Putting Action into Sociotechnical Systems Theory – a proposed analysis of the Australian Film Industry using START

This paper proposes a model for organisational analysis based on the conflation of two eminent theories for socio-technical analysis. These theories – Sociotechnical Systems and Action Regulation Theory – have been developed and used in Europe but have received little attention in Australia. The proposed model Socio-Technical-Action-Regulation-Theory (START) provides a comprehensive framework for analysis and investigation. The Australian Film Industry has been selected as the ideal target for the framework. The Australian Film Industry provides an organisational environment which is considered turbulent and difficult and has been identified as having both social and technical challenges. While the project is still in an elementary stage, development and utilisation of the model will provide analytical outcomes which will recommend a more efficient alignment between technical and social systems based on the principle of joint optimisation.