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Information about Technological Change

Technological change is a term that can refer to several different yet compatible concepts.

Sociology

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 adopters and others who are profoundly affected by cultural setting, political institutions and marketing strategies.

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.

Innovation

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). Compatibilty 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. dd

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, 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.

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.

References

  • Hicks, John (1932). The Theory of Wages. Macmillan.
  • Jones, Charles I. (1997). Introduction to Economic Growth. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393971740
  • Kuhn, Thomas Samuel (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226458083
  • Mansfield, Edwin (2003). Microeconomics Theory and Applications, 11th edition. W.W. Norton ISBN 0393979180
  • Rogers, Everett (2003). Diffusion of Innovations, 5th edition, Free Press. ISBN 0743222091

See also

Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence "rules of the house(hold).
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In microeconomics, production is the act of making things, in particular the act of making products that will be traded or sold commercially. Production decisions concentrate on what goods to produce, how to produce them, the costs
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The classic definitions of innovation include:
  1. the act of introducing something new: something newly introduced (The American Heritage Dictionary).
  2. the introduction of something new. (Merriam-Webster Online)
  3. a new idea, method or device.

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John R. Hicks
Born March 8 1904(1904--)
Warwick
Died May 20 1989 (aged 85)
New York
Residence England
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capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has a second meaning based on an alternative sense of "capital") is the center of government.
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In economics, the marginal product or marginal physical product is the extra output produced by one more unit of an input (for instance, the difference in output when a firm's labour is increased from five to six units).
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labour (or labor) is a measure of the work done by human beings. It is conventionally contrasted with such other factors of production as land and capital. There are theories which have created a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not
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Technological change is a term that can refer to several different yet compatible concepts.

Sociology

Underpinning the idea of technological change as a social process is general agreement on the importance of social context and communication.
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Robert Solow

Photo: Minneapolis Fed, 2002
Born July 23 1924 (1924--) (age 83)
New York
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The study of the diffusion of innovation is the study of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures.

This research topic began in the 1950s at the University of Chicago with funding from television producers who sought a way to measure the
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Business law
Business organizations
Basic forms:
Sole proprietorship
Corporation
Partnership
(General · Limited · LLP)
Cooperative
USA:
Business trust · LLC · LLLP
Delaware corporation
Nevada corporation
UK/Commonwealth:
Limited company
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Marketing is a social process which satisfies consumers' wants. The term includes advertising, distribution and selling of a product or service. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, often through market research.
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John R. Hicks
Born March 8 1904(1904--)
Warwick
Died May 20 1989 (aged 85)
New York
Residence England
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Charles, Charlie, or Chuck Jones may refer to:
  • Bumpus Jones, a 19th century baseball pitcher
  • Charles Colcock Jones (1804-1863), Presbyterian clergyman, planter, and missionary to slaves

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Thomas Samuel Kuhn (surname pronounced [Kooːn]; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the
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Edwin Mansfield (1930-1997) was a professor of economics at University of Pennsylvania from 1964 and until his death. From 1985 he was also a director of the Center for Economics and Technology.
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Everett M. Rogers (1931 in Carroll, Iowa - Albuquerque, New Mexico, 21 October 2004), communications scholar, pioneer of diffusion of innovations theory, writer, and teacher. He is best known for his 'diffusion of innovations' theory and introducing the term 'early adopter.
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Not to be confused with Technological change.


A technical change is a term used in economics to describe a change in the amount of output produced from the same inputs.
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