Enabling inter-organizational change integration in sociotechnical systems: Systems thinking applied in the Dutch railway system
Merishna Ramtahalsing is a PhD student in the department Asset Management & Maintenance Engineering. (Co)Promotors are prof.dr.ir. L.A.M. van Dongen, dr. A.J.J. Braaksma and dr.ir. W. Haanstra from the faculty Engineering Technology.
People, organizations, and societies around the globe rely on the proper functioning of numerous systems to sustain day-to-day life as we know it. These include for example power grids, water supply, internet, and transportation systems. Oftentimes, the existence of these systems is taken for granted, unless something unexpected happens, such as train delays or power outages.
In such systems, like, for example, the transportation system, there is a constant demand for increased capacity and efficiency, whether by air, road, sea, or rail. In railway systems, there is a continuous request for improvement, enabling faster, safer, more reliable, and higher-capacity transport, preferably at low costs. In order to achieve these improvements, changes of various kinds, scales, and complexities are constantly emerging, all of which need to be integrated into the existing railway system context in order to attain the desired system-level qualities.
Despite the apparent advantages of these developments, countless examples indicate that such integration does not always go as smoothly as expected, sometimes resulting in financial losses, decreased productivity, damaged reputation, or even casualties.
One reason such errors occur is related to the context in which such changes are to be integrated. Railway systems are sociotechnical and inter-organizational in nature and thus characterized by multiple domains such as processes, personnel, technical systems, rules and regulations, with numerous interfaces and interdependencies between those. Additionally, involved organizations and inherent business units, employees, and experts often have diverse views, skills, responsibilities, objectives, and interests, and information and knowledge are dispersed among them. As such, it is challenging to have a mutual holistic view of the railway system and the changes to be integrated in this context. In short, this indicates that there appears to be a limit to the improvements that can be achieved if included actors cannot work together effectively.
In addition to this, technological advances are also increasing in size, in complexity, and in their interdependence with other systems that have preceded them. As such, the foreseen changes and the projects that strive to realize them are increasing in scope, and consequently in systemic impacts. Designing a change to one part of the system without considering how this might affect or require a change in the other aspects of the system will limit effectiveness.
A way to overcome these challenges is by applying systems thinking: understanding how different components of a system are interconnected and how changes to one component could affect the entire system. However, systems thinking appears not to be as self-evidently applied in practice. There seems to be a gap in translating theoretical methods to pragmatic practices in inter-organizational sociotechnical railway systems.
In the Dutch railway system, advances like automatic train operation are to be integrated, the impacts of which tend to affect multiple organizations, often responsible for different aspects of the system, such as infrastructure, operations, and maintenance. These need to effectively work together to achieve this integration. As such, this dissertation aims to answer the research question:
How can systems thinking support inter-organizational change integration in the Dutch railway system?
Next to a scientific contribution, this dissertation also aims to make an empirical contribution and provide pragmatic insights and tools to practitioners. To accomplish this, this dissertation uses design science research, which is reflected in the research topics associated with this dissertation.
Firstly, we aim to understand the integration challenges and associated needs encountered in the Dutch railway system. The results show that in the event of a change, the investigated integration challenges mainly concern: (1) effectively determining what is being changed, (2) the scope and impacts of this change, and (3) how the change would fit within the existing railway system context, all of which pointed towards systems thinking.
Secondly, we aim to identify to what extent well-known systems thinking practices currently support integration in the Dutch railway system. By testing postulates and case study research, several factors emerged: a clear goal, inclusion of multiple experts, synthesizing expertise to obtain mutual integral insights, and focus on managing interfaces. Moreover, the research shows that hard systems thinking approaches which are prevalent in the railway context, do not sufficiently accommodate the various perceptions of reality and the needs of all actors to be included in inter-organizational change integration.
Thirdly, the abovementioned factors form the basis of the designed artifacts, which apply systems thinking in the complex sociotechnical railway system: (1) to facilitate scope definition enabling inter-organizational change integration; (2) to changes in system environments with external influences like climate change; and (3) to aid interface management in inter-organizational projects.
This led to the iterative design and development of three respective artifacts, Management of Sociotechnical and Inter-organizational Change Integration (MOSAIC) analysis, a Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) framework, and a proposed Interface Management (IM) process.
These research topics are implemented and evaluated through multiple case studies conducted within the Dutch railway system. These case studies are characterized by inter-organizational projects with a broad scope, involving diverse departments across the infrastructure managing-, and main railway operating organization, dispersed information, fragmented knowledge, involvement of numerous multidisciplinary actors with different perspectives, and in general lack of shared understanding. These projects consist of various interfaces, which needed to be identified and managed to enhance coordination across departmental- and organizational boundaries.
By applying and evaluating the developed artifacts in various case studies, several generalizable design principles emerged: (1) making the objectives of a change explicit to facilitate focused discussions, (2) using and synchronizing dispersed expert knowledge to gain holistic integral insight into the impacts and scope of change(s), (3) taking a multidomain perspective to organize the collection of information, (4) making inter-organizational interfaces transparent, and (5) condensing interface information by aggregating and visualizing information concerning critical interfaces.
In order to accommodate the subjective interpretation in understanding systems and changes, the design research gravitated toward stakeholder engagement and emphasized the importance of learning, especially in the context of inter-organizational collaboration, on top of existing more technical approaches.
This dissertation concludes by providing professionals and empirical researchers with the means to apply systems thinking to address integration challenges in a more fitting manner.
