Organizational Determinants Of Technological-Change - Toward A Sociology Of Technological Evolution

This paper employs organization literature and concepts to help understand the nature of path of technological progress. Our premise is that since technological progress is underdetermined by factors internal to the technology, it is the interaction of technical options with organization and interorganization dynamics that shapes the actual path of technological progress. Rather than reviewing technology as an autonomous force or as driven by an elite set of organizations, we argue that technologies evolve through the combination of random events, the direct action of organizations shaping industry standards, and the invisible hand of multiple competing organizations in a technological community. We suggest that the greater a product's technical uncertainty, the greater the intrusion of non-technical factors in the product's evolution. Two fundamental factors shape technological uncertainty: the stage of the technology's evolutionary cycle and uncertainty: the stage of the technology's evolutionary cycle and the technological complexity of the product itself. During periods of technological ferment, uncertainty is substantial. During these periods, organizational and interorganizational processes emerge to close on industry standards. Technological uncertainty is, however, minimized during periods of incremental technical change. We also suggest that technology can be described as systems ranging from non-assembled closed systems to complex, open systems. The more complex a product, the greater the number of subsystems, interfaces, dimensions of merit and linking requirements. The more complex and/or open the product, the greater the technical uncertainty and the greater the intrusion of organizational dynamics in technological evolution. Technological cycles and complexity together affect the relative importance of organizational processes in shaping the path of technological change. As technology is an ever more important determinant of organization outcomes, the time is ripe to open up the black box of technological evolution; to use organization theory and research to understand the social, political, and organizational roots of technological change.