Lecture 2 Flashcards
why is technological change a long term pattern?
- cumulative and evolutionary (e.g. electricity)
- new combinations of existing technologies or introduction of new elements into existing systems (touchpad)
- not a smooth automatic process, takes place in fits, spurts and jumps (electric lighting & vacuum pumps)
What was the communication revolution
- Printing (Gutenberg)
- Consequences:
- Mass education
- loss of power of clergy
- reformation
- authorship
What was the spinning revolution
- 10x productivity improvement
- Mass production
- Industrialization
- Industrial revolution
What was the steam engine revolution
- James Watt
- Mass transportation
- Other innovations like telegraph, telephone, radio …
What was the internet revolution
- Institutional innovators (US Department, Universities)
- Motivation: Defense, science (high speed computing)
- Social effects?
Explain the concept of waves of technological development
Why do innovation shift socio-economic paradigms?
- Kondratiev long-waves (supposed around 50 years)
- New pervasive technologies
- Far-reaching implicatons
Consequences of the new TEP (look up TEP in lecturio)
- WINNER & losers: nations and firms
- Re-design & new configuration of the capital stock
- New skill profile in the labor force
- New pattern of industrial relations
- New national and international regulations
- Competitiveness is based on:
- knowledge, creativity & learning
- innovation & R&D
Explain patterns in technological evolution
S-curve:
Emergence —> Rapid improvement —> Declining improvement —> Maturity
- S-curves two technologies: potential new technology is in the beginning lower than matured old one. But might increase dramatically.
- Sailing Ship phenomenon: At the matured phase there might be an increase when new innovations appear (USS Constellation —> Cutty Sark vs. turbine ships).
Benefits of the S-curve
Helps when:
- when currently used technologies are over-estimated
- R&D budgets are linked to revenues
- misinterpretation of market signals due to biased attitude (Voreingenommen)
- lack of flexibility due to organizational grown structures and cultures
Explain the product life-cycle (PLC)
- First dominant design is established
- Then the process (second curve) is established
- specific phase: mass production
- Three phases:
- fluid phase (Majo changes e.g. car)
- transitional phase (major process changes e.g. car production)
- specific phase (incremental for product and comulative improvements e.g. car)
Table and examples of PLC?
Examples:
Phase 1: First sale of an automobile in US; Market entry by many firms (250)
Phase 2: Model T (standardized, production using conveyor belt) first wave of consolidation
Phase 3: closed steel body becomes standard; more consolidation to 9 firms
Patterns in the adoption of innovation?
-
Innovators (2,5%): (like emotiv)
- venturesome
- active information seekers
- cosmopolite social relationships
- able to cope with a high degree of uncertainty
- gatekeeping role in the flow of new ideas into a system
-
Early adopters (iWatch) (13,5%):
- often opinion leaders
- more integrated part of local social system than innovators
- sought by change agents as a “local missionary”
- decreases uncertainty about a idea by adopting it (“stamp of approval”)
-
Early majority (34%):
- interact frequently with their peers
- seldom hold positions of opinion leadership
- makes up about one third of all members
-
Late majority (34%):
- adoption may be an economic necessity
- of the result of increasing peer pressures
- system norms must favor the innovation
-
Laggards (16%):
- very localite, near isolates in social networks
- the past is point of reverence
- limited resources
- tend to be suspicious of innovations and change agents
How does the number of adopters develop over time?
- qN(t) - word of mouth (q = quantity of people who got it) —> exponential growth
- qN(t)(Ntotal - Nt)
- used for forecasting
