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The chapter provides an overview of diverse conceptualizations and ter-
minologies that have been introduced to describe technology and how it
evolves. First, technology is defined as consisting of both hardware and
software (the knowledge required to produce and use technological hard-
ware). Second, the essential feature of technology – its dynamic nature –
is outlined. Technologies change all the time individually, and in their
aggregate, typically in a sequence of replacements of older by newer tech-
nologies. Finally, the chapter emphasizes the multitude of linkages and
cross-enhancing interdependencies between technologies giving rise to suc-
cessive technology “clusters”, which are the focus of the subsequent his-
torical analysis chapters. The most essential terminology distinguishes be-
tween invention (discovery), innovation (first commercial application) and
diffusion (widespread replication and growth) of technologies. As a simple
conceptual model the technology life cycle is introduced. In this model,
new technologies evolve from a highly uncertain embryonic stage with fre-
quent rejection of proposed solutions. In the case of acceptance, technology
diffusion follows and technologies continue to be improved, widen their
possible applications, and interact with other existing technologies and
infrastructures. Ultimately, improvement potentials become exhausted,
negative externalities apparent, and diffusion eventually saturates, provid-
ing an opportunity window for the introduction of alternative solutions.
Technology diffusion is at the core of the historical technological changes
of importance for global (environmental) change. This is why the main
emphasis in this book is on technology diffusion, which also provides the
central metric to measure technological change. Less emphasis is placed on
the complex microphenomenon of technology selection. The main generic
characteristics of technological change are presented and some generalized
patterns of technology diffusion are outlined. The chapter concludes with
a discussion of sources and mechanisms, i.e., the “who’s and how’s” of
technological change.
What is technology?1 In the narrowest sense, technology consists of manu-
factured objects like tools (axes, arrowheads, and their modern equivalents)
and containers (pots, water reservoirs, buildings). Their purpose is either to
enhance human capabilities (e.g., with a hammer you can apply a stronger
force to an object) or to enable humans to perform tasks they could not
perform otherwise (with a pot you can transport larger amounts of water;
with your hands you cannot). Engineers call such objects “hardware”. An-
thropologists speak of “artifacts”.
But technology does not end there. Artifacts have to be produced. They
have to be invented, designed, and manufactured. This requires a larger
system including hardware (such as machinery or a manufacturing plant),
factor inputs (labor, energy, raw materials, capital), and finally “software”
(know-how, human knowledge and skills). The latter, for which the French
use the term technique, represents the disembodied nature of technology, its
knowledge base. Thus, technology includes both what things are made and
how things are made.
Finally, knowledge, or technique, is required not only for the production
of artifacts, but also for their use. Knowledge is needed to drive a car or use
a bank account. Knowledge is needed both at the level of the individual,
in complex organizations, and at the level of society. A typewriter, without
a user who knows how to type, let alone how to read, is simply a useless,
heavy piece of equipment.
Technological hardware varies in size and complexity, as does the “soft-
ware” required to produce and use hardware. The two are interrelated and
require both tangible and intangible settings in the form of spatial struc-
tures and social organizations. Institutions, including governments, firms,
and markets, and social norms and attitudes, are especially important in
determining how systems for producing and using artifacts emerge and func-
tion. They determine how particular artifacts and combinations of artifacts
originate, which ones are rejected or which ones become successful, and, if
successful, how quickly they are incorporated in the economy and the society.
The latter step is referred to as technology diffusion.
For Lewis Mumford (1966:11) the rise of civilization around 4000 B.C.
is not the result “of mechanical innovations, but of a radically new type ofTechnology and Global Change 21
social organization: ... Neither the wheeled wagon, the plow, the potter’s
wheel, nor the military chariot could of themselves have accomplished the
transformations that took place in the great valleys of Egypt, Mesopotamia,
and India, and eventually passed, in ripples and waves, to other parts of the
planet”. To describe the organization of human beings jointly with artifacts
in an “archetypal machine composed of human parts”, Mumford introduced
the notion of a “mega-machine”, with cities as a primary example.
Some may consider such semantics as philosophical overkill and irrel-
evant for a book on technology and global change. Others might find in
them confirmation of a general uneasiness that technology is something large,
opaque, and pervasive, which constrains rather than enhances our choices.
Nevertheless it is important to present at the outset the broad continuum
of conceptualizations of technology. It emphasizes that technology cannot
be separated from the economic and social context out of which it evolves,
and which is responsible for its production and its use. In turn, the so-
cial and economic context is shaped by the technologies that are produced
and used. And through technology humans have acquired powerful capabil-
ities to transform their natural environments locally, regionally, and, more
recently, globally.
The circular nature of the feedback loops affecting technological devel-
opment cannot be stressed too much. All the numerous technology studies
of the 20th century share one conclusion: it is simply wrong to conceptualize
technological evolution according to a simple linear model, no matter how
appealing the simplification. Technological evolution is neither simple nor
linear. Its four most important distinctive characteristics are instead that it
is uncertain, dynamic, systemic, and cumulative.
Uncertainty is a basic fact of life, and technology is no exception. The
first source of technological uncertainty derives from the fortunate fact that
there always exists a variety of solutions to perform a particular task. It
is always uncertain which might be “best”, taking into account technical
criteria, economic criteria, and social criteria. Uncertainty prevails at all
stages of technological evolution, from initial design choices, through success
or failure in the marketplace, to eventual environmental impacts and spin-off
effects. The technological and management literature labels such uncertainty
a “snake pit” problem. It is like trying to pick a particular snake out of a
pit of hundreds that all look alike. Others use the biblical quote “many
are called, but few are chosen”. Technological uncertainty continues to be a
notorious embarrassment in efforts to “forecast” technological change. But
there is also nothing to be gained by a strategy of “waiting until the sky
clears”. It will not clear, uncertainty will persist, and the correct strategy is
experimentation with technological variety. This may seem an “inefficient”
