Technological change
Encyclopedia
Invention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...
, innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
and diffusion
Diffusion
Molecular diffusion, often called simply diffusion, is the thermal motion of all particles at temperatures above absolute zero. The rate of this movement is a function of temperature, viscosity of the fluid and the size of the particles...
of technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
or processes
Business process
A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
. The term is synonymous with technological development, technological achievement, and technological progress. In essence TC is the invention of a technology (or a process), the continuous process of improving a technology (in which it often becomes cheaper) and its diffusion throughout industry or society. In short, technological change is based on both better and more technology.
Modelling technological change
In its earlier days, technological change was illustrated with the 'Linear Model of InnovationLinear model of innovation
The Linear Model of Innovation is an early model of innovation that suggests technical change happens in a linear fashion from Invention to Innovation to Diffusion....
', which has now been largely discarded to be replaced with a model of technological change that involves innovation at all stages of research, development, diffusion and use. When spoken about "modelling technological change" often the process of innovation is meant. This process of continuous improvement is often modelled as a curve depicting decreasing costs over time (for instance fuel cell
Fuel cell
A fuel cell is a device that converts the chemical energy from a fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen or another oxidizing agent. Hydrogen is the most common fuel, but hydrocarbons such as natural gas and alcohols like methanol are sometimes used...
which have become cheaper every year).
- TC is often modelled using a learning curveLearning curveA learning curve is a graphical representation of the changing rate of learning for a given activity or tool. Typically, the increase in retention of information is sharpest after the initial attempts, and then gradually evens out, meaning that less and less new information is retained after each...
, ex.: Ct=C0 * Xt^-b - TC itself is often included in other models (for instance climate change models) and was often taken as an exogenousExogenousExogenous refers to an action or object coming from outside a system. It is the opposite of endogenous, something generated from within the system....
factor. These days TC is more often included as an endogenousEndogenousEndogenous substances are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell. Endogenous retroviruses are caused by ancient infections of germ cells in humans, mammals and other vertebrates...
factor. This means that it is taken as something you can influence. It is generally accepted that policy can influence the speed and direction of TC (for instance more towards clean technologies). This is referred to as Induced Technological Change.
Invention
The creation of something new, or a "breakthrough" technology. For example, a personal computerPersonal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
.
Diffusion
The spread of a technology through a society or industry. The diffusionDiffusion of innovations
Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations...
of a technology generally follows an S-shaped curve
Logistic function
A logistic function or logistic curve is a common sigmoid curve, given its name in 1844 or 1845 by Pierre François Verhulst who studied it in relation to population growth. It can model the "S-shaped" curve of growth of some population P...
as early versions of technology are rather unsuccessful, followed by a period of successful innovation with high levels of adoption, and finally a dropping off in adoption as a technology reaches its maximum potential in a market. In the case of a personal computer, it has made way beyond homes and into business settings, such as office workstation
Workstation
A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
s and server machines
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
to host website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s.
For mathematical treatment of diffusion see: Logistic function
Logistic function
A logistic function or logistic curve is a common sigmoid curve, given its name in 1844 or 1845 by Pierre François Verhulst who studied it in relation to population growth. It can model the "S-shaped" curve of growth of some population P...
For examples of diffusion of technologies see: Diffusion of innovations#International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
For assorted diffusion curves such as appliances, household electrification and communications see: Diffusion of innovations#Diffusion data
Technological change as a social process
Underpinning the idea of technological change as a social process is general agreement on the importance of social context and communication. According to this model, technological change is seen as a social process involving producers and adopters and others (such as government) who are profoundly affected by cultural setting, political institutions and marketing strategies.Elements of diffusion
Emphasis has been on four key elements of the technological change process: (1) an innovative technology (2) communicated through certain channels (3) to members of a social system (4) who adopt it over a period of time. These elements are derived from Everett M. Rogers Diffusion of innovationsDiffusion of innovations
Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations...
theory using a communications-type approach.
Innovation
Rogers proposes that there are five main attributes of innovative technologies which influence acceptance. These are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Relative advantage may be economic or non-economic, and is the degree to which an innovation is seen as superior to prior innovations fulfilling the same needs. It is positively related to acceptance (i.e., the higher the relative advantage, the higher the adoption level, and vice versa). Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation appears consistent with existing values, past experiences, habits and needs to the potential adopter; a low level of compatibility will slow acceptance. Complexity is the degree to which an innovation appears difficult to understand and use; the more complex an innovation, the slower its acceptance. Trialability is the perceived degree to which an innovation may be tried on a limited basis, and is positively related to acceptance. Trialability can accelerate acceptance because small-scale testing reduces risk. Observability is the perceived degree to which results of innovating are visible to others and is positively related to acceptance.Communication channels
Communication channels are the means by which a source conveys a message to a receiver. Information may be exchanged through two fundamentally different, yet complementary, channels of communication. Awareness is more often obtained through the mass media, while uncertainty reduction that leads to acceptance mostly results from face-to-face communication.Social system
The social system provides a medium through which and boundaries within which, innovation is adopted. The structure of the social system affects technological change in several ways. Social norms, opinion leaders, change agents, government and the consequences of innovations are all involved. Also involved are cultural setting, nature of political institutions, laws, policies and administrative structures.Time
Time enters into the acceptance process in several ways. The time dimension relates to the innovativeness of an individual or other adopter, which is the relative earlyness or lateness with which an innovation is adopted.Factors
The term mythologised of technology refers to how technology start and elites who invented the new technology. By focusing on its process, it is proved MacKenzie and Wajcman’s argument of “social determination of technology”,(Green,2001,pp. 1-20) which means it is social that realizing technology change, and sustained it. There are four factors motivate technology innovation, which involve intellectual agenda, economic, politicsPolitics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, and existing infrastructure (Green,2001,pp. 1-20).
Elites
It is elites who have intellectual agenda make technology change possible. However, it can not split their knowledge. Knowledge is not neutral, as it is “Socially bound knowledge” (Green,2001,pp. 1-20). The elites can create new technology as they are able to access knowledge physically and they can afford it. Both procedures underpin knowledge privilegePrivilege
A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. It can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth...
within social context. Moreover, to prevail the new technology in social, it acquires the avant-guards who obtain knowledge as well, which makes them able to manipulate new technology. As knowledge which plays a role of force in technology is only granted to a limit population in technology experiment period, it proves technology is not neutral.
As the access to knowledge becomes easier with the spread of the Internet and access to everything from patent information to MIT class work and basic research papers approaches zero cost, the knowledge of an individual becomes limited by his/her interests and ability to understand. This change results in fundamental changes in the above concepts of elites and can result in innovation arising from multiple sources.
Corporation
Corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s which are driven by economic value benefit technology and are benefited as well. In order to continue elites’ experimentation, financial support is necessary, and in most case it is from corporation funding. On the other hand, corporation would like to invest the invention as the potential huge commercial benefits from it. In this case, it implies that social determines technology as technology advance can not separate from economic support and it brings economic value as well.
However, this above interpretation has problems with observation of the real major innovations such as the actual development of the transistor and creation of the microprocessor not including any of the major electronics companies of the time (the big tube manufactures). The big tube manufactures did hire the best and brightest from the universities, but all the good ideas created by their research labs couldn't float through vacuum tube management.
Government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
To supply a steady environment for technology advance, the bureaucracy plays an essential role. It exerts its power
Political power
Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
and publishes laws to guarantee that investment can process properly, such as copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
. Without the safe social circumstance, the elites methodology will be stolen by the others(Green,2001,pp. 1-20), which prevents the invention processing properly in such chaos.
In recent decades, much of the technological advancements have not come from the governments of the world and most of the great government sponsored research projects have been failures. For example, the Fifth generation computer
Fifth generation computer
The Fifth Generation Computer Systems project was an initiative by Japan'sMinistry of International Trade and Industry, begun in 1982, to create a "fifth generation computer" which was supposed to perform much calculation using massive parallel processing...
project in Japan.
Globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
as macro-social context
Globalization trend is realized by technology advanced and motivates it as well. In another word, the global social change is increasingly both a cause and effect of technological enhance(Green,2001,pp. 1-20). Merchants appeal high technology, such as electronic business
Electronic business
Electronic business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-business", or an internet business, may be defined as the application of information and communication technologies in support of all the activities of business...
to run over-sea business, it not only benefits them enlarging their markets, but also make them finish business trading quicker. On the other hand, utilizing high technology realizes global social change, and makes communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
access more conveniently.
There is another way of how existing infrustration implements technology advance. Public policy can stimulate technology development (Danna, 2007). For instance, feminists invented satellite to provoke masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
domination social pattern, and by which they established their roles as early communication adopters(Danna,2007,p87-110). Before feminism movement, women are looked down on, so they provoke unequal social pattern by their contribution.
However, such interpretations can be viewed as nonsense with the invention of satellites as being totally orthogonal to feminism. Satellites are used for both economically benefits and satisfy human curiosity.
Example
There is an example to elaborate how these four factors work in technology advance process- Edison’s bulb invention(Green,2001,pp. 1-20).EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
’s electrical power and lighting system can be achieved because of his inspiration. Via intellectual agenda(Green,2001,pp. 1-20), he published mythology, which aims to be funded by corporate without whom the research laboratories can not keep on. The corporation bought his idea for its potential bringing commercial benefit. As his invention of bulb liberates human movement (people can work not only in daytime, but also in evening), it inevitably prevails in overseas, and rise global social change.
Economics
Technological change is a term that is used in economicsEconomics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
to describe a change in the set of feasible production
Production, costs, and pricing
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to industrial organization:Industrial organization – describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions...
possibilities.
Neutral technological change refers to the behaviour of technological change in models. A technological innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
is Hicks neutral
Hicks-neutral technical change
A Hicks-neutral technical change is a change in the production function of a business or industry which satifies certain economic neutrality conditions. The concept of Hicks neutrality was first put forth in 1932 by John Hicks in his book The Theory of Wages...
, following John Hicks
John Hicks
Sir John Richard Hicks was a British economist and one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics were his statement of consumer demand theory in microeconomics, and the IS/LM model , which...
(1932), if a change in technology does not change the ratio of capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
's marginal product
Marginal product
In economics and in particular neoclassical economics, the marginal product or marginal physical product of an input is the extra output that can be produced by using one more unit of the input , assuming that the quantities of no other inputs to production...
to labour's marginal product for a given capital to labour ratio. A technological innovation is Harrod neutral (following Roy Harrod
Roy Harrod
Sir Henry Roy Forbes Harrod was an English economist. He is best known for his biography of John Maynard Keynes and the development of the Harrod–Domar model, which he and Evsey Domar developed independently...
) if the technology is labour-augmenting (i.e. helps labor); it is Solow neutral
Robert Solow
Robert Merton Solow is an American economist particularly known for his work on the theory of economic growth that culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him...
if the technology is capital-augmenting (i.e. helps capital).
See also
- InnovationInnovationInnovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
- Technological innovation systemTechnological innovation systemThe Technological Innovation System is a concept developed within the scientific field of innovation studies which serves to explain the nature and rate of technological change...
- Theories of technologyTheories of technologyThere are a number of theories attempting to address technology, which tend to be associated with the disciplines of science and technology studies and communication studies...
- Technical changeTechnical changeA technical change is a term used in economics to describe a change in the amount of output produced from the same amount of inputs. A technical change is not necessarily technological as it might be organizational, or due to a change in a constraint such as regulation, input prices, or quantities...
- ProductivityProductivityProductivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...
- Investment specific technological progressInvestment specific technological progressInvestment-specific technological progress refers to progress that requires investment in new equipment and structures embodying the latest technology in order to realize its benefits.-Introduction:...
- Productivity improving technologies (historical)Productivity improving technologies (historical)Productivity improving technologies date back to antiquity, with rather slow progress until the late Middle Ages. Technological progress was aided by literacy and the diffusion of knowledge that accelerated after the spinning wheel spread to Western Europe in the 13th century...
- Second industrial revolutionSecond Industrial RevolutionThe Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of the larger Industrial Revolution corresponding to the latter half of the 19th century until World War I...