.

We argue that in order to address the contemporary challenges that organizations and societies are facing, the field of organization development (OD) requires frameworks and skills to focus on the eco-system as the level of analysis. In a world that has become economically, socially, and technologically highly connected, approaches that foster the optimization of specific actors in the eco-system, such as individual corporations, result in sub-optimization of the sustainability of the natural and social system because there is insufficient offset to the ego-centric purposes of the focal organization. We discuss the need for OD to broaden focus to deal with technological advances that enable new ways of organizing at the eco-system level, and to deal with the challenges to sustainable development. Case examples from healthcare and the agri-foods industry illustrate the kinds of development approaches that are required for the development of healthy eco-systems. We do not suggest fundamental changes in the identity of the field of organizational development. In fact, we demonstrate the need to dig deeply into the open systems and socio-technical roots of the field, and to translate the traditional values and approaches of OD to continue to be relevant in today’s dynamic interdependent world.