A systematic literature review of sociotechnical systems in systems engineering

Systems engineers use the term sociotechnical system in academic literature and in their practice. Sociotechnical systems are gaining more attention as systems engineers aspire to address the social elements of their systems engineering practice as well as societal challenges, such as those included in the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Vision 2035. Even though there is a basic working definition of sociotechnical system in the Systems Engineering Book of Knowledge (SEBoK), use of the term varies in systems engineering literature depending on application domain. As systems engineering research and practice venture into social domains, it is critical that systems engineers have a shared understanding of terms they use as a foundation of knowledge and practice. To contribute to this foundation, this study is a systematic literature review of how the term sociotechnical system is used in systems engineering literature. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodological framework and Web of Science (WoS) for conducting the systematic literature review. We only included peer-reviewed systems engineering academic papers in this study, and these papers had to either explicitly define the term or implicitly define it by context in the paper. In total, 61 papers were included after inclusion criteria were met, and these were evaluated and synthesized into definition categories. Evaluation and synthesis were conducted according to the PRISMA framework by the study authors in order to manage bias. We found that most papers use sociotechnical system generically as a system that includes social (people) and technical elements. Papers with more refined definitions of sociotechnical system stem from two distinct theoretical traditions: ergonomics/safety and philosophy of engineering. We do not aim to propose a single, normative definition of sociotechnical system. This study is limited by including only systems engineering literature since sociotechnical system has established definitions in other disciplines (e.g., social sciences disciplines). However, the outcome of this study provides systems engineers with documented understanding of how the term sociotechnical system is used within systems engineering.