Technological change as a trade-off between social construction and technological paradigms

Abstract

The theory of social construction of technology (SCOT) and the theory of technological paradigms (TTP) are normally regarded as competing or even incompatible perspectives on technological change. In this paper, we show how and when the perspectives are complementary by comparing how the theories conceptualise technology development, understand stakeholders, and determine driving forces for technological change. When stakeholders have different relations to the innovation process, and when the outcome of the innovation process is open, we argue that the two theories could be complementary tools for analysing the process. When using SCOT and TTP as complementary analytical tools, it becomes easier to understand and design innovation processes in which different stakeholders are attached to roles where they are able to contribute in the most productive ways.