Technology, culture and public policy

Abstract

There exists convincing evidence to suggest that radical innovations arrive in swarms or clusters. While a great deal has been written about the economic causes of innovation clustering, relatively little has been written about their fundamental societal causes. In this article we discuss a number of characteristics of technological development and attempt to assess the degree to which they each are culturally bound. We then present two “models” of the process of technological change and discuss the place of cultural factors in them. In the final section we discuss the public policy implications of the “cultural boundedness” of innovation with particular reference to the innovation diffusion process. We conclude that public policy has an important role in certain areas in stimulating the public acceptance of new technology, and that an especially potent tool in this respect is the public information programme.