Introduction

Abstract

The world has changed, and at an absurd pace. While life evolved relatively slowly until the beginning of the 19th century, the last decades have witnessed tremendous advances. In less than three hundred years, people saw the plough or the stagecoach being replaced by hybrid cars, high-speed trains or airplanes, and carrier pigeons or the Morse code by the Internet, smartphones or iPads. Based on Schumpeter’s idea of innovation cycles (1939, p. 212ss.), Gordon (2012, pp. 1–2) broke down this unique episode of growth in human history into three successive and cumulative industrial revolutions (IR): IR#1 (1750–1830) defined by the invention of steam engines, cotton spinning and railroads; IR#2 (1870–1900) marked by the invention of electricity, internal combustion engines and running water with indoor plumbing; and IR#3 (initiated in the 1960s-ongoing) characterized by the advent of computers and the Internet. The accumulated stock of knowledge and the various groundbreaking scientific discoveries generated over an especially short period of time not only altered the way people travel and communicate but also directly impacted the organization of society and how people work and interact.