Technological Change. Clotilde Coron

Technological Change - Clotilde Coron


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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

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

1769 James Watt develops an improved condenser for the steam engine.
1821 Michael Faraday demonstrates the first electric motor.
1838 Charles Wheatstone builds the first electric telegraph.
1859 Étienne Lenoir makes the first internal combustion engine.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell files a patent on the telephone.
1879 Thomas Edison develops the carbon filament bulb.
1884 Hiram Maxim invents the first self-propelled machine gun.
1899 Guglielmo Marconi makes the first transatlantic radio transmission (which won him the Nobel Prize in 1909).
1903 Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright make their first motorized flights.
1923 Vladimir Zworykin patent the iconoscope, a fully electronic television transmission tube.
1947 Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley (Nobel Prize winners in physics in 1956) invent a new type of transistor.
1957 The Soviets launch Sputnik 1, the first spacecraft placed in orbit around the Earth.
1969 Edward Hoff and Federico Faggin develop the very first electronic chip, the microprocessor.
1973 François Gernelle develops the first microcomputer, the Micral N.
1977 Designed by Steve Wozniak, the Apple II, a personal computer, is developed in Steve Jobs’ garage, manufactured on a large scale and marketed by Apple Computer.
1982 Microsoft, created by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, presents MS/DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) developed for the IBM PC, then for compatible PCs.
1994 Jeff Bezos founds the Amazon website, which becomes the world’s largest online sales company. He lists the shares on the stock exchange in 1997.
1998 Google is created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students from Stanford University, who together initiate the search engine of the same name.
2005 Mark Zuckerberg founds the online social network Facebook, after testing it on his fellow students at Harvard University.


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