Fred Emery

Frederick Edmund Emery (August 27, 1925 – April 10, 1997) was an Australian psychologist specializing in the field of organizational development, particularly in the theory of participative work design structures, such as self-managing teams.

Biography

Emery was born in Narrogin, Western Australia, and was the son of a drover. He was the Dux of Fremantle Boys' High in Western Australia at the age of 14. He earned his honours degree in science from the University of Western Australia in 1946 and joined the department's teaching staff in 1947. He subsequently spent nine years as staff of the Department of Psychology at the University of Melbourne, where he obtained his PhD in 1953. During 1951-52, he held a UNESCO Fellowship in Social Sciences and was attached to the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the UK.
As a staff member at the University of Melbourne, he made contributions to rural sociology, CPA, and the effects of film and television viewing.

In 1957, Emery left Australia for London to join the staff of the Tavistock Institute. He had previously worked with Eric Trist on sociotechnical systems as a UNESCO Research Fellow from 1951 - 1952 and published "The Characteristics of Socio-technical Systems" in 1959.

He, along with Trist and other colleagues, established "open socio-technical systems theory" as an alternative paradigm for organisational design. They field-tested this on a national scale in Norway, in partnership with Einar Thorsrud.

After returning to Australia, Emery focused on developing a new method aimed at creating jointly optimised socio-technical systems. This approach was designed to promote the diffusion of socio-technical concepts rather than serve as an alternative to autocracy in the workplace. The method he developed, known as the Participative Design Workshop, has been in use since 1971, replacing the previous 9-step method that had been used in Norway.

Socio-technical systems are part of a broader theoretical framework known as Open Systems Theory (OST). Key publications by Emery and Trist include "The Causal Texture of Organisational Environments" (1965) and "Towards a Social Ecology" (1972). These works laid the foundations for Fred Emery's development of OST.

Emery returned to Australia in 1969 and enrolled at the Australian National University (ANU). He served as a senior research fellow until November 1979, initially in the Department of Sociology (RSSS) and later, from 1974, at the Centre for Continuing Education. He was also a visiting professor in Social Systems Science at Wharton's Department of Social Systems Sciences and spent the 1967–68 academic year at the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University.

Emery was awarded the first Elton Mayo award in 1988 by the Australian Psychological Society and obtained a DSc from Macquarie University in 1992.

At the ANU, he continued his action research in industry and the public sector, developing new tools to enhance democratic practices within organisations and communities.

In 1979, his CCE Fellowship came to an end and he subsequently worked as a consultant. In the final two years before his death, he co-edited the third and final volume of the "Tavistock anthology", published by the University of Pennsylvania Press: ''The Social Engagement of Social Science''.

Emery died at his home on 10 April 1997 at 71 in Canberra, Australia.

Publications

* 1969. ''Systems thinking''. (Ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books
* 1969. ''Form and content in industrial democracy''. With E. Thorsrud, London: Tavistock.
* 1972. ''On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events''. With Russell Ackoff. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.
* 1973. ''Hope within walls''. With M. Emery. Canberra: Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University.
* 1976. ''Choice of futures: To enlighten or inform (Part III)''. With M. Emery. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
* 1976. ''Living at Work'' With Chris Phillips. Australian Government Printing Service.
* 1976. ''Democracy at work''. With E. Thorsrud, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
* 1977. ''Futures we are in''. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
* 1978. ''Emergence of a new paradigm of work''. Canberra: Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University.
* 1980. ''Domestic market segments for the telephone''. With M. Emery, PA Consultants.
* 1981. ''Open systems thinking''. Volumes I & II. Penguin.
* 1989. ''Towards real democracy''. Toronto: Ontario QWL Centre, Ministry of Labour.
* 1991. ''Attitudes towards Centres for Professional Development at the University of New England''. With M. Emery. Lismore: UNE.NR.

References

External links

Emery, Frederick Edmund (Fred) (1925–1997)
by Alastair Crombie

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emery, Fred
1925 births
1997 deaths
Australian scientists
Systems psychologists
Systems scientists
People from Narrogin, Western Australia