This video was created by Elise Crawford to enter the 'Dance your PhD' 2011 contest. The dance on the video portrays her research topic.
New technologies can offer many benefits to organisations such as transport networks. However new technologies always bring associated risks simply because they are new. Therefore, introducing new technology, especially into cognitively complex environments such as control centres where work environments require high levels of mental processing, can cause significant risk. To minimise these risks and optimise the network controllers’ use of new technologies, Elise is investigating issues related to human factors that impact new technology adoption including the priorities of stakeholders that can interfere with successful outcomes.
The analogy of Santa Claus preparing to make his gift-giving rounds is used to represent a Director of a transport company preparing to introduce new technology to enhance service provision. The dance depicts how priority struggles (different dance moves) between new technology stakeholders (reindeer) can result in low production outcomes (children missing out on presents) or unsafe operations (Santa not making rounds safely). Therefore, to ensure a successful outcome (happy clients), genuine agreement amongst all stakeholders must be achieved. Representing this hypothesis, the acronym SANTA, ‘Stakeholder Agreement for New Technology Adoption’ is used, hence the title of this video.