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Technological change
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Technological change (TC) is a term that is used to describe the overall process of invention, innovation and diffusion of technology or processes. The term is redundant 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.
It its earlier days Technological change was illustrated with the 'Linear Model of Innovation', 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.
spoken about "modelling technological change" often the process of innovation is meant.
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Encyclopedia
Technological change (TC) is a term that is used to describe the overall process of invention, innovation and diffusion of technology or processes. The term is redundant 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.
It its earlier days Technological change was illustrated with the 'Linear Model of Innovation', 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.
Modelling Technological Change
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 which have become cheaper ever year).
- TC is often modelled using a learning curve, ex.: Ct=C0 * Xt^-b
- TC itself is often included in other models (for instance climate change models) and was often taken as an exogenous factor. These days TC is more often included as an endogenous 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.
The creation of something new. Breakthrough technology. For instance the invention of the automobile in 1894.
The continuous process of improvement, both of quality and that of lower price. Since the invention of the automobile a lot of innovation has occurred. This includes the improved production
Diffusion
The spread of a technology through a society or industry. The diffusion of a technology generally follows an S-shaped curve as early version 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 .
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 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, politics, and existing infracture (Green,2001,pp.1-20).
Elites
It is elites who have intellectual agenda(Green,2001,pp.1-20)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 privilege 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.
Corporation
Corporations 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.
Government
To supply a steady environment for technology advance, the bureaucracy plays an essential role. It exerts its power and publishes laws to guarantee that investment can process properly, such as copyright. 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.
Globalization 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 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 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 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.
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).Edison’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 economics to describe a change in the set of feasible production possibilities.
Neutral technological change refers to the behaviour of technological change in models. A technological innovation is Hicks neutral (following John Hicks (1932)) if the ratio of capital's marginal product to labour's marginal product is unchanged for a given capital to labour ratio. A technological innovation is Harrod neutral (following Hicks) if the technology is labour-augmenting (i.e. helps labor); it is Solow neutral if the technology is capital-augmenting (i.e. helps capital).
A synonym, diffusion of innovations, is used more often in business and marketing.
See also
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