Technological Determinism

Thomas Kaiserfeld
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Thomas Kaiserfeld: Lund University

Chapter 11 in Beyond Innovation: Technology, Institution and Change as Categories for Social Analysis, 2015, pp 93-101 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Innovation studies usually shun the idea that technology influences institutional settings in a more or less predetermined way, a notion mirrored in the concept technological determinism, which in turn exists in many different versions. One important set of deterministic theories is of course different forms and shades of Marxism. Others are materialistic theories with notions of predetermined developments although not necessarily in a revolutionary form. Today, determinism is seldom encountered in scholarly literature as a main road to exciting analyses of relations between technological and institutional change. Exceptions may, however, be found in visions of technological developments following certain quantitative regularities such as Moore’s law. But these are more speculative predictions than theoretical frameworks for improved understanding of technological and institutional change.

Keywords: eotechnics; Marxism; Moore’s law; multiple invention; neotechnics; paleotechnics; simultaneous invention; soft determinism; strong determinism; technological determinism; transformational invention; weak determinism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-54712-5_11

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137547125_11

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