A Multi-domain Approach Toward Adaptations of Socio-technical Systems: The Dutch Railway Case-Part 1

Abstract

Socio-technical systems are highly complex as they contain a number of domains each of which including numerous interdependent elements. With such complexity, policy makers and managers need to adapt (make incremental changes in) sociotechnical systems, and currently available approaches for such adaptations are rare. Consequently, and to fill this gap, this paper takes a multi-domain approach based upon Design Structure and Multi-domain matrices to develop a multi-domain model of sociotechnical system. Moreover, that model is analyzed according to both the change propagation measures of the non-human domain and the information processing view of the stakeholder domain of socio-technical systems. Application of this method for the Dutch railway system is discussed in Part 2 of this paper.