The Information Technology Field: Using Fields and Paradigms for Analyzing Technological Change

Abstract

The technology field is proposed as a concept which will allow us to analyze the history of substantial technologies and to make predictions about future developments. The history of information technology is analyzed as an example of a technology field. The technology field gives place both to "supply-side," "natural," technological trajectories, and to "demand-side" socioeconomic factors. Unlike the recently developed concept of technological paradigm, the technology field directs our attention to issues of management and work organization which accompany the diffusion of a major new technology.