Human factors engineering that makes a difference: leveraging a science of societal change

Abstract

The over-arching purpose of human factors engineering is to improve the quality of human life, but our discipline has not been as successful as we would like in effecting societal change, whether it be at the political or corporate level. The current paper addresses this problem, first by identifying a set of general challenges to change, and second by reviewing three illustrative theories of the processes behind large-scale societal change. Kingdon's (1984/2003) work on agenda setting explains how ideas get onto the political radar. Birkland's (1997) research on focusing events shows how accidents can be exploited to foster policy change. Tushman and Romanelli's (1985) work on punctuated equilibrium theory illustrates how market forces and environmental disruptions can be manipulated to encourage radical corporate change. These research programs have largely unappreciated ‘design’ implications that human factors engineers can adopt to increase the likelihood of improving the fit between people and technology in the service of humankind.

Keywords:

• Societal change
• Public policy
• Political science
• Management
• Corporate change

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a E. W. R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship and a research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The author would like to thank Jeff Cooper, Lianne Jeffs, Bentzi Karsh, Jill Kelsall, Brian Kleiner, Neelam Naikar and members of the Cognitive Engineering Laboratory, especially Olivier St-Cyr, for their helpful comments.