Constructive Ergonomics

The goal for ergonomics has always been to adapt work, work environments, and machines to man. But is this goal still sufficient? Does it satisfy the needs of the individual, or of societies and organizations as they operate now? This book answers these questions. The goals of ergonomics should be the development of individuals, work situations, and construct know-how competences. This book proposes a new view on ergonomics where the goal of ergonomics is to eliminate the factors and conditions that impede performance and development.

The goal for ergonomics has always been to adapt work, work environments, and machines to humans. But is this goal still sufficient? Does it satisfy the needs of the individual or of societies and organizations as they operate now? Constructive Ergonomics provides an answer to these questions. Rooted both in the academic world and in the world of practitioners of the domain, it details a constructive, developmental view where ergonomics seeks to eliminate the factors and conditions that impede performance and development.

This book advocates that ergonomics cannot remain content with a limited and static view of adaptation, a view that would restrict its goal to designing systems that are suited to work as it is defined at a certain point in time, to workers as they are at a particular moment, and to organizations as they operate here and now. Author Pierre Falzon argues that the objective of ergonomics must be the development of individuals, based on setting up situations of action that lead to increased success and to the acquisition or construction of know-how, knowledge, and skills.

The global framework presented in this book revises profoundly the goals of the discipline, elucidating a novel approach to work, health, and performance shored up by integration models from economics and management theory. An exploration of an innovative, developmental view of ergonomics, the book redefines the ambition of the discipline and describes the elements of its scope. It provides a solid and new conceptual background and methodological tools for intervening in real-life contexts.