The Social and Organizational Implications of Technological Change - Essay Example

SOCIAL SHAPING PERSPECTIVE College SOCIAL SHAPING PERSPECTIVE Since the development of technology, the social shaping perspective has become a popular term among the work of many scholars. Notably, the 20th century was a period of rapid technological advancement in the global with the most effect occurring in the western countries. A wide range of scholars have come out to analyse how the evolution of technology has shaped the social structures within the society and the relationship between technology, economic and social patterns that are evident today. Notably, the deterministic scholars have come out to perceive technology as the sole driver of social changes and that the society has little influence on the technological changes. In short, this school of thought points out that technology follows its own without external influence, while the social structures are influenced by this technology. However, there has evolved a new school of thought that confides in mutual shaping with the belief that social and technological changes are inter-dependent. Ruth Schwartz Cowan is among authors that have shown the close relationship between social and technological changes and the way this has influenced housework in the contemporary society. From this reference, it is acceptable that there exists a mutual shaping between technology and the social perspectives of the society. The 20th and 21st century has been periods of rapid technology development in the global arena. In the 1920s, industrial revolution took shape in the world as technology paved way for the development of more efficient instruments of work such as machineries. Evidently, this was followed by more changes in the way that work was done either in the house or even in the field (Shippen, 2014). For instance, the traditional farming styles slowly faded away and people adopted new styles of cultivation. More development was witnessed in the construction, communication and housework technologies. At the same time, there emerged new social perspectives in the society with changes in the way people do work, relate or even interact within the society. For instance, there were major changes in the way people did their housework or even communicated. It appears that the invention of machinery made work easier for the public. Cowan (1983) points out that technology helped the society to make work easier for housewives but also came with an increase in responsibilities that never existed in the traditional society. Definitely, there appear to be some form of relationship between evolution of technology and the social changes that emerged at the same time. The social perspective of technology has sparked a controversy as scholars seek to identify the relationship between technology and social changes. The question that arises is whether the society, technology or both influences the other (Smith & Marx, 2012). The traditional school of thoughts have perceived technology as determinist or the sole cause for the changes that we observe in the society today. The deterministic theories of social perspective of technology hide behind two principle tenets. First, the forms of technologies were predetermined and the direction of its change was without problems (Torkzadeh & Doll 1999). Secondly, it holds the idea that technology has determinate impacts on work, the economy and hence resulting to social and organizational change. These notions were born from the British ideologies that existed in the 1970s that the technological paths cannot be altered and that certain changes are bound to take place (Xie, 2008). The propositions of deterministic theories is that technological changes result to the transformation of social structures and that social perspectives have no influence on the development of technology. While there is a concession that technology influences social structures, there has evolved criticism over this school of thought for considering technology as deterministic. Among the critics of determinism is Cowan (1983) who focussed on the mutual relationship between technology and social changes in the modern society. Cowan mainly focuses on industrialization and how this affected lifestyle within the public domain. To begin, the scholar sees technology as a driver for the modern social structures and the transformation the society has experienced. Cowan pays a close attention to the changes in housework in the last century and the way technology became a paradigm of domestic work. Before the advent of technology, the domestic work was much more and demanded the attention of more house workers leading to a high number of house helps in the urban homes. The tools of work were much slower and a lot of time was required to handle a single task. A good example is using stove ironing which would close to an hour for one to complete one cloth. After 1920s when more households became connected to electricity, electric ironing became a more efficient replacement of the ironing stoves. Secondly, electricity simplified the roles of warming water which could take up more time and more resources. Therefore, this new technology reduced the need for house helps as the notion that technology made work easier prevailed (Williams & Edge, 1996). From this perspective, it is clear that technology influenced social structures by introducing efficiency and new approaches of handling domestic tasks. However, Cowan (1987) recognizes that many technological changes have come as a result of the needs of the society. This presents the idea that the social needs are pressing and pressing and demand innovation of new products that best satisfy these needs. For instance, the increase in social awareness within the society has led to the development of technology. An idea example is the increase in awareness of hygiene in the society that has resulted to the development of new equipment that can clean more efficiently and with much ease. Housewives intend to show love to their families by ensuring hygiene and cleanliness for their children. This creates demand for the development of washing machines and better detergents in the society. Therefore, the social needs pressure innovators to create ideal machineries and the best detergents that can handle these tasks (McMichael, 2011). From this point of view, it is possible that the society needs influence the path of development, contrary to the claims of the technological determinists. The social determinists are another group of scholars who had a completely different opinion to that held by technological determinists. In their theories, these scholars propose that it is social changes that shape technology and not vice versa. As the social needs evolve each day, there arises need for new technology that satisfies these needs (Horton and Richard, 2000). This has come up more clearly in the political, social and economic environments where technology has developed to satisfy evolving changes. For instance, the industrialization era emerged as a result of increase in social demands for wealth and sustainable food products. As the population grew, economic patterns became unfriendly and this prompted innovators to find more efficient approaches of handling these problems. As a result, there was need to devise farming machineries to reduce the problems of food that would have otherwise affected the society negatively. Secondly, as the western domestic markets became less productive, the people had to resort to technology to find new methods of travelling such as vehicles to help them reach out for resources from different nations. This is contrary to technological determinist theories that would perceive the invention of vehicles as the reason for efficient travels across borders (Winance, 2006). The hardliners of social determinism theories hold the opinion that technology does not in any way change the social perspectives. The creation of social media is another idea that has social determinists have leveraged to explain how social changes influence technology. In the traditional system, people faced the challenge of losing communication completely with members of the society who moved from away from them (Raymond, 2003). They could spend even years without even hearing from their relatives from upcountry, which resulted to breakage of social ties (McLuhan & Quentin, 2001). The internet technology has led to the emergence of new forms of networks. Shifting from the face-to-face communication towards mediated communication has helped the society to beat the limitation of distance that has separated people during the period of non-mediated communication. Internet technology is a platform for global communication that evolved to solve the problem of losing social ties. Internet technology has become more accessible in the society due to reduced costs of service providers and reduced cost of access points. In an era when computer and mobile technology is becoming cheap, the society has better access to internet (Ball, 2000). Since internet is not geographically limited, it is possible to term is as a network of networks. It allows people to come together and share information no matter their geographical separation. Today, it is possible to send an e-mail from Africa to America within a flash of a second. This points out how it is easy to establish networks that are not limited to any geographical location. The internet has become a tool that dominates all the aspects of human life; economics, social, and political aspects. Therefore, the invention of this new communication technology was driven by the urge to reform social networks which were slowly melting away. Therefore, technology development is a reaction to the social problems that have prevailed. Both the social and technological determinism theories appear to suffer weakness in isolating technological and social changes within the modern society. The mutual shaping theories appear more reasonable in constructing a unique relationship between the two aspects of the society (Boczkowski, 1999; 2004). Mutual shaping was born from science and technology studies and presents the idea that technology and social changes are not mutually exclusive but are indeed dependent on one another. Cowan (1987) presents the idea that technological inventions resulted to social changes, while these social changes triggered further innovation. For instance, the invention of the media technology created a source of information for housewives who could further understand the need for healthy lifestyles and better kitchen practice. As a result, these housewives created the demand for new cleaning, washing and cooking apparatus that innovators had to develop to satisfy their needs. The same way, the development of economic integration in the global market has paved way for global business hence creating for new efficient communication channels that can sustain social links across the borders (Handelman, 2003). From this perspective, mutual shaping best describes the inclusive relationship between technology and social changes. From a critical analysis, it is apparent that development of technology is informed by both technical and non-technical factors. Technical factors include a wide range of scientific exploration that results in new ways of doing things. For instance, the generation of electricity is a technical process that began as a technical discovery that began way back many years ago (Hviid, 2010: Jenkins, 2010,). Scientific research revealed the behaviour of electrons helping the scientists to investigate on how they can tap this energy. Therefore, technical factors result to development of technology through a process that is independent of social changes. However, is indisputable that some technological advancement comes as a result of non-technical factors. For instance, the development of system security has come as a result of the urge to solve problems that are emerging in the social arena (Landauer, 2001: Mansell & Wehn, 1998). For instance, an increase in cybercrime within the public in online business has pushed the researchers to adopt new technologies to create security in networks and solve these social problems (Kalantzis-Cope and Karim, 2011). Therefore, social factors are the pedals that accelerate technological development. On this ground, mutual shaping provides a unique convergence for the two deterministic theories of social and technological changes. In conclusion, there is evidence that technological and social changes influence one another in a great way. While determinism theories perceive the two as independent entities, it is clear that such a ground would be biased and unreasonable. Since technology is informed by both technical and non-technical factors such as social changes, it is indisputable that changes within the society will influence change in innovation. There is a point of concession that the society presents unique needs that drive technological changes. Mutual shaping theories explain that technology changes result to change in social structures while such social changes further accelerate technological changes. Therefore social shaping perspectives help to understand the interdependent relationship that exists between social and organizational changes, and technological advancements. Bibliography Ball, W. 2000, ‘Toward a Sociology of Telephones and Telephoners’ in M. Truni (ed.) Sociology and Everyday Life, Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Boczkowski, P, 1999, Mutual shaping of users and technologies in a national virtual community. Journal of Communication, 49(2), 86-108. 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