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A main problem in the study of organizational change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exist are themselves changing, at an increasing rate and towards increasing complexity. This point, in itself, scarcely needs laboring. Nevertheless, characteristics of organizational environments demand consideration for their own sake if there is to be an advancement of understanding in the behavioral sciences of a great deal that is taking place under the impact of technological change, especially at the present time.

— Eric Trist The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments (1963)

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Socio-technical analysis is made at three levels - the primary work system; the whole organization; and macrosocial phenomena.

The evolution of socio-technical systems (1981)

Every time the cycle is stopped, some 200 tons of coal are lost. So close is the task interdependence that the system becomes vulnerable from its need for 100 percent performance at each step.

We know from experience that technology can be changed. We have learned in the quality-of-working-life enterprise not to accept the technological imperative.

Eric Trist cited in: Alternatives. Vol 8 (1980)

Socio-technical studies needed to be carried out at three broad levels - from micro to macro - all of which are interrelated

The evolution of socio-technical systems (1981)

The longwall method [can be] regarded as a technological system expressive of the prevailing outlook of mass-production engineering and as a social structure consisting of the occupational roles that have been institutionalized in its use.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Eric Trist (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.