Sample Question: Business

Show how the Telebank Call Center operates as a socio-technical system. Please be sure to address the following issues, along with presenting any other ideas about this concept that you find interesting:

Explain how would you describe the organizational structure at the Telebank Call Center, in terms of the traditional categories? To what degree can this company appropriately be described as a "machine"?

Explain what would you say are the major components of its technical system? Of its social system? Are there any major features of the organization that you would put outside both the technical and social systems?

What kind of control does management have over the technical system elements? Toward what ends or goals? What are some effects of exercizing that control?

What kind of control does management have over the social system elements? Toward what ends or goals? What are some effects of exercizing that control?

Are there any interesting interactions between the technical and social systems that affect their management?

All told, is the concept of the organization as a sociotechnical machine really beneficial and useful as an organizational metaphor, or is it simply a set of word games? Or something in between? Why, in either case?