Technological Change
Description
To understand technological change and to harness its effects, this book studies transformations at different levels (societal, organizational and individual). In its analysis of the subject, it also draws on a number of disciplines of the human and social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology and psychology.
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Persons
Clotilde Coron is an Associate Professor at the IAE Paris - Sorbonne Business School, France, where she co-directs the Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility Master's degree. Her research focuses on the use of figures and data in Human Resources.
Patrick Gilbert is Emeritus Professor at the IAE Paris - Sorbonne Business School, Board Member of the AIPTLF (International Association of French Language Occupational Psychology) and the AGRH (French-speaking Association of the Management of Human Resources). His research focuses on the transformations of organizations.
Content
Introduction ix
Chapter 1. The Human and Social Sciences in the Face of Technological Change 1
1.1. Approaches to technological change 1
1.1.1. Technological determinism 2
1.1.2. Social constructivism 14
1.1.3. Joint structuring of technical and social aspects 19
1.1.4. Limitation of established distinctions 27
1.2. A brief history of technological change 27
1.2.1. How can we tell the story? 28
1.2.2. At the origins of the Industrial Revolution (from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance) 30
1.2.3. The First Industrial Revolution (end of the 18th Century) 32
1.2.4. The Second Industrial Revolution (late 19th Century to the 1910s) 34
1.2.5. The Computer Revolution (from the late 1960s to the 1990s) 36
1.2.6. The Digital Revolution (early 21st Century) 38
Chapter 2. Technological Change and Society 43
2.1. Powers, institutions and technological change 44
2.1.1. Fundamentals of political analysis and technology 44
2.1.2. The role of the State 45
2.1.3. Technological change in the age of globalization 50
2.1.4. The dark side of technology 52
2.2. Ethics in the face of technology 57
2.2.1. Ethical evaluation of technology 57
2.2.2. Three ethical issues under discussion 60
2.3. Technological change and diversity 66
2.3.1. Inclusive technology/exclusive technology 67
2.3.2. Technologies that reflect their designers 75
2.4. Technological change and ecology 78
2.4.1. Technology, an answer to ecological challenges? 78
2.4.2. Technology as a source of ecological degradation? 82
Chapter 3. Technological Change and Organization 87
3.1. Omnipresence of the technical object in work activities 87
3.1.1. The R&D function in the lead 88
3.1.2. Marketing challenged by digital transformation 89
3.1.3. Factory 4.0 90
3.1.4. e-HR 93
3.2. The interaction of technological and organizational systems 95
3.2.1. Technological change and organizational structure 95
3.2.2. Technological change, and financial and human resources for innovation 100
3.3. Technology as a liberator and control agent 104
3.3.1. Prescriptive and assistive technologies 104
3.3.2. Technological ambivalence: the same technology for empowerment and control purposes 111
3.4. Technological change as a social process 113
3.4.1. Changes in the social entity and management methods 114
3.4.2. Support for employees whose activities are threatened by technological change 121
3.4.3. The actors of technological change in organizations 127
Chapter 4. Technological Change and the Individual 135
4.1. Activity and technical object 136
4.1.1. The technical object in the activity system 136
4.1.2. The technical object and its mediations 138
4.2. The encounter between the individual and the technical object 142
4.2.1. The individual in the design phase 142
4.2.2. The individual in the adoption phase 144
4.2.3. The individual in the use phase 148
4.2.4. The individual between subject and object 151
4.3. Beyond the content of activities, a transformation of working structures 154
4.3.1. Variable effects depending on the technological equipment 154
4.3.2. The emergence of new work characteristics 155
4.3.3. The growth of telework 156
4.4. Technological changes and individual skills 158
4.4.1. Skills and their production 158
4.4.2. Digital skills as frames of reference 161
4.4.3. No digital skills outside the activity 163
Chapter 5. Experiencing Technological Change 165
5.1. Threats and opportunities associated with technological change in organizations 166
5.1.1. Overview of threats and opportunities associated with technological change 166
5.1.2. Threats and opportunities also concerning work organizations 168
5.2. Reconciling technical and social issues 171
5.2.1. Social or responsible innovations: definitions and examples 172
5.2.2. Responsible technological innovations within organizations 179
5.3. Managing responsible technological change 183
5.3.1. Organizational change management 183
5.3.2. The specificities of technological change 189
5.3.3. An integrative scheme for the management of responsible technological change 200
References 203
Index 219
Introduction
For a long time, technological change was considered synonymous with economic and social progress. Today, it stimulates some and worries others. To take just one example, the most emblematic, the massive arrival of new digital tools is disrupting consumption patterns, forms of employment and working conditions, and posing many challenges for organizations and individuals alike. While it is recognized that technological change is a key determinant of economic growth, it is also true that it can also amplify or even catalyze inequalities (by age, gender, level of education and skills, income, etc.). In short, technological change is also a social change with which it maintains complex interactions: technology is as much the source, ambivalent, as the consequence of social transformations. In particular, individuals are both human resources of technological transformations and receivers, more or less capable and accepting of its effects.
I.1. First definitions
The phenomenon we are about to discuss has a long history. However, there is still some uncertainty about the meaning of the terms used to describe it, so it is useful to start with a few definitions.
I.1.1. Technical, technological and technical objects
There is some confusion between the technical and technological, probably because of the respective connotations of these terms in everyday language. Today, the term "technological" tends to be used as a superlative of "technical" for which it is sometimes substituted. More pretentiously, it has come to refer to a modern and complex technique, such as information and communication processing techniques. While the term "technical" refers to well-demarcated know-how and the traditional industrial universe, the term "technological" is spontaneously associated with modern values. Resisting the current tendency to make the terms somewhat synonyms, we will follow the tradition introduced by sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1872-1950), and extended in the anthropology of techniques, notably by Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986), André-Georges Haudricourt (1911-1996), and others, by designating the technical the "effective traditional act".
Let us take up the three elements of Mauss' formula: the act, tradition and efficiency. First of all, a technology is not defined by a collection of objects, but by the concrete action it exerts on the world. It must be effective because, without sensitive effects and known as such, an act cannot be designated as such. Moreover, this act is described as traditional. For if it is not linked to a tradition, an act is neither intelligible nor reproducible, and cannot be transmitted to others.
Technologies are also based on invention and innovation, but they are not themselves totally independent of the knowledge and know-how accumulated in a given culture. Specifically, technology refers to all the processes and methods used in the production activities of an object or service. It is a real need for scientists, engineers and industrialists. But, undoubtedly precisely because of the diversity of these needs, it can hardly lead to a representation that is unanimously accepted.
As for technology, it is, according to the classical definition, the social science that takes a technique as its object, the study of techniques, tools, machines and materials. However, it should be recognized that clearly distinguishing the two concepts may seem difficult. Therefore, we will admit, by extension and according to a widespread use, the use of the term technology as a grouping of the techniques, procedures, methodologies, equipment and discourses associated with their implementation. In this second sense, we will speak of digital technology, biotechnology, agro-technology, etc.
In any case, we will not confuse the technical object, the product of human activity, with technology. The technical object is only one of its elements, the most concrete, the hard material of technology, "hardware". It is a solid thing consisting of one or more tangible and intangible components (organs, information, energy and other resources), functionally arranged, designed and realized to meet a specific need or needs. Among the technical objects, we will distinguish between the technical equipment (infrastructure, machinery and tools) used to produce other objects, and the resulting products (see Figure I.1).
Figure I.1. From technology to object
These clarifications are proposed as conventions that we would like to share with the readers of this book. They will lead us, for example, to consider digital technology as the grouping of a set of technologies covering fields of application as diverse as medicine (video-endoscopy), prototype production (additive manufacturing or 3D printing), architecture (Building Information Models, or geometric representations of a building in 3D), and graphic creation (digital comic strips). Each of these technologies in turn brings together several objects. Thus, additive manufacturing is based on printers, producing objects as varied as functional parts, tooling components, models for metal casting, etc.
Talking about technological change and not technical change is not insignificant. The term "technological change" emphasizes the need not to separate methodical processes from the principles that reflect them and from the ecosystem (economic, social, organizational, ideological) in which the technologies lead to successful practices. In this sense, technological change is not reduced to a change of processes (i.e. a technical change) and even less to a simple change of technical object. Thus, digital transformation is not just about the arrival of a few objects offered to consumers. It leads to a transformation of work structures as a new division of labor between the operator and the machine1.
I.1.2. How can we address technological change? First elements
Technological change can be approached from three main perspectives. The techno-centric perspective (centered on the technical object) is usually contrasted with the anthropotechnical perspective (centered on the human-technical couple). Between the two, we will insert a "romantic" perspective, based on the joint glorification of the inventor and the object of his creation. We will define these three points of view by illustrating them and considering them both at a "macro" scale (that of the history of technologies) and at a "micro" scale (that of organizational change).
I.1.2.1. Technocentrism: the primacy of the technical object
The dominant representation of technological change, conceived in terms of the technology itself, corresponds to a perspective that has been described as techno-centric (Jacob and Ducharme 1995; Rabardel 1995). It is focused on the machine and its possibilities. This is the case for a history of computing in terms of generations of technical objects (see Box I.1).
Box I.1. Computer generations from a techno-centric perspective
1945-1955 First generation: electronic tube machines (vacuum tubes). The first fully electronic computer, the ENIAC (Electronical Numerical Integrator And Calculator) weighs 30 tons and occupies 135 m2. 1955-1965 Second generation: transistor computers that make it possible to build more reliable and less bulky machines. 1965-1980 Third generation: integrated circuits (also called electronic chips). The Intel 4004 processor achieves the same performance as the ENIAC for a size of less than 11 mm2. 1980-2000 Fourth generation: microprocessors. Integration of thousands to billions of transistors on the same silicon chip. 2000 Fifth generation: widespread use of networks and graphical interfaces (there are disagreements between specialists about the existence of this fifth generation).
This first perspective, concerned with the object and its materiality, does not address the human dimension of technological change. At the organizational level, it can lead to neglecting the individual who becomes the residual part of technological change, the part that is said to resist change.
I.1.2.2. The romantic perspective: the inventor and his creation
Here, technological change is often represented as a chronological succession of technical objects with which glorious personalities and events are associated, such as the one we have taken up, by way of illustration, in Box I.2.
This tenacious tendency undoubtedly gives an attractive representation of technological change because of its simplicity, its exaltation of the idea of progress and the myth of great men. But it will not be our preference. To attribute to a single individual, at a given date, an invention when it is usually the result of a maturation, resulting from parallel research, seems to us to be from a romantic perspective.
Box I.2. Technological change as a succession of uses
1769 James Watt develops an improved condenser for the steam engine. 1821 Michael Faraday demonstrates the first electric...
