Title: Bridging the human gap: systems engineering

Authors: Afshin Pourmaleski, Richard Cardinali

Addresses: Central Connecticut State University, New Britain Connecticut, USA. ' Central Connecticut State University, New Britain Connecticut, USA

Abstract: This paper focuses on one of the most important and common topics concerning people and technology; that the concern in the information field is people not technology. Three postulates underlie this paper: The full and effective use of computers and other information technologies (ITS); The full and effective use of people. People can be effective without technology but that the use of technology can never be full and effective without people; IT plays the servant|s role. Implied in this paper is that management does not know how to implement new technologies properly. There is a general trend to bridge technical systems and human systems, with most of the effort coming from the technical side. Figure 1 illustrates the point. There are books on the human sciences (category 1); and on the technical sciences (category 4), neither of which are concerned with business management. There are also books on the use of technical systems within business management (category 3). These often provide material on how to support employee use of technology. This paper provides a new thrust in the development and expansion of category 2, which concerns the way human systems react to the introduction of technical systems.

Keywords: human communications; human systems engineering; information technology; computer systems; management information systems; MIS; business management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1994.062506

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1994 Vol.7 No.1/2, pp.1 - 7

Published online: 09 Jun 2014 *

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