Crossing Boundaries: An Integrative Framework for Studying Technological Change

摘要

Evolutionary Economics (EE), Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) are often seen in literature on technology as alternative ways of accounting for technological change. Superficially they seem to exclude each other because of contradictory understandings of how technology changes, but in this paper we argue that there are connections between the approaches and that they complement each other in important ways. An initial analysis of each approach separately is followed by an investigation of the opportunities for conceptual and methodological connection or 'cross-talk'. As a result of the analysis, we outline the contours of a comprehensive framework for studying technological change. We suggest that such a framework would integrate EE, SCOT and ANT as valuable complements for understanding particular aspects of the emergence and diffusion of new technology. This is illustrated with an empirical example from the early days of computerization in Finland.