Anticipation Next -- System-sensitive technology development and integration in work contexts

TL;DR

This paper introduces Anticipation Next, a multidisciplinary conceptual framework designed to improve early-stage technology development and integration in complex socio-technical work systems, aiming to reduce failures and build trust.

Contribution

It proposes an innovative, networked approach combining system, organizational, and socio-technical theories for early anticipation in technology integration.

Findings

Develops a conceptual framework for early technology integration

Synthesizes literature from multiple disciplines

Suggests a human-centered, anticipatory approach

Abstract

When discussing future concerns within socio-technical systems in work contexts, we often find descriptions of missed technology development and integration. The experience of technology that fails whilst being integrated is often rooted in dysfunctional epistemological approaches within the research and development process. Thus, ultimately leading to sustainable technology-distrust in work contexts. This is true for organizations that integrate new technologies and for organizations that invent them. Organizations in which we find failed technology development and integrations are, in their very nature, social systems. Nowadays, those complex social systems act within an even more complex environment. This urges the development of new anticipation methods for technology development and integration. Gathering of and dealing with complex information in the described context is what we call Anticipation Next. This explorative work uses existing literature from the adjoining research fields of system theory, organizational theory, and socio-technical research to combine various concepts. We deliberately aim at a networked way of thinking in scientific contexts and thus combine multidisciplinary subject areas in one paper to present an innovative way to deal with multi-faceted problems in a human-centred way. We end with suggesting a conceptual framework that should be used in the very early stages of technology development and integration in work contexts.