# Fred Emery

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

## Biography

Emery was born in Narrogin, Western Australia, as the son of a drover. He left school as the Dux of Fremantle Boys' High in Western Australia when he was 14. He earned his honours degree in science from the University of Western Australia in 1946 and joined the teaching staff of the department there in 1947. He subsequently spent nine years on the 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 worked with Eric Trist on the concept of sociotechnical systems in 1951–52 as a UNESCO Research Fellow, subsequently publishing "The Characteristics of Socio-technical Systems" in 1959.
He, along with Eric Trist, one of his closest intellectual collaborators, and other colleagues, established "open socio-technical systems theory" as an alternative paradigm for organisational design—field-tested on a national scale in Norway, in partnership with Einar Thorsrud.
After his return to Australia, he set about developing a new method to bring in jointly optimised Socio-technical Systems, designed for the diffusion of the concept rather than proof of an alternative to autocracy in the workplace. That method, called the Participative Design Workshop, has been used in Australia and many other countries since 1971, and replaced the older 9-step method used in Norway.
Socio-technical systems are part of a comprehensive theoretical framework called Open Systems Theory (OST). Two of Emery's and Trist's key publications were: "The Causal Texture of Organisational Environments" (1965) and "Towards a Social Ecology" (1972). These publications are the groundwork on which Fred Emery developed OST.
Emery returned to Australia in 1969 and went to the Australian National University (ANU). He was a senior research fellow there until November 1979, initially in the Department of Sociology, RSSS, and then from 1974 at the Centre for Continuing Education. He had also been visiting professor in Social Systems Science at Wharton's Department of Social Systems Sciences, spending 1967–68 at the Center 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 received a DSc from Macquarie University in 1992.
At the ANU, Emery continued his action research in industry and the public sector, developing new tools to promote democratic practices in organisations and communities.
In 1979, his CCE Fellowship expired. Afterwards, he 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 the age of 71 in Canberra, Australia.

## Publications

* 1969. Systems thinking. (Ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books ISBN 0140800719
* 1969. Form and content in industrial democracy. With E. Thorsrud, London: Tavistock.ISBN 978-0415264389
* 1972. On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events. With Russell Ackoff. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.ISBN 978-0202307985
* 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.