INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The
Technological Innovation is a concept developed within the scientific field of
innovation studies which serves to explain the nature and rate of technological
change. A Technological Innovation can be defined as ‘a dynamic network of
agents interacting in a specific economic/industrial area under a particular
institutional infrastructure and involved in the generation, diffusion, and
utilisation of technology’.
The
approach may be applied to at least three levels of analysis: to a technology
in the sense of a knowledge field, to a product or an artefact, or to a set of
related products and artefacts aimed at satisfying a particular [societal]
function’. With respect to the latter, the approach has especially proven
itself in explaining why and how sustainable (energy) technologies have
developed and diffused into a society, or have failed to do so.
The
concept of a Technological Innovation was introduced as part of a wider
theoretical school, called the innovation approach. The central idea behind
this approach is that determinants of technological change are not (only) to be
found in individual firms or in research institutes, but (also) in a broad
societal structure in which firms, as well as knowledge institutes, are embedded.
Since the 1980s, innovation studies have pointed out the influence of societal
structures on technological change, and indirectly on long-term economic
growth, within nations, sectors or technological fields.
The
purpose of analysing a Technological Innovation is to analyse and evaluate the
development of a particular technological field in terms of the structures and
processes that support or hamper it. Besides its particular focus, there are
two, more analytical, features that set the Technological Innovation approach
apart from other innovation approaches.
Firstly,
the Technological Innovation concept emphasises that stimulating knowledge
flows is not sufficient to induce technological change and economic
performance. There is a need to exploit this knowledge in order to create new
business opportunities. This stresses the importance of individuals as sources
of innovation, something which is sometimes overseen in the, more
macro-oriented, nationally or sectorally oriented innovation approaches.
Secondly,
the Technological Innovation approach often focuses on system dynamics. The
focus on entrepreneurial action has encouraged scholars to consider a
Technological Innovation as something to be built up over time. This was
already put forward by Carlsson and Stankiewicz:
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