Historical coevolution of governance and technology in the industrial revolutions

Abstract

While the relationships between technological change and organisational change have been widely observed in specific cases, little has been done to generalise about such interrelationships over the longer term. The paper uses historical evidence to categorise the principal changes in governance (covering the control, structure and process of systems) in the industrial epoch, which are seen as the successive predominance of markets, (corporate) hierarchies and then networks. These correspond to the successive importance of labour processes, capital processes and information processes. There appears to be a link with the three ‘industrial revolutions’ that have arisen at century-long intervals since the later 18th century, though the causal interrelationships remain uncertain and by no means necessary. Network alignment is suggested as a means for bringing about the coevolution of governance and technology in development processes. A number of mechanisms for matching technological with organisational change are suggested by the governance literature, although no one theory of governance appears able to explain the observed historical phenomena.