Complex Sociotechnical Joint Cognitive Work Systems

This essay continues a tradition in this department: deconstructing the meanings of various buzz phrases. It calls out a cluster of phrases that use the word system. Notions of emergence and complexity are meaningfully related with regard to systems in general, and related in turn to notions of resilience, agility, and robustness. This is arguably true for engineered work systems and for biological systems. But a path to sorting all this out remains hidden by brambles. We are hostages to our language and especially to our fondness for Cartesian dualisms. We need to say that something is both a "structure" and a "dynamic." So far, the word "system" may be our best option even though the search for a definition continues. The editors of this department invite definitions of the word "system" and its modifiers.