Benedict SOC150 Assignment 2
Running head: SOURCES
The Sources of Technological Change
Joel Benedict
University of Advancing Technology
SOC150-D09JUL26 Technology and Society
Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.
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Benedict SOC150 Assignment 2
Imagine the construction of a car on a desert island. Not only is the exercise pointless, but
it is also impossible. Changes in technology do not happen without the sources of culture,
commerce, contextual technology, and the economic forces of supply and demand.
Culture is the total way of life of any group of people, and technology is the study of
applied science. Technological change happens wherever a new technology is developed. A
laboratory may hold an improvement on current technology, but the success of a technology is
dependent on recognition of a particular technology “as the accepted way of doing things” (Volti,
2006, p. 35). Technology change can occur because “new devices and processes demonstrate
their clear-cut superiority over other ways of doing things” (Volti, 2006, p. 35). Technical
superiority is one factor in the acceptance of a technology. However, culture is the force behind
greater technological change. “Social constructivists describe how social structures and
processes have affected choices of technologies” (Volti, 2006, p. 35). Study of social
constructivism examines the ways technologies become prevalent based upon culture or “social
structures and processes.”
Commercial success, not invention, determines technological change. “The key players
here are not the inventors of new technologies, but the entrepreneurs who make inventions into
commercial successes by taking risks, moving into uncharted territory, and in general doing what
hadn't been done before” (p. 36). Entrepreneurs select inventions for capitalization based upon
speculation of potential demand, thus “moving into uncharted territory”. Gradual changes in
technology build upon scientific and fundamental breakthroughs to advance technology: “In
many cases, the cumulative results of these efforts are technological advances at least as
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Benedict SOC150 Assignment 2
important as those that stem from fundamental breakthroughs” (p. 37). The “cumulative results”
are the ones used by the greater culture, not the “fundamental breakthroughs” of the initial
inventors. The cumulative results would stay in a laboratory without the demands of culture met
by commercial, strategic entrepreneurs. The systems that compose technology consist of more
than research and an entrepreneurial developer.
Technological systems require the support of “technological developments that allow the
resolution of fundamental problems” (p. 39). The “fundamental problems” can be side effects of
the initial technology, revealed as flaws or features in need of improvement after the introduction
into the commercial market. Before complementary technologies are researched, the
foundational technology is evaluated: “It is during a (frequently protracted) shakedown period in
its early introduction that it becomes obviously worthwhile to bother making the improvements”
(p. 40). The “shakedown period” determines the commercial viability of a technology.
Complementary technologies develop alongside commercially viable technologies to clear the
obstruction of technical bottlenecks. An example of the symbiotic relationship of complementary
and foundational technologies is the complementary technology of tetraethyl lead and the
foundational technology of the internal combustion engine. Complementary technologies
developed for the engine to be fully commercially viable. Complementary technologies apply to
more than one technology system: “Technological advance in one area is often stimulated by the
emergence of new technologies in different, but related, areas” (p. 41). The stimulation of
complementary technologies spreads across the commercial market into new areas of
applicability. Although product advancements in nineteenth-century metal-working industries
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Benedict SOC150 Assignment 2
“differed substantially, the processes employed by these industries were basically the same” (p.
41). The complementary technologies employed by the metallurgists applied across foundational
technology systems. The interactive forces of complementary and foundational technologies are
part of the greater system of commercial and cultural interrelationships with technology.
Because commercial success determines technological change, and because technologies
develop along different time-lines, supply and demand of a particular technology varies by
culture and area of technology. Commercial demand relates to the emergence of new
technologies. Supply of technology drives further demand, such as the new photograph
equipment of the 1820s: “Their aspirations were therefore met by the photographic portrait
studio […] the effective demand produced by a great mass of consumers has stimulated the
development of a huge variety of photographic equipment” (p. 44). The initial supply of
chemical emulsion equipment drove demand for photographs, which in turn “stimulated the
development of a huge variety” of new technology. Proper interpretation of demand avoids
misapplication of a supply of technology to an inappropriate demand: “Only after the passage of
more than a decade did some visionaries perceive a commercial use for radio apparatus, and then
their imaginations were limited to the use of the radio for ship-to-shore communications” (p. 45).
Unlike the incremental improvements to contextual technologies, revolutionary inventions like
the radio initially lack an apparent application to demand.
Application is the definition of technology. With the applied sources of development, no
technology is created in isolation without the support of entrepreneurs, inventors, contextual
technology, commerce, economics, and culture.
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Benedict SOC150 Assignment 2
Volti, R. (2006). Society and technological change, 5th ed. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
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