The systems approach to Technological change, written by Jane Summerton
summary and comments by Sadi Evren SEKER

Main idea: Change in systems of technology (LTS, Large technical systems) (reconfiguration or reshaping)

• user (effected agent, from changes) light home, fly, use it for own purposes
• citizens (both effected and effecting agents) common sense democratic insights
• researchers (monitors systems, sometimes effects system) analayse, system failure

Technology and Systems: Technologies can not be viewed as isolated artifacts
When you buy a car, you are member of complex road, energy supply, spareparts distribution, maintenance, registration, insurance, police ... (SEAMLESS WEBS OF TECHNOLOGY)

Systemic – systems regulated  (not necessarily connected)

Hughes approach in LTS by Networks of Power:
system builders (inventors, engineers, managers...) not everybody, they are not socially constructed,
reverse salients (obstacles, economic, organizational, political), components fallen behind the development, (in computer architecture, speed is always limited by something) (if not solved, problem becomes radical, and problem yields another competing system)
component (when a component moves or changes, rest of the system is effected) (mini-technological systems)
artifacts (physical or nonphysical) anything invented or developed by system builders. Artifacts are socially constructed.

Evoluation of LTS
invention -> development -> innovation -> TRANSFER -> growth -> competition and consolidation

example to transfer (transformer) (Hungary not world)

two sytem approaches : actor network and scot (both considers, actors as explicit units)

Types of reconfiguration
BLACKBOX – transfer of blackbox to different environment or time

territorial expansion, systems merge (especially similar systems) (telecommunication system of east & west germany)
border crossing (transportation system+ energy system + communication system, bridges)
reorganizing (competition, european electricty grids are opened to competition)

[Globalism, MNC (Multi National Companies), Developing and Developed Countries]

Cultural Embeddedness and the Potential for Change
Increased environmental awareness
traditional effects
incompatibility between a system and its sociocultural milieu
transfer of technology from industrialized to third world countries

Crossing boundaries of Systems
interlinkages of heterogenous parts of systems create a new system
Cultural dependent (first order large technical systems)
independent of cultural and institutional identitites (second order LTS) (ogan tranplant)
(railroads, integrated with telephone and telgraph systems in WWI)