Mechonomics: design thinking for growth and resilience of sociotechnical organizations

In this paper the principal ideas of mechonomics are introduced. Mechonomics is a neologism indicating the possibility of predicting the behaviour of sociotechnical organizations in the complex and interconnected world of the 21st century by means of models borrowed from structural mechanics. In particular, the concepts of growth, resilience and robustness of the organizations are discussed. The analogy with structural and natural systems is shown to be sound and permits to interpret the effects of the size of the organization and of its internal arrangement and collapse of enterprises and institutions. Consequence-based design, as the tool able to tackle with unpredictable stimuli and external effects, is introduced as the only robust philosophy that should pervade design and management of sociotechnical organizations.