Management, innovation and new technology Essay

Management, innovation and new technology - Essay Example In other words, technology is used to shape social life in one way or another. Therefore, it is difficult to think about a social life that is free from the influence of technology at the moment. According to Williams and Edge (1996), Social Shaping of Technology (SST) is a concept that claims that there are choices (conscious or unconscious) inherent in every individual that force him to think about innovation and creativity. The social shaping perspective emerged from a long-standing critique of crude forms of technological determinism (Edge, 1988). There is no point in thinking that innovation and creativity are generated only in the minds of wise people alone. In fact, these things are inherited in almost every human being. However, some forces are necessary to bring out the creativity and innovative ideas from the minds of people. As per the scientific principles, inertia is a human tendency. In other words, human has a tendency to stay in his present state as much as possible. A force is necessary to change his present state. Most of the people keep innovative ideas in their mind as long as the circumstances demand its use. Circumstantial forces usually help people to bring out their ideas. According to MacKenzie and Wajcman (1999), the social shaping of technology in most of the cases is a process in which there is no single dominant shaping force. In other words, multiple forces usually contribute to the social shaping of technology. This paper discusses how the social shaping perspective helps us to understand the social and organizational implications of technological change? Technology is changing day by day because of the rapid advancements in science. For example, analogue signals were used for the propagation of TV signals in the past. However, these signals were unable to provide better viewing abilities to the people. As a result of that people realised the