When talking about the Scandinavian approach people often think about cooperation between trade unions and researchers. This approach, called the collective approach, is for sure the most well-known and the researchers belonging to this approach has produced a huge amount of research articles. But there are at least three other approaches: The system theoretical approach, introduced by Langefors, the socio-technical approach, influenced by Enid Mumford and the Work Informatics approach introduced by Markku Nurminen. In this paper I give a short description of them all and conclude that most workers today apply the Work Informatics approach without being aware of it.
1. 2.
Which information do we need? How should it be processed? a. Structure of information b. Dependencies of information c. 3. 4.
systems development model, describing steps that were to be taken in order to construct an information system.
In Sweden there was a mechanical engineer who had done a
lot of development of the Finite Element Method (FEM). His
name was Börje Langefors and from 1949 he worked at SAAB
airplane factory calculating the strength of Swedish warplanes
Draken, Lansen, and Viggen. In doing so, he used the FEM
method, which required a huge amount of rather trivial
calculations. Langefors encountered Matematiknämnden, a Swedish
governmental institute engaged in building the first Swedish
computer: BESK (Binary Electronic Sequence Calculator). It was
commissioned in 1953 and it is said that it was the fastest computer in the word for some weeks
Later on, in the 60’s the drawings of BESK was sold to SAAB, who constructed some computers
based upon them: D21, D22 and D23 but that’s a history that must be told elsewhere. The important
thing is that Langefors realized the importance of point 1-3 in table 1. He developed methods for
answering these questions both for effective processing as for instance calculating the block size in the
tapes and for information management. His book, Theoretical Analysis of Information Systems
Langefors’ main contribution was the insight that a lot of activities had to be carried out before
programming and independent of the technical solution. He developed a theory and some methods and
techniques for doing this (Olerup, 1974). He called the area infology, but that name was used only by
himself. Langefors calls a data representation of a message for a record. For a part of a message we
shall talk about terms. This means that an elementary message will consist of three term pairs identifying
respectively a system point, a point in time, a kind of state variables and its measure. This lead to the
notion of the infological equation, presented already 1966
Here Langefors explains it as information, I, is a function of data, D, structure S at the time t. He developed the explanation further in several publications, where I think his essay in Dahlbom’s book (Dahlbom, 1993) is the most intelligible:
I is the information (or knowledge) produced from the data D and the
preknowledge S, by the interpretation process i during the time t. In the general case,
S in the equation is the result of the total life experience of the individual. It is
obvious from this that not every individual will receive the intended information from
even simple data
Langefors emphasized the connection between the organization and the information. In fact he
considered them as synonymous
Researchers often talk about “the Scandinavian approach” but this is not correct since there were at least four different approaches. They are described by Jørgen Bansler in his textbook: Systemutveckling – teori och historia i ett skandinaviskt perspektiv (Bansler, 1990).
Humanscale information systems
Tabel 1. The four main Scandinavian approaches
A similar description is provided by Iivari and Lyytinen
The crossed swords mean conflicts and the broad arrows means development. We see that the systems approach, introduced by Langefors, evolved into two directions: Object orientation, manifested by RUP and prototyping, manifested in Scrum. Today I think most systems are developed using Scrum or similar methods, based on the ideas of prototyping, where three of the approaches was united.
There are two other interesting facts in fig 1. The first is that Kristen Nygaard shows up on two very
different places: Introducing both object orientation and the collective approach. His contribution to the
object orientation movement was Simula, a programming language used for simulation and published
1967. Three years later he started the NJMF-project which was the first project where trade union and
information systems researchers collaborated. In fact, these contributions are totally separated, further
development of the object-oriented systems development was done by other persons, where Ivar
Jacobsen is the most well-known
The other point of interest is that all approaches (except the HUGE traditional projects, that almost always fail) ends up in prototyping. In the beginning the collective approach and the systems approach was similar except for the fact the trade union, with support of external expertise, should conduct a parallel development. When decision were made, negotiations take place between trade union and management (Ehn and Sandberg, 1979). This was called the conflict view because trade unions and management by definition never could agree. There had to be negotiations! The socio-technical approach on the other hand assumed that management and workers could have the same goals and thus work in cooperation. However, I think that change promulgators of the collective approach admitted about twenty years ago that there was really no difference between their view and the socio-technical perspective. I was present at the IRIS conference where this was announced but I can’t remember the year!
Tavistock, at the end of World War II. Tavistock was from the beginning a therapeutic establishment, concerned with mental health and individual development. The members came from different academic backgrounds.
The Tavistock approach was the first sociotechnical approach. Later on, it has evolved into a "classical" approach (fig 4), mainly in USA.
This was more concerned with identifying variances in the technical system and less with the social system. The group was influenced by wartime experiences. Bion introduced the idea of small "leaderless, self-motivated" working groups based upon his book on group experiences (Bion, 1961). Kurt Lewin introduced democratic, autocratic and laissez- faire groups, from the 30's and Ludwig von Bertalanffy introduced the idea of open systems. The main feature was autonomous work groups. The first studies were undertaken in the English coal mines. The work there were highly specialized. Every person was responsible for a single task only. There was very low social interaction. High labor turnover and absenteeism was the result. The Tavistock research team recognized that technical optimization at the expense of the human system led to sub-optimal performance and so they introduced the general idea of autonomous work group. However, the researchers could only influence the social system.
The Tavistock group became interested in system theory and some system theorists, among them Ludwig von Bertalanffy, was associated with the institute. He developed the notion of open, controlled system. von Bertalanffy was biologist, so it was rather natural that an organism could be perceived as an open system. This metaphor was (and still is) very fruitful. Example: A living systems strives to establish a steady state. Therefore, it will always resist change. The theory of open systems could be used to facilitate changes. That's why management think socio-technical approach to be so great an idea! Prominent members of the Tavistock institute: • Eric Trist, one of the founders • Hans van Beinum, action reseacher from the Netherlands • Fred Emery, social scientist, organisation theorist, Austria • Einar Thorsrud, Tavistock promulgator in Norway • Enid Mumford, English participative design researcher who had great influence in Scandinavia
I will say a few words about Enid Mumford, whom I met for the first time in Pisa 1979 (fig 5). She was born 1924 in Merseyside in North West England, took a BA in Social Science from Liverpool University in 1946. Then she worked in industry as personnel manager for an aircraft factory and as production manager for an alarm clock manufacturer,
She entered the faculty of Social Science at Liverpool University in 1956, spent a year at the University of Michigan and then entered Manchester Business School (MBS). At the Faculty of Social Science at Liverpool University Mumford carried out research in industrial relations in the Liverpool docks and in the coal industry of the northwest of England.
In order to collect information for the dock research, she became a canteen assistant in the canteens used by the stevedores for meals. Each canteen was in a different part of the waterfront estate and served dockers working on different shipping lines and with different cargoes. The coal mine research required her to spend many months underground to talk to miners at the coal face.
Enid was a pioneer in many ways. The first woman to set foot underground in the mines of the North West Coal industry. At the Manchester Business school she was the first person to do research on the human side of computing.
She was amongst the first to introduce the principles of the Tavistock Institute and the socio-technical school to the information systems field. Enid Mumford has influenced the thinking and research of scholars all over the world
Due to mistrust between companies and trade unions in the UK, it was not practical for Tavistock to continue their research work there.1962 the Norwegian industrial democracy project was initiated and they asked Tavistock for help. Eric Trist, Fred Emery and Einar Thorsrud began the "Participation project" autumn 1962. The objective was: How to achieve increased democracy in working life in Norway? It had two parts: 1) An investigation of previous and similar projects 2) Action research oriented experiments.
As usual in Tavistock, the main feature was autonomous working groups. Interest spread all over the world and it was associated with "human relations school" (Bruce and Nyland, 2011).
The aims of the socio-technical is increasing the individual’s ability to participate in decision making and exercise control over the immediate working environment. If the interaction between the social and technical organization is optimized the production is increased and the skills of the individuals develop. The domain of the design is work organization. Development and use of IT is one part, but only one of work design! In systems development we tend to completely neglect the work design!
As previously mentioned, trade unions mistrusted the socio-technical approach. The notion of conflict and harmony view was introduced by the trade unions. This meant that the socio-technical approach assumed that management and workers had the same goals and therefore could come to an agreement, but in the trade union view the management and the workers always had conflicting goals. Therefore, the trade unions had to negotiate about every decision taken.
1970 Kongsbergs Våpenfabrik in Norway decided to implement a new production planning system
called KVPOL. The trade union at the enterprise realized the working conditions of employees would
deteriorate. They also realized that they knew nothing about computerized systems and were not used
to negotiating at that strategic level. They were used to negotiate about the hourly wage and the the
piecework pay. So they asked the researchers for help and Kristen Nygaard and Olav Terje Bergo started
the famous NJMF-project
Similar projects followed in Sweden (Carlsson et al., 1978) and in Denmark
The collective approach is fairly well described elsewhere (Bødker, 1988; Ehn, 1988; Kyng et al.,
1987) as well as the sociotechnical approach
Some minutes ago, my wife asked me what I was doing. “I’m writing a conference paper” I said. I
didn’t say “I’m using Word”. But that’s what a systems developer would have said if asked what he was
doing. Tomorrow I will go shopping, but a system developer thinks I’m going to use the car. As a user
I’m an appendix to the system, I’m an operator of a computer. But from my own point of view, I’m
working and use many tools and skills in that work. “Word” is one such tool, but I don’t see my main
occupation as user of “Word”. I’m against the notion of “user” (Flensburg, 2015). Similar ideas can be
found in Nissen
The system-theoretical, socio-technical and collective approach consider thus the system as an actor.
But the workers have tacit knowledge about their work which can’t be made explicit, else it was not
tacit (Polyani M, 1968). However Nonaka takes another standpoint, saying that tacit knowledge can be
made explicit
But all approaches demands that the tacit knowledge must be put into the system. Since this is not
possible it is one explanation why so many systems fail. Only 29% of IS projects were successful
according to Standish Groups CHAOS report 2015
Markku Nurminen (Fig 7) introduced a "humanistic" system, where only humans can be actors
Knowledge is related to something to be done, and the knower can interpret a piece of knowledge correctly, when applied in his or her work. She is a competent actor.
There are three types of knowledge needed to be a competent actor: • • • claim knowledge aquainted knowledge know-how
The problem is that computers are capable to store only a limited spectrum of the knowledge needed in practice. Nurminen (ibid) claims that our society has overemphasized the theoretical (claim) knowledge at the cost of the other two. The first type is Figure 7. Markku Nurminen also more readily formalizable to be put in the computer, and
Nurminen sees a danger, that more intuitive aspects of knowledge will get too little attention in system design.
A modern clerk performs a lot of tasks. Some are formalized, some are routine based, some demands huge efforts, other almost none! As support the clerk has different systems, for instance for planning, book-keeping etc. Information is moved between these systems and being processed in-between, often using Excel. The clerks must know the system, understand them and work around their limitations. Over the time the clerk learns this so well that he forgets how to do it, he just does it! That’s tacit knowledge! The systems are something the clerks use in their work-life. It just exists and is used to produce something, namely useful information! It is simply at hand, it is a tool, that the skilled worker masters.
When you work together you must adapt to the common work. This the clerks manage very well They don’t need a clumsy and hard to use system some EDP-expert has forced upon them. They do it themselves.
Most clerks use Excel but in very different ways. In fact, Excel is a tool for the clerk to design his own job. Excel gives you a set of predefined functions and possibilities to apply them on selected data sets. The clerk describes what to do with the information and Excel simply does it! One might wonder if there are other applications that do the same thing that excel- Could you for instance have a similar system for database lookup and consolidation, covering different sources and systems? What is needed is creative systems like Excel, which allows clerks increasingly design their own jobs. Putting together, interpret, transform information from many different sources and systems. Ordinary database systems like MS Access can’t do that, at least not in a simple way.
The idea that a lot of activities and analysis had to be done before programming of a computerized
information system was introduced by Börje Langefors
Already in the 60’s a project about democratization of working life was started in Norway. Due to
mistrust between Tavistock and trade unions in England researchers from Tavistock moved to Norway
and inspired the first trade union oriented project in systems development, the NJMF-project
The forth Scandinavian approach, here called “the radical approach” was introduced in its most basic
ideas 1981 by Markku Nurminen
Traditionally, work has been located in the context of the focus called information systems. Work informatics swaps the focus and context. Work is in focus, and information technology is but one part of it (or even part of the context) and
thus receives only secondary attention
The concept was from the beginning purely theoretical, and no information system has been built
with the ideas explicitly expressed. But Nurminen and his colleagues in Turku have used the ideas for
analyzing faulty information systems and explained the basic mistakes. Nurminen called his approach
Human scale Information Systems (HIS) in his 1988-book
I applied the idea of focus on the work in my thesis and in another paper in 2015 I draw the obvious conclusion: It is meaningless to talk about users (Flensburg, 2015)! Looking at how clerks and other workers work, I think we see they work very close to the Work Informatics ideal, if the company is successful. The computerized information systems are just tools among others, but powerful tools. Therefore, it is very important that the workers should not be subordinate to the information system. Use them without being a user!
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