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Socio-Technical Networks

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lightbulbAbout this topic
Socio-Technical Networks refer to the interconnected systems that encompass both social and technical elements, emphasizing the interactions between human behaviors, organizational structures, and technological infrastructures. This field studies how these interactions influence the design, implementation, and outcomes of complex systems in various contexts.
lightbulbAbout this topic
Socio-Technical Networks refer to the interconnected systems that encompass both social and technical elements, emphasizing the interactions between human behaviors, organizational structures, and technological infrastructures. This field studies how these interactions influence the design, implementation, and outcomes of complex systems in various contexts.

Key research themes

1. How does social network structure influence knowledge exchange and innovation in socio-technical networks?

This research area examines the role of social network configurations—such as ties, positions, multiplexity, and centrality—in facilitating or constraining knowledge transfer and innovation outcomes within socio-technical systems. Understanding these structural mechanisms is pivotal for leveraging network effects in innovation, organizational learning, and collaborative work, especially as knowledge exchange involves diverse actors and multiple types of ties, including both social and technical components.

Key finding: Demonstrates that the structural position of actors within social networks significantly shapes knowledge exchange processes crucial to innovation and new product development. The study highlights how multiplex relationships... Read more
Key finding: Identifies specific social network metrics—such as density, centrality, betweenness, and component structures—as essential in characterizing university-industry innovation networks. By analyzing these measures, the research... Read more
Key finding: Reveals that social networks, particularly digital platforms, serve as vital enablers for creativity and innovation diffusion by expanding access to diverse knowledge and collaborative opportunities. The study underscores... Read more
Key finding: Develops a computational analytic framework that integrates individual, group, and network-level interactions in socio-technical learning networks, illustrating how event uptake relationships and session-level interactions... Read more
Key finding: Offers a taxonomy and conceptualization of collaborative networks emphasizing the dynamic interplay of organizational forms and their underlying network structures. The study identifies value creation mechanisms arising from... Read more

2. How can socio-technical network methodologies integrate the social and technical to improve design, safety, and transitions?

This theme investigates methodologies that bridge social and technical elements of socio-technical networks with an emphasis on design thinking, interaction modeling, safety science, and monitoring systemic transitions. These approaches provide frameworks for understanding and managing the complex interplay of human actors, technology, organizational processes, and environmental dynamics to enhance system effectiveness, safety, and sustainability during transformations.

Key finding: Introduces the STWT method demonstrating that structured communication processes, such as facilitated workshops with graphical representations, support the integration of diverse stakeholder knowledge. This enables better... Read more
Key finding: Evaluates the STIN model as a conceptual and analytic tool that treats social and technical components as inseparable actors within interaction networks. It highlights the model’s strengths in focusing on routine use patterns... Read more
Key finding: Presents a modeling methodology combining Cognitive Work Analysis and System Dynamics within a Design Science Research framework to capture both structural and dynamic behaviors of sociotechnical systems. Applied in a case... Read more
Key finding: Explores how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) facilitates methodological innovations in safety science by integrating human and non-human elements, emphasizing dynamic realities, variability, and uncertainty in complex... Read more
Key finding: Develops a theoretical perspective merging Socio-Technical Systems Design (STS-D) with digital transformation imperatives, advocating integrated optimization of social and technical aspects. The essay argues that this... Read more

3. How can network analysis and complexity theory inform the understanding and management of emergent properties and dynamic behaviors in socio-technical systems?

This theme focuses on leveraging quantitative and theoretical frameworks, including social network analysis, complexity theory, and agent-based modeling, to comprehend emergent phenomena, dynamic interaction patterns, and multilevel processes in socio-technical contexts. These approaches aim to provide tools to understand, predict, and optimize system behaviors that cannot be explained solely by analyzing individual components in isolation.

Key finding: Articulates how complexity theory concepts such as non-determinism, limited decomposability, distributed representation, and emergence provide critical insights for modeling socio-technical cooperative systems. The paper... Read more
Key finding: Presents novel methodologies that integrate domain-independent and domain-specific metrics to analyze complex networks across software systems, semantic web ontologies, and social (co-authorship) networks. By enriching... Read more
Key finding: Develops a conceptual framework situating socio-technical transitions within multi-level perspectives (landscape, regime, niche) and highlights policy design challenges regarding flexibility, anticipation, and incremental to... Read more
Key finding: Offers a comprehensive empirical analysis of the growth and structure of the scientific collaboration network within the emerging field of network science over 20 years. This analysis exemplifies how co-authorship networks... Read more
Key finding: Describes the design and application of an agent-based model that simulates interactions among individual, team, and task-level variables in engineering teams. The model captures emergent team performance outcomes from... Read more

All papers in Socio-Technical Networks

Abstract The paper recognizes the relationship between social movements and internet how new practices of resistance through technological appropriation (Castells, 2012). This social interaction mediated by technology, understood as... more
Effective policy mixes are expected to accommodate uncertainties in the future policy context by being flexible and adapt over time in expectation of a range of anticipated and unanticipated conditions. In response to shifts in the future... more
El papel de los métodos cualitativos en la ciencia política, 145.-Criticas a los méto dos cualitativos, 159. La expresión métodos cualitativos designa de forma genérica diversas técnicas en tre las que se encuentran la observación... more
El interés por escribir este articulo deriva de la preocupación por la banalización del concepto de redes. Es un concepto que se está utilizando en forma reiterada en todos los ámbitos, el mediático, el empresarial, el académico, etc.... more
Materiales del seminario "Redes" de la Maestría en Museología y Gestión del Patrimonio
El interés por escribir este articulo deriva de la preocupación por la banalización del concepto de redes. Es un concepto que se está utilizando en forma reiterada en todos los ámbitos, el mediático, el empresarial, el académico, etc.... more
La sociedad contemporánea tiene en los flujos de la información una de sus características más destacadas, siendo las nuevas tecnologías de la información y comunicación uno de sus pilares. En este contexto, el paradigma de las redes... more
Team working is becoming increasingly important in modern organizations due to its beneficial outcomes. A team's performance levels are determined by complex interactions between the attributes of its individual members, the communication... more
donde coordina el Núcleo de Investigación en Movimientos Sociales. En 2004-2005, investigadora visitante en la Universidad de Brasilia. @: <ilse@manezinho.com.br>. Palabras clave: sociedad de la información, redes, movimientos sociales,... more
donde coordina el Núcleo de Investigación en Movimientos Sociales. En 2004-2005, investigadora visitante en la Universidad de Brasilia. @: <ilse@manezinho.com.br>. Palabras clave: sociedad de la información, redes, movimientos sociales,... more
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