Social and Organizational Implications of Technological Change - Essay Example

How does the social shaping perspective help us to understand the social and organizational implications of technological change? In a contemporary technological era, it is common to define an outstanding role of technological innovation in human evolution. In particular, widespread usage of computers, Internet, and smartphones makes contemporary people more mobile and smarter than they used to be some decades ago. With the speed of these changes, social shaping assists the comprehension of core reason why implication of technological innovations is possible. In this context, the essay defines empirical examples provided by Ruth Schwartz Cowan concerning the household changes under the development of technologies. Then, the thesis that each technology is working, if its creator had made successful preparations in already arranged social and political context, is defended from two perspectives. On the one hand, the analysis shows that the role of advertising, political conditions, and gender relations is crucial in the given and other cases of technological development. On another hand, the role of certain choices made by agents of technological change emerges in any case of the struggle for becoming a popular technology. Thus, the presented critics of technological determinism proves the necessity to investigate social and organizational circumstances of any technology entering the market both in retrospective and in contemporary world. At the very beginning of his analysis, Cowen (1976) discusses the role of technology in changing of families in general and women’s position in particular. In fact, he states that technological revolution in household had already happened and changed our daily lives “in somewhat unexpected ways” (Cowen, 1976, p. 1). In this context, he draws his core argument from the insufficiency of standard view on Industrial revolution. To put it in author’s words, “it will be necessary to know more than we presently do about the impact of industrialization on families of similar classes and geographical locations” (Cowen, 1976, p. 3). After defining this, he presents an analysis of several basic shifts in American society caused by Industrial revolution. Firstly, completely electrified apartments replaced popular gas usage. Consequently, physical (or hand) power became outdated. Supporting the key ideas of technological determinism, in his another work Cowen (1985) recognizes technological inappropriateness as the core reason of long entering of electronic devices in the daily consumption market (p. 205). Then, the appearance of new household utilities had modified the life of ordinary Americans. For instance, the new kitchen without coal store had impact on the U.S. economy. At first glance, it is reasonable to take all these changes in the context of technological innovations; in the given example, “new stoves were much easier to light, maintain, and regulate” (Cowen, 1976, p. 7). In the same manner, mass production of food reservation in cans (which appeared because of the popular usage of refrigerators in companies) led to the new dietary habits (Cowen, 1976, p. 8). Furthermore, the internal circumstances of household changed, as professional servants disappeared and number of tasks increased (Cowen, 1976, p. 13). In this context, child care and housewife consumption serve as illustrations for this thesis, and the appearance of guilt for not coping with these tasks supplemented this transformation (Cowen, 1976, p. 14-16). In general, technology had changed the structure of work force, skills, and ideology (Cowen, 1976, p. 20). Although, it is evident that technology was not the only actor that drove these changes; in fact, the context of innovation’s appearance and the individual interests of its creators are also important. Notwithstanding these complications, it is evident that technological innovation is not a single fact but a process that has a great potential to modify the lifestyle of its users. On the one hand, it is crucial to define the peculiarities of social and political background, as they define the pace of technological change. In the given case, the period after World War I was noticeable by the rising capitals within the largest American corporations. Nevertheless, the ordinary people were not that wealthy at the early stage of technologic development. Actually, this factor influenced the appearance of popular technology. On the early stage of electric refrigerators development (before entering mass consumption), its price range started from $450; thus, no matter how great it could be, it was impossible to make it popular in the circumstances when people could buy less than four electric refrigerators per year (Cohen, 1985, p. 206). Although, the new technologies had fit the rising demand on the willingness to retrench. In fact, the marketing emphasize was made on ‘labour saving’ features. Once companies had adjusted their price to public average level, the importance of advertising arose. In general, “push and pull” model presents the logic of the relations between technology and demand, as public utility replaces an importance of the technological peculiarities on the earlier stages (Rhodes and Wield, 1994, p. 81). In the story of electric refrigerator becoming bestseller, the famous advertising campaign supplemented its success. For instance, it was remarkable by huge neon signs, parades, and even special exhibitions and films (Cowen, 1985, p, 209-210). In case of vacuum central cleaner, the pioneering marketing techniques created by Hoover and Apex also made them win the battle for household (Cowen, 1985, p. 214). In this context, created by marketing specialists ideologies that appeared during the Industrial revolution in households have significantly changed the extent of technological development. Precisely, the new type of storytelling enabled the transformation of housework into the emotional expressions (Cowen, 1976, p. 16). In particular, the dramatic turn emerged in the women’s magazines. In the analysis of advertisement, it is evident that right after World War 1 gaslight had rapidly disappeared from their pages (Cowen, 1976, p. 4). In the same manner, magazines eliminated coal and wood images and articles (Cowen, 1976, p. 7). In this context, it is evident that only the new forms of socialization have potential to change current marketing tools on technology (Wajcman, 2010). Hence, it is noticeable that social background defines an above-mentioned appearances of technological improvements, since their popularity is driven by the demand formed by various marketing strategies. In addition, the allocation of resources is an important factor of his future success or failure of innovation. In this context, controversies supplement technology at any stage of its development (Winner, 1980, p. 127). In the given circumstances, the technology does not act regardless to the balance of powers in the society. For instance, the failure of gas refrigerator laid in the fact that none of their producers simply could compete with the capitals of General Electric or General Motors (Cowen, 1985, p. 214). In this context, the new technology always requires the infrastructure of its operating in the society; thus, its creator needs resources not only on the innovation itself but also on the stable functioning of this product in the future. In case of becoming a household refrigerator, the technology itself did not matter as much as an ability to incorporate it in the daily life of households (Cowen, 1985, p. 217). Moreover, Winner (1980) illustrates examples when technologies serve politicians, since “the physical arrangements of industrial production, warfare, communications, and the like have fundamentally changed the exercise of power and the experience of citizenship” (p. 122). In this case, the preliminary story of successful sales make the company more likely win to the next battle for popularity of the new technology. For instance, the decisions made by actors that are more powerful (like American Motors, General Motors, and Westinghouse) to enter the market of household refrigerators transformed this struggle into the price wars (Cowen, 1985, p. 211), but did not discarded any of them from market. Hence, it is evident that technology often serves as a tool for survival in competitive business environment. In short, since the profit remains the main value of each new technology (Cowen, 1985, p. 217), the new technology is inevitably deeply incorporated in the political struggle for the resources. Finally, the context of gender relations also defines technological development, especially in the case of innovations. Concerning overall trends, Wajcman (2010) mentions that current workplace in technology consists mainly of males (p. 145). Thus, the preliminary ideology defines the target customer for each new technology. In the example provided by the author, washing machine does not save the time, as it requires spending certain amount of time to make it work, and it is common that a woman does this job (Wajcman, 2010, p. 149). In addition, Cowen (1976) noticed the appearance of “household germ” as the one of the manifestations of this new ideology, because “the amount and frequency of laundering probably increased” (p. 14). In this context, it is evident that relations between women and technologies are sensible to the current social and economic circumstances (Wajcman, 2010, p. 150). Hence, Cowen (1976) noticed dangers for current position of women, since the entrance of technologies in households made their activity lost its “social utility” (p. 2); in fact, this problem is also political in terms of non-involvement of women in the new technological forms (Wajcman, 2010, p. 151). More generally, this situation brings crisis to the overall contemporary society, as time lag between technological development and social changes exists (Cowen, 1976, p. 282). In other words, the technology has proven its incapability to determine social state, since it does not even allow current social structure to catch up its innovations and keeps going further. In the examples provided by Cowen (1976; 1985), it is also evident that the success of positioning housewife as a targeted audience enabled ideological changes in families in order to help electrical technologies to widely enter the households. On another hand, individual actors while making their choices and deciding the appropriate agenda determine the whole nature of social and political processes and the role of technologies in them. In this context, an advertiser always entered the stage preliminary to big technological changes. As Cowen (1976) defines this actor, he is “a combination of the manufacturer of the new goods, the advertising agent who promoted the goods, and the periodical that published the promotion” (p. 20). In this context, huge companies like General Electric, Procter & Gamble, General Foods and others personally invested their capitals to make this technological change possible (Cowen, 1976, p. 20). For instance, individual incentive of A. H. Goss and E. J. Copeland within General Motors Company enabled the beginning of refrigerator’s large-scale production (Cowen, 1985, p. 205). In addition, the certain interests of General Electric Corporation in general and A. R. Stevenson’s ambitions in particular defined the contemporary popular usage of electric not gas refrigerator (Cowen, 1985, p. 208-209). In other words, the role of personality in the organization is as crucial as it is in context of political elections. Therefore, advertisers were the true “ideologues” of the Industrial revolution in the households, since widespread usage of technologies was their personal interest. In this context, “the changes that occurred were precisely the ones that would gladden the hearts and fatten the purses of the advertisers” (Cowen, 1976, p. 21). Thus, the entering of competing technologies turns society into the battlefield with the arms of money and advertisers behind each personal actor. In these terms, the company that has fewer resources in sum of their representatives loses the battle. In this manner, the struggle between gas and electric service was resolved in favour to the latter representatives. Unlike Stuart Otto, A. R. Stevenson managed to convince his management in the necessity of investment in the new products; as a result, we use electronic refrigerators in our households (Cowen, 1985). In another example, the absence of personal interest from the 3M management made the innovation made by passionate innovator Silver useless, simply because he did not think about the society while creating of his technology (Radganath and Ketteringham, 2001, p. 426-427). In the context of battle for resources, individual managerial choice to buy the smaller company or to start the marketing campaign seems to play the key role in the promotion of certain technology. For instance, purchase of Frigidaire by W. Durant (GM) in the circumstances when automobiles were not popular during the war defined the further successful activity of the company (Cowen, 1985, p. 215). In this context, the importance of change-management initiatives is evident (McLoughlin and Harris, 1997, p. 10). In addition, Winner (1980) specifies the role of personal motive to rule over the others (p. 124). Moreover, the influence of personality is even greater, once the political environment is strict and technology serves as a tool to maintain this balance of powers (Winner, 1980, p. 134). In other words, the will to gain more profits overthrows all the other assumptions in the circumstances of competing business environment, and technological innovation is not an exception of this rule. Finally, the fact that high income of the husband correlates with reducing labour force participation of their wives also plays a significant role (Cowen, 1976, p. 19). Actually, this phenomenon can serve as an explanation of contemporary presentation of traditional technology as a solely male sphere. In this context, “the taken-for-granted association of men and machines is the result of the historical and cultural construction of gender” (Wajcman, 2010, p. 144). In general, this turn supplemented the brand-new image of “the woman who cheerfully and skillfully set about making everyone in her family perfectly happy and perfectly healthy” (Cowen, 1976, p. 22). In this context, rather absence of reshaping within contemporary industries than lack of proper socialization determine rejections made by women to enter technology (Wajcman, 2010, p. 145-146). In other words, the whole organization of traditional social life demonstrates the linkage with masculinity, since the women have personally chosen not to enter this stage due to the lack of time. In order to sum up, it is evident that social shaping provides a comprehensive theoretical framework to show how deeply technological innovations are implemented in social and political fabric. From both the context and actors perspectives, the case of Industrial revolution at home revealed the core transformations within market, politics, and gender relations. Firstly, the appearance of new marketing approaches enabled the entering of electrical equipment in the households. Concerning certain personalities, their innovative potential showed up while struggling for investments and planning managerial strategies. Secondly, the changed circumstances after the end of WWI pushed the corporations to invent new tools in their struggle for limited resources; in this case, innovation served as both personal and corporate instrument in this battle. Finally, the gender relations had certainly modified under this change, as the housewife turned into the consumer of household innovations; as a result, technology became a masculine sphere. In general, social shaping perspective contradicts with technological determinism perspective by stating the mutual impact of technological process and social and political contexts. References: Cowan, R. S., 1976. The “Industrial Revolution” in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the 20th Century. Technology and Culture, 17 (1): 1-23. Cowan, R. S., 1985. How the Refrigerator Got Its Hum. In: D. MacKenzie and J. Wajcman, eds., 1985. The Social Shaping of Technology. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Pp. 202-218. McLoughlin, I. and Harris, M., 1997. Introduction: understanding innovation, organisational change and technology. In: I. McLoughlin and M. Harris, eds., 1997. Innovation, Organizational Change and Technology. London: International Thomson Publishing. pp. 1-26. Radganath, P. and Ketteringham, J., 2004. 3M’s Post-in Notes: A Managed or Accidental Innovation? In: R. Katz, ed., 2004. Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation. Second ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 425-435. Rhodes, E. and Wield, D., 1994. Technology, Innovation theory and the Implementation Process. In: E. Rhodes and D. Wield (eds.), 1994. Implementing New Technologies: Innovation and the Management of Technology. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 79-95. Wajcman, J., 2010. Feminist theories of technology. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34: 143-152. Winner, L., 1980. Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedalus, 109 (1): 121-136. Read More