Study On Technological Development And Innovation From The Contextual Perspective

The operating mechanism of technological development and innovation activity is an important aspect of technology study. There have been two extreme viewpoints in the early research:technological determinism and social determinism. The former view argues that technology and innovation develop in strict accordance with their inner logic and technology itself is autonomic. However, the latter believes that social factor is an independent power and technology is the constructive outcome of certain social interest and social value. And later, Social Shaping of Technology (SST) gradually has begun to be prevalent. SST, which stands against the simple linear deterministic model of technology, argues that technological development and innovation activity is influenced by more than one tension, especially emphasizing the important role of social factors in this process. But on the other hand, SST still considers social power as the external factor and environment of the technological activity. which cuts apart the whole context of technological development and innovation. As a result. SST pays more attention to the social power, but relatively ignores the inner rational of technology and technological shaping of society.In order to address the shortcomings of early technology study and find an appropriate framework to analyze the operating mechanism of technological development and innovation activity, this paper tries to introduce the contextual methodology of Philosophy of Science into technology study and puts forward ’technological contextual theory’this new framework to look at the operating mechanism and character of the whole technological development and innovation. Technological contextual theory believes that, on the one hand, technology is autonomic in some way; but on the other hand, social factors also have an important effect on the technological activity. There are two kinds of contexts in technological development and innovation. One is technological context, which consists of technology lock, technology path dependence, technology scheme, technology trajectory and other paradigm of technological inner logic; and the other is social context which includes political factors, economic interestes, military goals, social culture in a certain society. Both of them, which could never be cut apart, form the whole context of technological development and innovation activity. They are integrated influencing and shaping the technological activity. And the outcome of technological development and innovation is the result of negotiating and interplaying among these multi factors within technological and social contexts.Based on technological contextual theory and adopting the combining methodology of theory construction with case study, this paper re-examines the specific stage of technological development and innovation, through which the content of this new framework is enriched and the significance of the theory is proved. The main viewpoints and conclusions are as follows:Firstly, technology design is ought to follow both the paradigm requirements of technological and social contexts, which is the unity of formal and aesthetic logic. Based on the technological principle and rational, engineers and technical experts always embed certain social interests and goals into the process of technology design and adjust the content and direction of design to the constant changes of socio-technological context. Technological green design is the very case of that engineer and technical expert put the ideas of improving ecological environment and saving energy into the early design process, for which technology products could meet the customers’requirements and specific social goals with the least energy consuming and environment pollution.Secondly, technology choice depends on certain socio-technological context with no uniform standard and principle; and it can vary with different context and different stage of technological development and innovation activity, in which the basis of selection and dominant factor could also be different. So, it’s reasonable for the technology choice to be made according to the whole character of socio-technological context and its developing trend. The native innovation of TD-SCDMA in China, which is the standard of the third generation mobile communication, is just the outcome of interplay among the situation of mobile communication technology and specific political and economic regime in China. Also, the standard evolution from TD-SCDMA to TD-LTE depends on its certain developing pattern and the situation of the whole socio-technological context in China.Thirdly, technology diffusion and application are neither the outcome of technological progress pushing nor market demand pulling, but due to the interaction among multiple heterogeneous contextual factors, including politic, economic, cultural and military power. It’s necessary for the successful diffusion of new technology and innovation achievements to build a supportive socio-technological context which could accommodate to the technology developing level, the economic interests and social culture, even the political and military goals in a local area. Then, this paper tries to explain why the electrical revolution in the end of nineteenth century didn’t be applied on a large scale in Britain, but successfully diffused in America through the case study, in which we re-examine the institution, demand, organization and social culture these factors in the electrical technology diffusion.Fourthly, this paper introduces’social learning’, which is a psychological concept, into the study of the socialization of new technology and then puts forward the social learning of technology theory, technological learning theory for short. This framework argues that it’s necessary for the new technology to improve, even re-innovate through a series of social learning to meet the specific requirements of local users and integrate itself to the local society eventually. Considering Google application inventor software tool as a case study, this paper analyzes how to improve Android system through technological learning in the process of its diffusion and application, in which users’everyday innovations play an important role during this socialization. We can see the significance of technological learning in the process of new technology and innovation achievements diffusion from this case study.Finally, this paper puts forward the viewpoint of technology policy from the perspective of technological contextual theory, which is on the basis of technology appreciation. In other words, it’s reasonable and effective to make technology policy according to the whole socio-technological context and take suitable measures in different stage of technological development and innovation. The focus on technology policy needs to make a transfer from the simple emphasizing technical sophistication and superiority or creating a better social context for new technology diffusion to how to build a supportive socio-technological context, how to adapt the new technology to specific context, which is a two-way appreciation process. Then, this paper shows the significant effect of local context and its change on technological development and innovation through the case study of triple-play in China at present. We point out the existing barriers in this innovation activity and believe that only the’Chinese-style fusion", which is suitable for the certain context in China, is the obligatory passage point to get out of the dilemma.